Camber Bolt questions

kimokalihi · Post by **kimokalihi** » Fri Oct 03, 2008 11:56 pm

I just bought a set of 05 sti springs for my 91 ss. They will hopefully be here next week. I also bought 2 camber kits(4 bolts in all)from a member on NASIOC. $55 shipped. They're made by Specialty Products Company and the part number is 81260. It says it'll fit subarus with 14mm strut bolts. Changes camber from -1.75 to +1.75 degrees.

1. Will I need these with the sti springs and GR2 struts I bought?
2. Is that more, less or the same amount of adjustment as the stock ones on the front?
3. Do I replace the ones in the front or leave them?
4. Do I just put them in the top strut holes or do I put them in the bottom or both? I'm new at this...

I was planning on putting the suspension in and these camber bolts and then taking the car to an alignment shop and having them do the alignment. That is after I put the motor in.

Here's a link to the camber bolts on the SPC site:

http://www.spcperformance.com/PROD_DIR/ ... ER_DYN.cfm

kimokalihi · Post by **kimokalihi** » Tue Oct 07, 2008 2:29 am

3 days and over 20 views and nobody has any answers?

I just went out in my garage and put the car up on jack stands to put in new axles up front. Got one in and ran out of time. Have to go to work. Those axles nuts were on there so good! I had to use a breaker bar with a 4 foot pipe to break them loose and I almost couldn't get them loose!

I compared the camber bolts I bought with the stock ones and they're way too small. They're 14 mm and the ones on the car are 19 mm. Damnit. What subarus use a 14mm strut/hub bolts? Stupid specialty products lied!

93forestpearl · Post by **93forestpearl** » Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:57 am

I used the Eibach camber bolts in the rear, even though they are not the right size. It allowed me to have a decent alignment.

One thing, make sure you put antiseize on the camber bolts, as they like to rust fast, and are a serious bitch to get out. As in, axy-acetaline torch to get them out.

kimokalihi · Post by **kimokalihi** » Tue Oct 07, 2008 1:44 pm

So can I leave the stock ones in the front and be good or do those need to be replaced with better ones?

kimokalihi · Post by **kimokalihi** » Tue Oct 07, 2008 1:44 pm

Can I just go to the junkyard and pull out a pair of camber bolts from the front struts and put them in the back struts of my car?

93forestpearl · Post by **93forestpearl** » Tue Oct 07, 2008 2:14 pm

I haven't tried that yet. You should give it a shit and let me know

kimokalihi · Post by **kimokalihi** » Tue Oct 07, 2008 2:56 pm

It seems like it would work and it would be dirt cheap VS paying $50-60 for a pair of bolts from some place that's gonna rip you off just because they can. Those SPC camber bolts were terrible quality compared to the stock camber bolts off the front struts of my 91 ss.

I bet I can go pick up some of those bolts at the local junkyard 20 mins from my house for about $2. If they work, I'll go there and buy a ton of them and sell them on here.

skid542 · Post by **skid542** » Tue Oct 07, 2008 4:08 pm

The camber bolts from the front will not work in the back. They just won't fit, they will be way to large unless you want to start machining on the hub itself.

I am currently running Oakos 14mm bolts in the rear, in the top hole. It has given me a decent alignment. I would like something a little more aggressive but a set in the lower holes would take care of that. Do NOT put a set of aftermarket bolts in the top hole up front. This will likely fail after time and a failure there would be very detrimental to you and your car.

93forestpearl · Post by **93forestpearl** » Tue Oct 07, 2008 4:38 pm

^ Those look identical to the Eibach's, of which I've seen for under $30.

Either way, grease or anti-seize the hell out of them if your car sees any salt. Otherwise you will hate your life when you try to take them out.

IronMonkeyL255 · Post by **IronMonkeyL255** » Tue Oct 07, 2008 4:52 pm

I replaced the lower bolts up front and left the upper factory camber bolts.

Out back, I replaced the uppers, and have the bolt to replace the lowers as well, but didn't (was running into tire to strut interference before I maxed out just the uppers anyway.).

kimokalihi · Post by **kimokalihi** » Wed Oct 08, 2008 12:49 am

Hmm. I need to go out and look at my rear bolts and see how big they are compared to those 14mm camber bolts. Do you go by the bolt head socket size or the size of the actual shaft of the bolt?

93forestpearl · Post by **93forestpearl** » Wed Oct 08, 2008 6:30 am

The camber bolts are a bit small for the hole size, but they work. I was able to align my car with them. -1.5° and -1.0° rear.

kimokalihi · Post by **kimokalihi** » Wed Oct 08, 2008 12:40 pm

I checked them out in the rear and they fit snug. REALLY snug. It's a tighter fit than the stock bolts. Should I put them in the top and bottom of the rear or just the top? I have an extra set since they're too small for the front.

Got my new axles in too! Yay.

Imprezive · Post by **Imprezive** » Thu Oct 16, 2008 6:57 am

Hey dan what are you running toe and caster wise? Or are you just rocking stock upper mounts?

kimokalihi · Post by **kimokalihi** » Sat Oct 25, 2008 2:17 pm

Alright, I got the passenger side rear strut in tonight after work. It's an 05 sti strut and spring I believe. From the set Impresive sold me.

