camber/caster adjustment

[zracre]

Ok I just want to be sure...I purchased some ball joints for my 92 Integra. I thought they would be just stock replacements, but to my surprise, they are eccentric adjustable (Moog). There is no way to otherwise adjust camber on the Honda as the slotted upper a arm is not legal (I got shot down in fastrack )...are these legal or are we stuck with stock alignment specs? Thanks for the help/input in advance...

[Andy Bettencourt]

I can't find anywhere an allowance for adjustable ball joints.

[orlando_wrx]

2. On other forms of suspension, camber adjustment
may be achieved by the use of shims and/or eccentric
bushings.

8. No other relocation or reinforcement of any suspension
component or mounting point is permitted.

[zracre]

2. On other forms of suspension, camber adjustment
may be achieved by the use of shims and/or eccentric
bushings.

8. No other relocation or reinforcement of any suspension
component or mounting point is permitted.
[/b]

It seems right but i sent in a clarification to SCCA to get the wording right anyways...

[Andy Bettencourt]

Are you saying non OEM-equivilant ball joints are legal? Please expand on this thinking.

[zracre]

It is a moog "crash" part. It goes in the stock unmodified upper control arm ball joint mount. It is a stock equivalent replacement ball joint available at Napa/Autozone etc...

[Andy Bettencourt]

It is a moog "crash" part. It goes in the stock unmodified upper control arm ball joint mount. It is a stock equivalent replacement ball joint available at Napa/Autozone etc... [/b]

I would say legal if and only if the FSM calls it out as a 'crash part' by part number. It is NOT a stock equivilant part as it performs a different function...it may 'replace' the OEM ball joint but it performs a different function.

"manufacturer."</span></span>] </div>

[R2 Racing]

A topic like this came up back in October, I believe. As the rules are currently written, using a piece like that would be illegal. (See exerpts already quoted.) It really is a dumb rule, IMO. If the MacPherson strut cars can use camber plates, why can&#39;t an upper and lower A-arm car use an adjustable ball joint? Currently, the only way one of these cars can adjust camber is to use eccentric bushings in the anchor bolts of the upper arms. These pieces are more expensive than an adjustable ball joint, harder to install, and are harder to adjust. On top of that, as the upper arm moves up and down, the location of the bolt in the bushing moves around, effectively changing your camber settings as your suspension travels. Yes, I know that camber changes with suspension travel no matter how you look at it, but it doesn&#39;t need to due to suspension location points moving around in their bushings. Especially not if other suspension types have rules in place to be able to get around it.

Personally, I do not use any type of camber adjuster on my Integra because my only options are a major pain in the ass (the front) or they just aren&#39;t legally available at all (the rear). I tried using the eccentric bushings in the front but eventually removed them because they kept pissing me off.

Andy, I am interested to know why an adjustable ball joint for camber correction on an upper and lower A-arm suspension hasn&#39;t been considered for making legal. Is it because it hasn&#39;t previously been asked for or because there&#39;s something else I&#39;m missing? I know that some older rules were put in place in order to prevent people from gaining an advantage through items that were very expensive at the time. Then later as time went one and these parts became more readily available, the rule was changed to allow them (see threaded shock bodies). Is this the case here? I ask because honestly, an adjustable ball joint is cheaper, easier to adjust, easier to install, more consistent, and provides no additional performance advantage over an eccentric bushing. Any insight you could give would be appreciated.

[zracre]

and they are only $55~$75!! I looked into the eccentrics for the upper ca but it seems rediculous. I tried to get the slotted one (exact same thing as camber plate!) and got shot down...starting to feel like a club that hates Hondas....

[Andy Bettencourt]

Kev,

I don&#39;t know how to answer your question. I think the MPS guys would gladly trade their struts/lack of camber curve/camber plates for a limited adjustable double wishbone set-up. More allowances for DW stuff would make the division of haves and have-not&#39;s greater...at some point we all have to accept the strengths and weeknesses of the cars we have chosen instead of asking for modifications to the rules to make things easier - or better. It&#39;s creep at it&#39;s core.

