Review/Howto: S2 Camber kits

[shiroitenshi]

Well, finally got them running for quite a while, (a while, as in maybe 2 weeks?) Suspension felt a harder (even though they're not set to hard (nor are they settable). Steering felt very tight too.. I can turn with just a little twitch of the steering. I guess it's thank to those hard polyurethane bushes. They seem to be a lot harder than the ones you can find on the market.

I bought these a while back because running EK9 knuckles on my EG was causing -1.5 camber on the front, causing me to use up the inside thread of the tires. It's pretty okay if you use the normal threaded tires (you can flip them), but for people who use tires that has outside/inside markings (threads are different for outer part and inner part), it can get pretty annoying, esp. when you run tires down to the minimum wear limit pretty quickly. It's not very apparent, but when you daily drive long distances, tire wear is a big expense.

I opted for the S2 Pro Plus series, that came with the polyurethane bushes, along with the S2 rears.

The ball joint adjuster plate/whatever it's called mount: Torque for the allen bolts are 7lbs-ft only, so don't torque them too much because you'd be leaving a dent on those arms.

You need to torque the bolts for the arm mounts while the the car is loaded (i.e the knuckles not dangling) so you don't preload the bushes and cause premature wear.

Grease, skunk2 doesn't really say much, apart from "Don't use petroleum based grease" which is like 99% of the grease on the Malaysian market. I ended up using polyurethane grease from SuperPro. Skunk2 says you can run them without grease, but squeaks is something you have to live with.. So I opted to using the superpro grease, so far, it's pretty quiet.. no discernible squeaks I can notice... . the superpro grease is quite resistant to water (I actually tested this, lol) though it's not really a heat-resistant type, so it can't really stand high temps.

The rears.. Actually I just left them at the same length with the original R ones.

Not really a required part, because you can use spacers in liew of these, but I just like the beefiness of them, compared to the stock units.

I'm running these tires now

They're Bridgestone RE001-Adrenaline 205/50/15. I changed all four to these. (thanks to rising prices of semis, I can't daily drive on semi's no more.), I almost went for Toyo R888s, but the coming rainy season made me think otherwise. Semis are crap in the rain.

Grip wise, of course not as good as my previous RT-215 semi-slicks, and the tire sidewall isn't that hard either, but can't really complain for the price. I think they're quite okay. They're meant for 15x7 wheels I think, but I fitted them on 15x6.5 CTR wheels. The rears 'just' clears the fenders, so no scraping.

they're a bit smaller than 195/55/15, reducing total diameter of wheel+tires from 595.5mm to 586mm

I could clear the metal grille ramp when I went up with 195/55/15, but my resonator/bullet got stuck on them when I reversed out of the alignment shop.. lol.. that 4.75mm of reduced car height difference totally got me off guard..

I couldn't get a printout of the alignment settings yet, so if I get around to it, I'll post it.

Of note, I got near 50,000kms out of my Azenis RT-215 semi slicks per pair. so wearing both out is equivalent to about 100,000kms. I'll update the tyre thread later.

 

[darkemperor]

i purposely did not lower down mine just because i hate the camber setting will be out n cant adjust it back to at least 0.xx' ..really like those adj camber kit like urs...mine sharing how much one set n available for my sv4? i think s2 shud have...

 

[fobs]

i was looking for a set for my cf4 also,...

my front is 0.xx degrees
rear i think abt 1.5 degrees

front heavier, so the wearing of the tyres are more prominent,...
8-10k kms i go rotate tyres,... having the inside/outside FK ze512 215/45/17

without the camber kit, nothing can be done with the front,...
but the rear can DIY i think shorten the arm,... got one tyre shop mechanic specialize in this, but at the moment he's MIA,...

anyway, i heard from my kawan pomen,... civic kakis puchase the camber kits to add more kangkang to their tyres, not to straighten,... hmmmmm,...

so i KIV the whole thing

 

[shiroitenshi]

I don't quite remember the price, I bought them during the time s2 didn't revise their pricing yet... the s2 arms range from 700-1.1K (I think), depending on the series. They have the normal one/tuner series, then they have the pro series. Mine is the pro series plus, so it came with the poly bushes.. the tuner/pro are just arm only, the bushes are not included. The range of adjustment is less on the tuner series, if I'm not wrong, and they have different mount plate system for tuner than the pro series.

As for the civic kakis, yes, the rears actually 'kangkang' quite a bit. The more, the less drag (less tire contact), and since the rears are quite lightweight, uneven wear is a non issue, since unlike the front which has the weight of the engine, the rears are not really supporting much weight.

The front, usually zero for maximum traction. I was running negative before, and although cornering was nice, the traction just wasn't that good, I couldn't launch at 4.5K without one tire losing traction completely.

The S2 also (I think) change the caster a bit, I can notice that when the tires are at full lock, I have negative camber on one side, and positive on the other. exactly how much, I'm not sure, it seems to be a lot more than when I was using the stock arms.

but unless I can find my old alignment printout.. I'm not really sure.

