I am in the process of installing a coilover kit. Which of course includes installing a camber kit.

The question is how do you measure camber at home to see where you are, and get it close before you bring it in for the alignment?

I know how I did it, and I will try to reply later with details and pictures. But someone else out there must have ways they have measured camber at home.

K

Don't bother. On the hunter machines I used, camber is a preset number that would be different from zero camber. Unless you want absolute zero and you can preload the suspension and measure the relation of the top of the wheel to the centerline of the spindle. Camber really doesn't kill tires. Just try to get toe close and take it for a 4 wheel alignment.

I guess I was under the impression that when I lowered the car with the coilover kit, the camber would be way off. Hence the need for the camber kit. The question is how do you know how much camber to compensate for?

All the other postings I have read on this forum seem to suggest that unless the camber is reset back to a nominal range, there would be excessive wear on the inside of the tires.

When I used my current technique and went around the car it appears that each tire has a negative 2.5 to 3.0 degree camber, with the stock setup.

This would seem to make sense have enough negative camber to give a little better control and handling, but not enough to cause excessive wear on the tires.

I was assuming I should try to set the camber back as close to this as possible after installing the lowering kit (coilovers), and before bringing it to the shop for the professional alignment.

K

Camber is a good way to move the contact patch to a place where you would need it. Incorrect toe settings will start to scrub a tire. I will not lower a car (even a friends) unless I know that it will go get aligned immediately. That short trip really can't hurt tires. If you can get it close, it still isn't worth driving around on it. It's all about toe mostly. Toe could be a few degrees off to where it makes the car wander or drift and only feels like road crown. Most of the time those few degrees can take alot of life out of a tire prematurely.

step 1 lower car (springs and shocks or coilover setup like teins)
step 2 add front and rear camber kits (typically if you are dropping more than 1.5" you will need a camber kit...under that some are fine some need camber correction)
step 3 in the next few days take car in for alignment

Its typically the increased "TOE" due to the lowering and not the camber that kills your tires. But that being said too much negative camber is not what you want either.

So depending on how far you drop you might need camber kits, you might not, you might only need the rear,etc.. But you need to have the TOE fixed/alignment performed right after lowering..