Jasoneo5

iTrader: (4)

Hey all,

The camber on my 99 LS400 is a bit off and my tire wear on the rear is very very bad. I am running stock shocks on H&R lowering springs right now, but I will be putting the bilstein shocks on in a week or so. Is there any type of camber kit that I can get for my rear suspension? Would swapping my worn out shock with the bilstein ones fix the problem?

Oh, and does anybody have and suggestions on anything else that I should do to the car while the suspension is being replaced (suspension-wise).

Thanks as always,

-Jason

skperformance

iTrader: (6)

Do you have rims?
Did you get an alignment after changing the suspension before?

RA40

iTrader: (6)

What kinda of alignment numbers are you getting? Have your trusted shop check the caster bar bushings, lower and upper ball joints, tie rod and anything else suspension related. When you climbed that curb...what did they fix back there?

My alignment numbers:
Front Caster +7.85, Camber -1.50, Toe +1/16"
Rear Camber -1.25, Toe +1/12

At 11k, tire wear across is virtually even...when I measured it last week, the inside was showing .003" more wear than the outer. YMMV Mine will be getting new ball joints and tie rods next week.

persian451

i dont believe there are camber kits for the LS.. when you lower.. expect to be off on the camber by -1.0 to -1.5 degrees. It's normal for a car which is lowered. However, the front camber can be adjusted.. Im not sure about the 99 rear alignment, I know on the 1st gen LS there is no camber adjustment in the rear

Stefwilli

With rims and a drop your going to have negative camber. Quick solution is to flip the tires around. Take the tire from the left rim and put it on the right rim and the right tire to the left rim. This will cause the outside of the tire to now be on the inside where the negative camber is. You should do this for the front and rear. Make any sense?

persian451

why would you do that Stefan? That would cause a radial pull from your tires when you are driving. It's one way to save the life of your tires but a simple rotation, balance, and alignment, every 5k miles should do the trick

Stefwilli

No you don't understand, you don't switch the rim and tire, just the tire. All directional tires can either go on the left or right side of the car. You just have to follow the direction on the side wall. For an example if your tire is on the left side of the car the outside of that tire reads left but the inside of that tire reads right. So by putting the left tire on the right rim, you now follow the direction on the tire and the part that reads right is now on the outside. Get it now, you flip the tire to the other side of the car and now the worn part of the tire is on the outside and the unworn part is on the inside yet it's still going in the right dirrection.

BTW you can't rotate Staggard wheels because the tires is the back are bigger than the tires in the front.

RA40

iTrader: (6)

I've done as Stefan has suggested many times to get a few more miles on directional tires. The one cavet is if the tires are safe enough to do so. Obviosuly if it's past the tread wear indicator, it is not a wise choice. If Jason's tire wear is uneven for all tires, there is probably some serious alignment issues that need to be fixed first.

skperformance

iTrader: (6)

I am pretty sure there is front and rear camber adjust my 98 LS as i saw 2 marked rings on the lower control arms bolts that looked offset .
I really hope it is as my LS has crazy camber when my rims are on but barely noticeable with the stock 16's

sha4000

iTrader: (1)

just checked alldata and there is def. rear cam bolt adjustment

persian451

I know exactly what your are talking about.. and no... I wasn't talking about reversing the directions of your tires.. Thanks for the tire rotation 101 lesson btw..
but I'm confident that tires with bad alignment and negative camber wear will cause a noticable radial pull if you dismount and remount the tires from the left to right. However this all depends on the amount of threadwear on the tire.. Given.. you'll save more miles on your tires.. but tire wear is tire wear..

Stefwilli

Of course your going to have faster tire wear with negative camber, but the reason to rotate the tires is not to stop the tire wear. It's to stop wearing on only one part of the tire. With a lowered car and 20x10" wheels your going to have negative camber and I'm almost sure you won't beable to adjust the camber too much with out causing rubbing. The only solution to uneven tire wear is to flip them, or flare your fenders.
Persian451 believe me I know what I'm saying because my car is dropped with 20x10s and no rub because of negative camber.

RA40

iTrader: (6)

Stefan-

Kinda curious, what the rear camber is on yours?

Now and then I ponder using the lower snap ring setting yet I'm getting even tread wear. I think if the rear get's beyond -1.50 it won't be nice. Have any pics of how your rear wheel sits in the fender well?

mtaalib3

i have a 98 LS and i have been fortunate enough to be in the car bay when my alignment is being done. i have dropped my car about 1.5 inches. i have 20 x 9.5 in the front and 20 x 10.5 in the rear. what i have experienced is that when you drop your car you do have negative camber. unfortunately, the settings in the alignment computer of most shops only have factory settings for a stock set up. so obviously the numbers for a stock set up can't and don't apply to someone who has larger than 16 inch wheels or who's vehicle sits lower than the factory height. i believe the larger the deviation from the factory set up the less accurate the adjustments will be. i have verified this with uneven treadwear on my tires that should have been even (based on the alignment settings).

i can only assume this is consistent with all cars across the board. the larger the wheels and the lower your car sits, the harder it will be to align and get even treadwear. fortunately, i have been able to get my rear tires to wear almost evenly. but i am still having problems with the fronts. some experimentation may be necessary to find the setting that will work best for your set up. now the above information is only making reference to the camber adjustments. my toe/tow is fine. my car does not pull to one side either. my steering wheel is also perfectly centered. to this day, i have not seen any camber adjustment kits for the 98-00 LS.

Stefwilli

Yeah sure, I just went to snap a couple of pics:
Rear




Couple of the front



Front negative camber isn't too bad at all and the rear isn't that bad. I love the look for it though.