Dealing with camber

[crazymikey]

SPC and Ingalls make adjustable ball joint kits. "How hard" is relative to your ability.
I personally don't care for the idea of pressing out the stock ball joints. I fear it weakens the control arm. I much prefer the anchor bolt style.

The anchor bolt ones take about 5 minutes to install. Super easy. Don't even have to take the wheel off the car.

[deevergote]

Exactly. The same result, with an easier installation and no risk.
You just have to buy quality. I made the mistake of buying a $50 Dropzone kit off of ebay, and I nearly crashed when it broke. 2 or 3 other members here had the exact same experience (fortunately, none of us crashed!)

[blazenem]

exactly. The Same Result, With An Easier Installation And No Risk.
You Just Have To Buy Quality. I Made The Mistake Of Buying A $50 Dropzone Kit Off Of Ebay, And I Nearly Crashed When It Broke. 2 Or 3 Other Members Here Had The Exact Same Experience (fortunately, None Of Us Crashed!)

Which Kits Do You Suggest Deev?

[Amiss]

Exactly. The same result, with an easier installation and no risk.
You just have to buy quality. I made the mistake of buying a $50 Dropzone kit off of ebay, and I nearly crashed when it broke. 2 or 3 other members here had the exact same experience (fortunately, none of us crashed!)

where do the anchor kits go? I need to replace all my ball joints anyways cause the rubbers getting worn out

[crazymikey]

The anchor kits replace the factory hardware that bolts your UCA to the strut tower.

Once it's bolted in place, you slide the anchor kit to the desired camber and tighten it up. Very very simple kits.

[mndude07]

You spend most of your time driving relatively straight...
Also, when you turn, the corner that is being compressed "cambers out" (negative camber), while the corner that is unloaded does the opposite. Essentially, you'll STILL be on the inner edges of the tires.

Some negative camber can indeed help with cornering, but it will be at the expense of some straight-line stability. It's really only desirable in a race setting.

Actually Deev, you are forgetting that the chassis rolls around a point in space. Many suspensions gain negative camber during compression and also will change toe. However, the loaded tire will try to roll in the same direction as the chassis, and become more upright (assuming camber was negative in ride).

While riding straight you have / \
You turn right you have | \
but the angled wheel has more of an angle than when going straight.

This affect is greater than the affect of the suspension compressing.

You are right though, you are going straight 95% of the time with a street car, and as a result camber and/or toe will affect tire wear.

You can tell a lot about your static camber and what it should be from your driving habits by "reading" your tires much like you read a spark plug. If you have excessive wear on the outside fronts, for example, you probably have too little static camber for how you drive and the outside front is going into the positive camber region during a turn. You aren't going to see this though unless you are driving at or near the limit on the streets...which is both fun and dangerous at the same time.

[Raf99]

I got some 1 degree adjustable upper balljoints, which was enough to get the tires back to straight

Glad you got it sorted out man

[Ghetto_CB7]

SPC VS Ingalls

I have had both of these ball joint kits, and I can tell you that IMO the SPC kit is significantly higher quality than the ingalls.

I have no experience with the anchor bolt kits though.

Also it should be pointed out that toe is the best way possible to kill a tire.

It is also nice to note that just a lot of locations do alignments poorly, I had an alignment 6 months ago, changed nothing on the car but started to notice some inner tire wear, went back to have it checked and my toe was way off up front.

I recommend getting an alignment driving around for a week or two, then going back and making up some reason to have it checked. Just make sure they don't charge you, but they should check it for free since they just did it a few weeks back.