[acuraintegggeey]

wussup peoples i just recenently when to a wheel alinement place for my integ and the guy said the caster.. is little bit off and said it shouldent be a problem but.. but i wanna try to fix this little problem. anybody know anything about replacing it? or place to buy a catser for a 96 ls integ? hope u guys can help me thanx

 

[rufus2001]

caster is actually the angle the wheel sits at (either to the front like this: / -positive caster...or to the rear like this: \ - negative caster.) this angle is seen by looking at the side of the car. it supposedly has something to do with suspension response over bumps (?) but it takes extreme caster angles to do anything to your handling. just keep your eye on it. if it gets worse, get the caster of your wheels adjusted back to an angle of zero or | zero caster.

 

[silvertegGS]

rufus... isn't that called toe? I thought caster had to do with somethin else... i dunno... maybe i'm wrong.

 

[Louse76]

i thought that was camBer?

 

[NeoSilverTeg]

i thought that was camBer?

I thought so too...?

 

[Vu]

Toe is how your tires face from a top view. Either toward the inside(negative toe) or the outside(positive toe). This is how your tires would face from a top view with negative toe \ / This is positive / \.

 

[Vu]

Rufus is right about the caster also.

 

[nightegra]

And to add to that i do believe that caster also helps in directional control of the car. What i mean by having directional control is that positive caster aids the car in steering in a straight line. The more positive caster there is, the more the aid in helping the car steer in a straight line. You can look at this page for

moer info

 

[integraT1996]

i thought it was camber too.....

 

[pawt]

I can personally attest to bad caster affecting handling. The caster on my front-left wheel is -6 degrees off - my car pulls to the left if I let go of the wheel.

I had my control arm replaced, but that didn't fix it. The alignment guy said that I have no options to fix it besides buying an expensive kit. The way I see it, I'll just wait until I get a complete suspension setup; that's when I'll be able to really tell if something major is wrong =]

 

[NorCalGSR]

Let me set everything straight on this one. As one of the things I do for a living as a mechanic, I know a bit about alignments.
First off, there are 3 different measurments toe, camber, and caster. on a stock Honda, the only factory adjustment is toe. If you were looking straight down on your car from the air your toe would be the left to right angle of the tires like this / \ or this \ /. It will affect tire wear, pulling, and other things.

Camber, which usually doesn't come into effect until you lower your car, is the inward/outward tilt of your tires when viewed from the front. Negative camber will make your tires tilt inward when looked at from the front like this / \, and positive camber \ /.

Caster is the angle front to back that your wheel/shock is when viewed from the side of your car. It can be seen as / or \ type of an angle and can also be seen more easily by having more space to the front or the rear of your wheel/tire in the wheelwell. This is the least critical of the 3 adjustments. With our cars expecially, it rarely causes a pull unless extremely out, and also has no effect on tire wear.

Camber and Caster can both be adjusted with the addition of specialty parts that modify the control arms, ball joints, or other combinations.

So, to answer your original question, unless you're having a problem with the handling of your car such as a pull after having the alignment, you probably don't need to worry about the caster being out. Unless you have some extra money burning a hole in your pocket and it really bothers you that much

 

[integraboi8b]

caster and camber kinda sound like the same thing

 

[nightegra]

Camber is the inner and outward tilt(not a forward and backward tilt in relation to caster) of the upper part of the tire. Looking at the front of the car, not from the top...

-// \\= negative camber (causes inner tread wear etc.)
//\\


\\//= positive camber (causes outer tread wear etc
-\\ //


further more...
If you have uneven camber like:
A)
-//II
//II

The car would tend to steer to the left. The opposite is true with the camber like this:

B)
II \\
II\\

From what I also learned in class was that the reason why you would want negative camber would be that it would help the car's ability in cornering. Now lets say on a straight road the tires look like this:

C)//\\
-//\\

but let's say we're going to make a left turn, then the tire with higher turning radius would do this:

D)////
-////

making the car hit the corner with better traction because the traction surface on the tire would be on the ground as flat as it would if the car had a neutral camber setting. Please add if you have anymore info...