Steering problem after wheel and tyres change...[URGENT]

[endymiony2k]

Clubitr fellows, i have got my stock 16" wheels to the 17" wheels changed for my dc5r and running 225/45/R17 tyres last Saturday. Currently, my suspension mods to my car is the spoon progressive springs and I have no problems to accelerate straight when i have the stock wheels. Since the changed to the new tyres and wheels, i have this following problems:

1 / The car points to the left when the steering wheel is straight. have to turn the wheel right to maintain the car accelerates straight. the car drives to left when i let go of the steering wheel

2/ When brake applies until stop, the car seems to struggle stop in a straight line and the car veers to the right while brakes are being applied.

I have taken the car 2nd time to the tyre shop again and told them the problems above. They reduced my toes for each wheel in the 2nd time and i m still having problems with my car. They said my cambers are out, wider tyres and something else causing the problems, and there are not much they can help to address the problems.

I have spoken to Zach from techsports, he recommended me to get the front and the rear camber kits to correct my cambers and do the wheel alignment again. Would the camber kits really solve the problems that i have got or is it something else that i need to fix my problems? If yes, which camber kits did you get or recommended?

dc5 owners with 17" wheels, have you encountered any problems with your wheels and how did you overcome that problem?

I will post up my wheelalignment data sheet shortly.

Thank you for your help and reading this thread.

[kavehman]

Are all the tyres the same ?

I would think its the tyres at fault

[Zilli]

generally id recommend a wheel alignment, but youve already done that

the wider you go with your tyres, the more propensity they have to grab at uneven road surface, which accentuate torque steer...

cant think of any other reason

[freakygeek]

How much camber do you have with the current setup? Can you scan the alignment spec sheet and post it up?

How much change in the wheel offset was there when you changed to 17" wheels?

[endymiony2k]

The specs of the wheels are 17x7 +42.

Wheel alignment data sheet posted. anyone can any spot obvious errors or incorrect setting?

[freakygeek]

You have virtually no camber on the front right wheel, compared to the front left.

This will definitely cause a tracking issue - under brakes and acceleration as you described. The car should pull to the right under braking and acceleration with you current camber setup. There is 0'50" of difference in camber between front left and front right wheels, this is too much IMO.

[freakygeek]

It should be vastly better than it was before the alignment though... 8.4mm toe-in at the rear and 3mm toe-out at the front... would have been awful to drive!!

[endymiony2k]

yes it was very awful to drive. but do u know what would cause the problem of the car points to the left when the steering wheel is straight?

do u think the lowered spoon progressive spring causes the uneven camber settings? is there anyway i can correct the camber setting without the camber kit? are the toes of each of my tires "normal" now? Thanks a lot for ur help!

[A'PEXi]

i'd say the springs are one of the contributing factors... get coilovers with adjustable camber tops for easy adjustment

[endymiony2k]

i m happy with the stock suspension. i probably wont know whats good or bad about different suspension setting for now as coilovers would be a waste for me.

[endymiony2k]

Would the first problem i mentioned be independent of the second problem? now that i am thinking the car points to the left when my steering is slightly to the right may because of the alignment guy didnt position my steering wheel straight when he did the alignments. Can anyone comment on it?

[wuism]

u can get camber bolts, (whiteline, SPC? and ingalls) to increase your right camber to be about the same as your left.
Other than that, your settings dont look weird. I had -2.5 camber at the rear for both left and right when i lowered my car, but that didn't affect the steering. I'm currently using mfactory rear camber arms to correct my natural camber at the rear.

[BF]

You have virtually no camber on the front right wheel, compared to the front left.

This will definitely cause a tracking issue - under brakes and acceleration as you described. The car should pull to the right under braking and acceleration with you current camber setup. There is 0'50" of difference in camber between front left and front right wheels, this is too much IMO.

Exactly. I wonder why the two are so out compared with one another? Has the car been in an accident?

[freakygeek]

Would the first problem i mentioned be independent of the second problem? now that i am thinking the car points to the left when my steering is slightly to the right may because of the alignment guy didnt position my steering wheel straight when he did the alignments. Can anyone comment on it?

Yes, quite probably... The steering wheel should be fixed in the center position when alignment adjustments are being made. I don't know how alignment shops can screw this up, but they do, and often, it seems.

However... if they perfectly centered your steering wheel and set your toe correctly, the camber problem you have would require you to steer slightly to the left to drive in a straight line, due to the "pull" caused by having almost a degree of difference in camber on the front left / right wheels. They may have even been trying to compensate for this, although most alignment shops wouldn't care enough to think of doing such a thing, lol.

[endymiony2k]

My car has not been involved in a car accident before. But the road conditions that i drive daily are very poor (heaps of potholes and speed humps), this may be why my front cambers get damaged so badly.

I will take the car there the 3rd time later today to see if they can centered my steering wheel properly. From my memory when i did the wheel alignments last time with my stock wheels and tires, i had the misaligned steering problem too but last time got fix of the uncentered steering problem at the second time.

After reading clubrsx posts, i found that the pulling to the right is a common problem on lowered dc5. I have learnt that car pulls to the side with the positive camber. The problem of car pulls to the right is not really really bad and think pulling problem exists even before i changed the wheels (may be it was not as noticeable with stock wheels), I have decided to get a set of front and rear camber kits and to adjust the cambers.

Which camber kits are good to get? there is only whiteline is australia. should i order ingalls camber kits from US?