As far as the rear of your car...

plate.[/i]</div>
</span></span>

starting to feel like a club that hates Hondas.... [/b]

HA! I think a wide variety of drivers of non-Mazda&#39;s and non-Honda&#39;s would laugh you outta the bar!!!

Seems as if the Miata&#39;s are in the same boat.

[zracre]

Hey I have no problem with the weight issues and performance adjustments...Im SURE you dont either Mr Miata...I like seeing other cars contending AND I race a Miata as well. If there is a way to INEXPENSIVELY do something that was not available before of course I am going to submit it. Fact is as long as we pick cars that are competitive to race It seems like we will be bashed for trying. My request is a simple cheap fix for camber that has no other benefit other than being cheap and easier to acquire/adjust...now isnt that in the spirit of the rules?? Or should we just force people to spend silly money to try and develop cars for our hobby?. I am not biased to Mazdas or any other cars I just think some things need to be done for the better of our class...it is not just hondas. I raced a 240Z for years. Loved it. I raced a Rabbit GTI for years. Loved it. I race a Mazda and a Honda now and I love them...why is it so damn hard to get simple stuff like this addressed? And why is it met with this kind of resistance. I am not trying to get a Jackson Racing supercharger on my 1.6 Miata because it cant keep up at Daytona...its a simple "crash" part...geez!

[lateapex911]

It would amount to a post classification rule change as well, which is a bad thing in general.

To illustrate that, lets make up a scenario.

Car A has a suspension like your Acura, and is very popular. As such offset ball joints are available.
Car B has the smae basic setup, but isn&#39;t as commonly found on the streets, but IS a very popular race car. But you can not, at any price, buy an offset ball joint.

As a rulemaker, would you allow Car A an advantage over Car B? Would that be fair? It would save the Car A guys some money, but the Car B guys are now in the position of having to go out and custom fabricate the same part at huge expense if they want to remain equal. Thats not making racing cheaper.


Finally, the rule quotes above equates the "eccentric bushing" allowance to this ball joint question. Is a ball joint a bushing?

(Ducking for cover, LOL)

[zracre]

I never claimed it was a bushing...so car A cant have its ball joint...why can car b have a camber plate allowance?? camber plates were not availabe from the factory...and you are relocating the suspension...if anything they are not within the spirit of the rules

[lateapex911]

I never claimed it was a bushing...so car A cant have its ball joint...why can car b have a camber plate allowance?? camber plates were not availabe from the factory...and you are relocating the suspension...if anything they are not within the spirit of the rules
[/b]

I wasn&#39;t there at the begining of IT time, but i will hazard a guess that slotted plates et al were allowed for McP strut cars because of the very unfavorable responses that design gives in racing conditions as an attempt to equalize them with other arguably superior types of designs.

It IS something that is considered when the car is initially classed, and making any changes now is a post classification change.

And the "Not availble from the factory" arguement is at best a red herring. Were Hoosier tires? Any bushing material? (Which is also used to relocate suspensions, and has been since the begining of IT time, even when using the "pure" reading of the word material to restrict materials to Delrin, etc). How about hollow sway bars? And well, there are tons of things the factory didn&#39;t put on the car that we run daily.

And any rejection of this request has NOTHING to do with hating Hondas.If that were the case, would Hondas hold so many records and win so many events? The ITAC looks at things from a big picture view, and isn&#39;t concerned with the manufacturer.

In short, every car has its plusses and minuses.....but I&#39;d have to say that the Integra is not short on plusses, and deals with it&#39;s minuses very well.

[Knestis]

Why can&#39;t I change the location of my bits to provide the kind of camber gain and roll center control offered by some other suspension designs? It&#39;s about creep and if I weren&#39;t deeply commited to not losing sleep over it, I&#39;d make an effort to explain why it&#39;s a bad thing.

For those in the audience who don&#39;t recognize creep when they see it or appreciate why it&#39;s a problem AND have an open mind on the subject, revisit some old strands hereabouts. For those who want to put their competitive advantage ahead of the bigger issue - and I don&#39;t blame you ONE little bit anymore - write your proposals, pitch your best case, and be careful what you wish for.

