I was researching alignment, specifically the UK settings people have raved about, with the search engine and came back with this thread:

http://forums.s2ki.com/forums/showthread.p...light=alignment

If you scroll down you'll see the bulletin that states the settings listed as "stock" are for 1999-2001 MY ONLY and then provides the recommended UK settings for these years.

Is there a different set of UK specs to be used on the 02-03's?

Is the factory alignment on the 02-03 models already the UK specs?

I have a new set of rears slated to arrive from Jim tomorrow and I really need to have them put on ASAP, as there is cord showing on one, but I'm having some difficulty ascertaining if there are better specs to be used on the 02-03's than the one's I have in the Helm's manual.

Does anyone have any suggestions or recommendations from successes they've had?

 

Street car? then follow the UK specs

Track car or race car with race tires? basically max camber which is going to be around ~2.1 degrees on the front, ~2.4 in the back; zero toe all around (maybe just smidge in on the rear if want less oversteer)

Autocross car? do a search for the posts from the Solo National guys

Jeremy Lucas
Team Honda Research

 

This may not be the best audience for a street driven car. Also, "Proper Alignment" settings is a pretty vague term, especially considering that a given alignment will only be optimum on a single track. If you are aiming for even tire wear on a street driven car, anything the track guys are running would not satisfy your requirements. With 2 degrees of front camber, my last brand new set of S02's corded on the inner fronts in less than 3000miles without any wear on the outside. Conversely, my track tires (RA1's) wear too quickly on the outside edge. I am convinced that our car needs more negative front camber, but it would destroy a set of tires on a street driven car in no time. Do you see the dicotomy here?

Premature inner wear is usually from either toe-out or too much negative camber. I'd start there. Try posting in the "under the hood" forum for an appropriate response. If you are ONLY tracking your car and the inner rears are wearing too quickly, you may be experiencing excessive wheel spin or actually have some toe-out dialed there.

 

Thanks for the feedback and I hear what you're saying Jerry.

Yes this would be street driven only. I'm satisfied with the way the car handles now, in stock form, but thought that the UK specs provided a little bit more aggressive behavior which I wasn't opposed to. Surprisingly enough this is the first time I've replaced the rears and I'm at 17,000 miles now. Perhaps I should just stick with the current settings.

 

I've been using the UK specs for almost a year for a street/track car. I'd like more camber for the track, but it's a good compromise if you daily drive it. On mine, the rears wear pretty evenly, but the inner fronts do wear excessively on the street, even with only -1.0 degree of camber.

 

Same here...

 

But both of you guys are driving 00/01s. Honda606's questions was about using UK specs on an 02/03. The UK alignment bulleting specified 00/01's ONLY.

 

I use the UK specs on my car and it drives fine. A good compromise for street and autocross. As stated above, I see the S02s wearing on the inside, especially now that I am on Hoosiers at the autocross. Still, I have 9,000 miles on the car and I had the alignment changed to UK within the first 2,000 miles and everything has been within reason. If I get 12,000 miles from my S02s, which appears likely, I'll be happy.

 

There appears to be such small differences in the suspension components that the alignment remains the same. Even the '04 seems to want the same setup or close to it. I think this is a non-issue - right now, this one size does fit all...