I put the Specialty Products 14mm camber bolt in the top strut hole. I haven't tightened it down because I was going to wait until I get some anti sieze to do it. But it's in and the strut mount nuts are on tight and the bottom stock strut bolt is torqued down.

I took a few pictures because I have a question. Since the 14mm camber bolt is so much smaller than the 19mm stock bolt, will the strut be able to move in and out since the camber bolt is not large enough in diameter to fill the strut bolt hole completely? It seems to me that once I push that bolt all the way in and that large offset part of the bolt is inside the hub assembly bracket, turning the bolt won't do any good since the rest of the bolt isn't big enough to fill the strut bolt hole all the way.

Am I confused here or is this bolt not going to do me any good?

Also do I need that washer with the tab that sticks out? It has two tabs. One tab sticks out and it's lage and the other tab sticks in and I think it's supposed to go into a hole in the strut or into the strut bolt hole if it was larger. I'm not sure about this though and there's no hole for the smaller tab to go in so I didn't put it on. The directions mentioned something about struts with elongated holes you're supposed to use that washer with the tabs but the sti strut holes are just regular round holes just big enough for the bolt.

93forestpearl · Post by **93forestpearl** » Sat Oct 25, 2008 5:07 pm

There is room for the tab once you put the bolt all the way in. If you don't use that washer, you may need another flat washer to keep the eccentric part of the bolt where it is supposed to be.

kimokalihi · Post by **kimokalihi** » Sun Oct 26, 2008 12:52 am

Oh! That make sense I feel stupid now. I'll try that whenever I get more time to work on it. Thanks.

kimokalihi · Post by **kimokalihi** » Sun Oct 26, 2008 2:04 pm

I got off work a little early tonight to come home and finally get some work done on the sti suspension. I now have both rears in and the front passenger side in. It's taken me around 3 hours mainly due to the fact that I have been working at night and therefore cannot use the air tools. Which leaves me with no other choice but to manually tighten and untighten the spring compressors over and over again which is tedious work.

I removed the camber bolts in the rear and put that tabbed washer in. I tried putting it straight up so the camber would be at the stock angle but the tab was hitting the part of the strut that flares out so I installed the tab straight down instead. This is only temporary until I can get it to a good alignment shop (any suggestions on a shop in the olympia/tacoma area?) and have them set the camber.

Warning! Do not use a closed end ratcheting wrench to tighten the bolt on the spring compressor! I did this and once it was tightened all the way I realized I couldn't get the wrench off the bolt head anymore. It was hitting the spring coil below it. I almost thought I would have to destroy my nice ratcheting wrench that I use frequently! I loosened the other spring compressor and scooted it over closer to the one that had the box end wrench stuck on it. I tightened it up all the way and then used a hammer to pound it sideways and then loosened the other one and scooted it over to make more room and tightened it again. Then I pounded on the other one again and had just enough room to squeeze the box end off. But I had to torque on it pretty good to get it off. That was a close one!

kimokalihi · Post by **kimokalihi** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 2:13 am

STI suspension is in! Yay! So far it looks like the perfect height in the rear. The front is a little high because of a major lack of engine in the engine bay. But now that it's on wheels again I can roll it out, take some stuff out of the garage to clear up space and move the engine inside and get to work!

jamal · Post by **jamal** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 5:18 am

the tab is there to take up the space between the shaft of the bolt and the hole in the strut flange.

The tab needs to face either in or out. This allows you to adjust the bolt from 0 to the max setting of the bolt. Without it the bolt can float around in the strut flange.

You should really only install these bolts in the maxed out position. So for example if they're in the top hole in the rear, the tab in the washer holds the bolt toward the inside edge of the hole in the strut, and then the cam on the bolt pushes the top of the knuckle inward. In the lower hole the case is the opposite.

If you do not have the bolts in the maxed out position they are much more likely to slip. If the tab is installed wrong, such as in your case, they are also more likely to slip. The way you have that bolt installed it is not doing much of anything.

If you wanted to install the stock front adjuster bolts in another hole you would want to do this:

http://bbs.legacycentral.org/viewtopic.php?t=28821

kimokalihi · Post by **kimokalihi** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 1:11 pm

So should I readjust them so they're maxed out on negative camber then? It was just temporary til I got the motor in and took it to an aligmnet shop.

jamal · Post by **jamal** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 7:30 am

yes. Unless there's a bunch of cross camber I wouldn't even bother having them adjusted. Just get the toe straightened.

kimokalihi · Post by **kimokalihi** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 12:33 pm

I'm not sure what cross camber is but how do I know if it has cross camber?

Do I need to drill out the struts and use stock camber bolts in both holes? I have 05 sti struts and springs on a 91 ss.

jamal · Post by **jamal** » Wed Oct 29, 2008 6:36 am

How do you have the front struts bolted on there? the lower mounting is different?

Cross camber is the difference between the left and right side. You want things and equal as possible.

You don't need to drill anything out. That's just an explanation of what is required to use a stock bolt in another hole. It is not something I would recommend. When I swapped the suspension onto my new car I just slotted out the other side and shoved things over before I tightened things. There's a crapload of camber but I need to change my steering rack before I can get the car aligned.

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Camber Bolt questions

Camber Bolt questions