 

[ccibai]

how is the adjustment like? is it difficult to adjust bcoz i think u need need to take off the wheels to do the adjustments. i hv seen some prob in the earlier design of s2 http://www.honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=762468 where the track the ball joint sitting in jus bend.

haha i m thinking to get 1 bcoz i m running on tein SS n it doesn't go low enuff to create enuf front cambers. but i will jus wait til i go back msia bcoz i dunno whether i m goin to get eg or ek back home

n from wat i know toe in/out affect tire wear more than camber do

 

[shiroitenshi]

yes, toe in/toe out does.. but camber makes a difference as well, but it takes a lot longer to see the difference.

which is why for people using tires that have similar inner/outer thread, it shouldn't be a problem, because they can flip the tires.

I think I mentioned this in my first post, though perhaps with less clarity.

It's pretty okay if you use the normal threaded tires (you can flip them), but for people who use tires that has outside/inside markings (threads are different for outer part and inner part), it can get pretty annoying, esp. when you run tires down to the minimum wear limit pretty quickly. It's not very apparent, but when you daily drive long distances, tire wear is a big expense.

Yes, it's a bit difficult to adjust the fronts, the rears are really easy, but for the front, you will need to remove the wheels.. I don't think there's alternatives for that, unless if it's not a honda. Jack both sides to the same height, adjust and align test. The only part that you cannot leave the knuckles dangling was during the time when you want to torque the bolt on the inside of the arms, where the bushes are.

As for adjustment, well.. it's a bit of a trial and error.. since I had like -1.5 negative.. I had to do it a couple of times to get zero.. There's no marking obviously, so doing it twice/thrice seems to get the expected results.

As for the H-T reported problems.. well.. they're notorious for breaking things because they didn't read the instruction, then they blame it on the manufacturer... That's why I was so particular about the allen bolts on the ball joint plate. If you overtighten, you will dent the steel rails (like when you press a can flat), and it will be thinner, and the next time you adjust them, you will expose the thin part, and given enough time, it will fail disasterously. The new design relocates the allen screws to below the camber adj. plate, and there's an extra top plate (al least for the pro series).

So far, it's all good. but that's just two weeks or so, and about 4-5K of mileage or so.. no problems yet, but I'm still gonna check them one month later.

But yeah, the boots for the balljoint isn't really nice, so I reused my old ones.. apparently they feel like real rubber, unlike s2's one that didn't feel like rubber.

There are better arms out there, but as usual.. $$$$ determines the grade.

Oh, and S2 didn't have the instruction sheets, which was really common in JDM parts, so I contacted their tech support for instructions, and I followed their instruction to the letter, except for the 'not use grease' part.

 

[ccibai]

now when u say u do 4-5k in 2 weeks or so time, then definitely camber will play an important factors, sorry for that hehe.

how do u find the re001? comparing it to lets say ad07 or re01r?

 

[shiroitenshi]

Not as good.. but what do you expect for tires that cost less than half of RE01R?

I'ved used RE01R, it's good, and even works in the rain, which many other semi's cannot do.

RT-215s also gets pretty hairy in the rain, and so does the Neova AD07 (though those tires were on another car, I didn't test on my car)

In the rain, these don't aquaplane as readily as semi's, and that's probably why I didn't go for Toyo R888s even though they're very close in terms of pricing.

One thing about semi's is that they don't get hot easily... I remember driving hard, and I can still touch the tires when I reach my destination (means I didn't push the tires to the limit, possibly?

The Re001s are regular tires.. I think the UTCQ is 200-ish, so wear rate should be better than semis. They get hotter easier than semis due to the compound though.

There were some rumours floating about that these tires are made in Thailand.. so as a current user.. I can honestly say that they're not made in Thailand, but made in Japan. Some people I know are shying away from this because they heard it was made in Thailand.

And reason was probably because they were available in a not so common size of 205/50/15, which was a problem when I was searching for semis. Catalogue says available, but when try order, no stock.. >_>. It should not sacrifice acceleration too much, because even though it's 205mm in width, the overall diameter is 9.5mm less (can you feel the final drive ratio difference? Possibly not, LOL!)

I'm not sure, but I think they even have 225's for 16 inchers, but at 50 series size only.. might be a little too big for hondas. Those would probably work great for street dragsters.

But overall, I'm impressed by the grip.. the sidewall is a bit softer though so.. don't expect pin sharp cornering like you get with semis.

 

[ccibai]

Thank you very much for the review, btw how much is roughly cost for each in kl?

In street it is quite difficult to get semi up to working temperature, i used to run re55s n now i m using a048. but if u wan semis tat grip ok when it is cold then dunlop d02g (on my frens car, n when grip way better than a048 when it is cold) is the way to go. (haven't tried d03g though)

So i guess the grip level for the price is very good then, bcoz i m thinking to get either ad07, re01r or re001 for next set of tyres n i think re001 is a clear winner in terms of performance n price.

 

[shiroitenshi]

yeah.. they're pretty good for the price.