I might be going for an aggressive fitment on wheels which may need my alignment to be 2-3 degrees of negative camber. I called Firestone and they said "if your car doesn't allow camber adjustment, you will need to purchase a kit." Do we need a kit or is it adjustable?

 

You need a kit. I have the SPC camber arms on the back. There aren’t many options for the front though.

 

SPC also makes adjustable ball joints for the front to adjust front camber.

 

Oh nice!

 

Since you say you "might be" going aggressive, I'll give the advice not to if "going aggressive" means you going so low and so wide that you need strong negative camber. You'll risk damaging your car, damaging your wheels, trips to tire shops, tire drama, draw bad attention to your car having to worry about theft/bros etc.

My friend has an IS350 that has an aggressive fitment and is also lowered (he bought it like that) and he sends me texts nearly every two weeks complaining about tire drama, multiple damaged/bent wheels, thieves, people trying to race him at lights etc. I think he had two bent wheels and three blowouts in the span of a month. He finally swapped it out for stock wheels and tires and its like a huge weight is lifted. And yes he had expensive quality wheels. If your car is low, it has to be stiff and when it's stiff you have little wheel travel which means you (and the car, and the tires) feel everything. You have to drive like a snail. In the end you end up becoming a slave to your car when it should be the other way around.

Just some words of advice since you say you are considering this. =)

 

Just reached out to my buddy who had the wheels installed on his car, he told me that there is no need for a kit and that the camber was adjusted without it?

He has an IS 350 though

 

The 3IS only has camber adjustment on the front IF you have an AWD...along with front and rear Toe adjusters.
The 3IS RWD only have front and rear Toe adjusters.

You're definitely not going to get 2-3 degrees of Camber out of the factory adjusters.

Added note: it doesn't matter what engine the IS has

 

I'd love to see his aliment spec sheet. He is wrong, unless he bought the car used and the previous owner installed adjustable arms/joints.

 

Lol...way to be blunt. But you are correct.
I was hoping my post prior to yours would suggest the same, just a little more softly lol

 

Yeah your buddy is definitely wrong. Like someone else said, either he has a kit on that he didn’t know he had or he just THINKS he has adjustability stock. Lol

 

AWD: Yes
RWD: No

As was said, engine doesn't matter.

If your friend's car had adjustable camber, it was AWD. If you have AWD, you have adjustable camber.

If your friend's car is RWD, he can't adjust his camber. If your car is RWD, you can't either.

Jeff