Project Honda Civic EJ: Skunk2 Suspension Upgrades Part 2

Project Honda Civic EJ: Skunk2 Suspension Upgrades Part 2 

By Annie Sam

Photos by Joe Lu

While Chuck Johnson goes to town on the internals of Project EJ Honda Civic, let's bring our attention back to the suspension modifications that we had lined up from Skunk2. You can find the first part of this insallment here where we talked about the Skunk2 Pro-C coilovers. For the weekend warrior, the following easy to install bolt on parts are a must-have. After all, bang for the buck, these upgrades not only improve suspension handling, they can potentially save you money by reducing abnormal tire wear depending on how you set the car up.

Let's start with the front of the car and move our way towards the rear. So why would someone even need a camber kit? Camber kits help correct the camber angle of the wheel when you lower your car.

In this diagram you can see that when your car is lowered, the knuckle is forced upwards, due to the shorter upper contol arm moving through a tighter arc than the lower arm, pulling the wheel inwards at the top. This is what gives you a lot of negative camber. Although some negative camber is good for handling as it helps keep the tires contact patch flat on the road under hard cornering, too much of it causes excess and uneven tire wear.

This is what hellaflush guys call hella cool, although in most ricer cases, it is hella unfunctional. With a front camber kit, the upper control arms allow for adjustment at the top of the knuckle, pushing it back out and reducing negative camber to a more functional angle. Theoretically, you could set your camber to 0 degrees for maximum tire wear, but that wouldn't be any fun for handling now, would it?

Originally I had installed an Ingalls adjustable front upper control arm to adjust my camber, and after hundreds of thousands of miles – the bushings and ball joints were shot. 

Out with the old… in with the new!  Note the heavily worn rubber bushings on the old camber arms after over 100,000 miles of hard use.

Although replacing my front camber kit with a new set of Ingalls arms was an option, after some research, we opted for the Skunk2 camber kit which has a better design. The Ingalls design is pretty standard when it comes to aftermarket camber kits for the Civic and don't get me wrong, they get the job done.