K

[R2 Racing]

Maybe I&#39;m missing the point here, but wouldn&#39;t the allowance for an adjustable upper ball joint not give the cars who can use them any additional performance advantage at all? Is there a current way for double A-arm suspension types to adjust camber? Yes, there is. This suggestion is just an easier and cheaper way of creating a condition (or adjustability) that is already perfectly legal. I don&#39;t understand how that would be rules creep at all. I can see the point that some cars may not have them available for their cars, but that doesn&#39;t mean that they will be absolutely, 100% guaranteed to be loosing anything on track to cars that do. In the end, both cars can still adjust camber, it&#39;s just a bigger pain in the ass to do in one of them. Now, I know that someone&#39;s going to complain about even that. "Why should one car be allowed to have easier camber adjustment than the other?" Well, because the MacPherson strut cars already do....and then we&#39;re back to the beginning of the argument.

I&#39;m also not going to buy the arguement that the MacPherson strut cars are hindered in suspension design verses a double A-arm car so they deserve something extra. BMW&#39;s seem to do just fine with them. Nissan SE-R/NX2000&#39;s, not so much. But I imagine I could also find a car classified with a double A-arm suspension that&#39;s not as fast as the Honda&#39;s too. You cannot honestly say that 100% of the time, one design is better than the other. Besides, if that were true, does that mean we&#39;re now in the business of giving certain models a little something extra because they have one type of a suspension verse another? Wow, talk about "rules creep".

Now the arguement of changing suspension locating points. Well, isn&#39;t that what an eccentric bushing does? If not, than how is it changing camber at all if that&#39;s the case? If it&#39;s not changing a suspension locating point, than camber would never change. Now if you don&#39;t buy that and answer it with a "Well, that&#39;s a bushing in a existing joint that fixes two suspension locating pieces together, so technically you&#39;re not moving the locating point." Ok, well than what does a ball joint do? Isn&#39;t it also a joint that fixes two suspension locating pieces together? So does that make it a bushing too?


Andy, I see what you highlighted for the rear of my car. I agree that this is the only way to adjust the camber in the rear. I already knew that it was legal for me to do some slotting, but I worried about weakening them. I didn&#39;t realize that I could then additionally reinforce them if I decided to slot though. I will have to look into the posibility of doing this. It&#39;ll be a minor pain to do the modification, but adjustability would be pretty easy. Thanks.

[orlando_wrx]

Maybe I&#39;m missing the point here, but wouldn&#39;t the allowance for an adjustable upper ball joint not give the cars who can use them any additional performance advantage at all? Is there a current way for double A-arm suspension types to adjust camber? Yes, there is. This suggestion is just an easier and cheaper way of creating a condition (or adjustability) that is already perfectly legal. I don&#39;t understand how that would be rules creep at all. I can see the point that some cars may not have them available for their cars, but that doesn&#39;t mean that they will be absolutely, 100% guaranteed to be loosing anything on track to cars that do. In the end, both cars can still adjust camber, it&#39;s just a bigger pain in the ass to do in one of them.... [/b]

In theory it would allow for a slight perfomance increase. By allowing camber adjustment up top you are tilting the suspnsion assembly inward to gain negative camber, by using adjustable ball joints (i&#39;m assuming at the bottom of the hub) you gain negative camber by pushing the wheel outward. If the ball joints were allowed, a tricky racer would the use both available methods and push his wheel outward as far as possible and then fine tune camber with the A-arm, effectively increasing track width without the added unsprung weight of a wheel spacer.

Just playing devils advocate though, cause I wouldn&#39;t bitch and complain if you used them. Hell, I&#39;m not even expecting to be even close to competitive for a long time, so my only real concern is getting myself faster, rather than slowing other people down. But the creep does have to be fended off...

[dickita15]

A statement and a question

First, Kevin, I believe that I have read here in the past that the type of suspension that a car has is considered in the process and one of the adders/subtractors in the classification process along with other small things such a tranny ratios, weight distribution and such. I think most people would agree that the typical Honda double A arm is better for racing that the average strut setup.

