jargoone

I recently lowered my 97 SE with Maxspeeds and have KYB GR-2s on there. There is quite a bit of negative camber in the front, and a good deal of tire squeal around turns. I wanted to wait a couple of weeks for it to settle before I got an alignment.

I went to Firestone MasterCare and got some static from the guy I was talking to. He told me that whoever installed the springs should have compensated for the drop. He also said that they couldn't adjust the camber without removing struts and doing something to them. I had no idea what he was talking about.

I was under the impression that a drop of less than 2 inches didn't require anything other than an alignment to compensate for the drop. Is this guy full of ****? Is there something else I need to do, like camber bolts or plates?

TIA.

gtr_rider

iTrader: (50)

Wait for the car to settle giving it a couple days of driving time and bring it in for alignment.

Maxtank

iTrader: (8)

i'm on Tein S.Techs and have no campber problems, but my alignment needs done.

Do what Luke says and wait alittle

jargoone

Thanks for the reply, but that doesn't answer my question. I did let it settle, and want to get it aligned now. I need to know what exactly is involved in an alignment after lowering about 1.5" with Maxspeeds.

mzmtg

iTrader: (11)

What's involved is getting the car up on the rack and seeing where it stands. If your camber is within spec, and even side-to-side, then you dont need to mess with it. Just get the toe set.

If the camber is out of spec, you may need to get adjustable camber bolts installed.

The only way to know is to have the alignment checked. And dont let them give you any flak about aligning a lowered car. It may take alittle more work, but there's no reason it cannot be done correctly.

I30tMikeD

iTrader: (8)

Well, we don't have adjustable camber on our cars and what the guy was talking about was probably installing camber bolts inorder to compensate for the drop. He is correct in that in may be necessary for it to be exactly in spec. But as long as you are only a tad out of spec you won't see any abnormal tire wear or problems. I have been a tad out of spec on my front camber for 40K miles and gone through a set of tires without any problems.

Just tell the guy to align the vechicle the best he can. You can't expect every tech to know exactly how different cars will react with aftermarket suspension. He just wants to get the car within spec, and you can't blame him for that. Just assure them that you understand that without camber bolts the alingment won't be "perfect".

jt151

I got the adjustable camber bolts on mine even though the alignment guy said I didn't need it. He was able to align everything in spec.

The last guy I went to said that the Maxima's don't have an adjustable camber so he just adjusted my toe. After some searching on the forums, I found a post somewhere on here saying that they can loosen the Lower Strut Bolt to give a +/- 1 degree of camber adjustment. I took my car back to the shop and told the alignment guy. After some adjustments (free of charge ofr course), the car felt a lot smoother.

The wierd thing is, I think since I had the camber bolts installed, my car gets a little shakey when I hit speeds over 60mph. (I'm not positive if the shakes were already there or started after.) Anyone else having this problem?

I've done hundreds of dollars of front-end work try to get rid of the shakes.
New Tires, rims, road-force balance, alignment, tie-end rods, balljoints, rotors, brakes...it's really freakin' annoying.