I’ve had the KYB/Eibach Supra N/A setup installed since July. I put on a new set of Kuhmo’s the same month. One just blew!! It’s been only 5 months! And worse yet, the other 3 are exactly the same and could go at anytime. The problem is ALL the tires are wearing heavily on the inside. I know it’s the camber and the shop wants to do an alignment. Would an alignment really fix the problem? To get less than ½ year out of a set of tires is ridiculous!! I’m thinking of switching my supra TT brakes back and putting the stock wheels on for the winter. But I still need the problem corrected. What do you guys recommend? Will I probably need to purchase an aftermarket camber kit? Man, it’s been a rough week with the SC…

 

Damn bro, you were suppose to get an alignment right after you did anything to your suspension and/or change your rims. There are no aftermarket camber kit out there for our car, since they come factory adjustable. Yes, you should go get an alignment asap. They can try to get it aligned as much to factory specs as they can, but from my experience, it still butterflies.

 

Good info, I’m not driving it until I get it aligned. I was thinking about that today and I thought Sears aligned it when they put on the 18’s. They’re one of the few places that could do that size where I use to live. But when I checked with a different Sears today, they said their machine couldn’t align them because of the outer lip. I can’t find my bill but I remember the total was around $104. I’m thinking I was charged for an alignemnt I never received!!

Anyway, I’ll definitely get it aligned asap.

 

and not at Sears, you dont want someone who sells weedwackers and refrigerators aligning your car.take it to a good reputable alignment shop that deals with your specific set up and is familiar with your mods.Getting a good alignment is the key to getting longer life out of your tires.

 

EVO,

Sorry to hear that. That does suck. First off, you need 4 new tires. Then you need to find a good alignment shop that can do it right. You DO NOT want some joker at Sears attaching those silly computer driven things onto your nice rims and marking them up. Not to mention that the computer does NOT do a great job of re-aligning a lowered car. Lastly, the bad news, your car will ALWAYS wear out tires 20-30% faster than normal with the Supra N/A springs. The car is .3" too low and the factory adjustments will not go that far.

I would suggest, as a crappy fix, to get new tires, get it aligned as best as possible, rotate as normal, but every other time you rotate the tires front to rear, have them dismount and swap them side to side, this will get you a few 1000 more miles. Again, not the correct way to drive your car, but it will work.

MW

 

The car is .3" too low and the factory adjustments will not go that far.


PCMW - What is the lowest you can go in an SC4 and still be within the factory adjust. range?

Thanks,

Brad

 

1"

 

hiyabrad,

What SC4oo said, 1". The 1" drop from the Eibach SC Kit is about the maximum that people here have safely dropped their cars. Anytime you here of cut coils, Supra kits, or coilovers set to past 1", you here about horrible tire issues. With any lowering of the factory suspension, the problem lies in precious degrees of camber. For every tenth of an inch of drop, you need corresponding adjustment in camber degrees. Unfortunately the car came with enough camber adjustment to compensate ONLY for minor changes in the cars alignment over YEARS of sag or wear on the geometry. Therefore, by giving us an entire 1" of adjustment Lexus probably figured that any MORE and you need to fix the car.

With that said, you could always spend the extra $500+ and have your lower arms modified, the mounting slots extended etc to get the extra .5" but all in all....not really worth it.

MW

 

Camber eccentric screws, they make compatible ones for our car from what I'm told. I'll check in about those the next time I get my alignment warranty checked. I don't seem to have any wear issues on my tires and my car is dropped like 1.5-inches. The mechanic at the shop was really putting in some work to get my camber within specs though.

 

Rich,

The use of those camber eccentric bolts is a great way of helping the issue. What they do is basically shift the starting point of adjustment to more centered area. However, do you know if they used the metal plates for reference? Also, did they re-drill the lower arm mounting holes to accomodate the new bolts? Most of the time they shift the entire assembly over to make it all work. I will have to check your suspension bolts out the next time we get together for a meet.

Here is a XR4TI install that is similar to our lower arms. http://www.key-ideas.com/DGCamberInst2.htm

MW

 

The eccentric bolts are stock,on the lower arms anyways.
I'd have to say it's your bushings,or a funky alignment that caused the premature tire wear.