Second and this is a honest question. Can you achieve adequate camber settings with eccentric bushing or would you like more. In other words are the adjustable ball joints really just a cheap and easy way of doing the same thing or are there more gains to be made by allowing them

[R2 Racing]

Originally posted by dickita15+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dickita15)</div>

First, Kevin, I believe that I have read here in the past that the type of suspension that a car has is considered in the process and one of the adders/subtractors in the classification process along with other small things such a tranny ratios, weight distribution and such. I think most people would agree that the typical Honda double A arm is better for racing that the average strut setup.[/b]

I don&#39;t know if things like that are considered; Andy would know better. I also agree that the Honda double A-arms work quite well. But that was not my point. My point was that good examples and bad examples of handleing can be found in many different types of suspension designs. I just don&#39;t believe it&#39;s fair to categorize that one type will 100% of the time perform better than another design. That was my only point, that&#39;s all.

Originally posted by dickita15@
Second and this is a honest question. Can you achieve adequate camber settings with eccentric bushing or would you like more. In other words are the adjustable ball joints really just a cheap and easy way of doing the same thing or are there more gains to be made by allowing them

I don&#39;t believe so. I know for my Integra you can buy eccentric bushings that will range anywhere from -1.5 to +3.5 from factory settings. Lowering my car to its current height naturally gave the car about -2 in the front. So figure upon lowering, eccentric bushings should give up to -3.5 in the front. I&#39;d have a hard time believing that you&#39;d ever need that much, let alone more. As for the adjustable ball joints, I have no idea what their range is. They are not currently legal, so I never fealt the need to look into them.

<!--QuoteBegin-lateapex911
And the "Not availble from the factory" arguement is at best a red herring. Were Hoosier tires? Any bushing material? (Which is also used to relocate suspensions, and has been since the begining of IT time, even when using the "pure" reading of the word material to restrict materials to Delrin, etc). How about hollow sway bars? And well, there are tons of things the factory didn&#39;t put on the car that we run daily.

Agreed.

Originally posted by lateapex911+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(lateapex911)</div>

And any rejection of this request has NOTHING to do with hating Hondas. If that were the case, would Hondas hold so many records and win so many events? The ITAC looks at things from a big picture view, and isn&#39;t concerned with the manufacturer.[/b]

Again, agreed.

Originally posted by lateapex911@
In short, every car has its plusses and minuses.....but I&#39;d have to say that the Integra is not short on plusses, and deals with it&#39;s minuses very well.

I still think that we&#39;re missing the point in this respect. I don&#39;t understand why this conversation comes back to the competitiveness of the cars it may or may not affect. We&#39;re not talking about giving double A-arm cars anything that they do not already have. Can they already adjust camber? Yes. Is the range of the adjustment they can currently obtain more than enough? Well, I can only speak for the Integra and IMHO, yes, it is. So how is this dealing at all with pluses and minuses in respect to on track ability? Nothing additional is being asked for that will do anything for on track performance than is already available. All that is being asked for is an easier, cheaper way of doing it.

<!--QuoteBegin-lateapex911
Also, Evan, you maybe missed my point about car A AND car B having the same suspension design......but that car B can&#39;t get the el cheapo moog offset ball joint. If car A gets them legally, Car B now HAS to get them...or go backwards....which means custom fabbing.

I understood your point, but not the affect. As I said above, what is being asked for will not give any additional on track performance ability than what is already available to all doube A-arm cars. All that would happen is that the owner of "car B" will be standing over the shoulder of the owner of "car A" in the paddock as he adjusts camber and says "Damn, that looks easy." It&#39;s the same thing I currently say when I see MacPherson strut car owners adjusting their camber in the paddock, so you can&#39;t argue it as being a good or bad thing since the condition it would create already exists between other cars (which again, would have nothing to do with on track abilities!).

Originally posted by lateapex911+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(lateapex911)</div>

Not to mention the double camber amount now available when using both methods for car A...which, even if it&#39;s not needed, is a bad allowance.[/b]

As I said above, at least for the Integra, more than enough negative camber the car would ever need can already be achieved through eccentric bushings. It&#39;s not a matter of performance, but a matter of ease and cost.

<!--QuoteBegin-lateapex911
I think this is a classic unintended (bad) consequences situation and clearly rules creep.

Could you elaborate more on this, please? Maybe I am missing your points as I&#39;m just not seeing it. Thanks, Jake.

[joeg]

oops here they go again with bushings...