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Do you know how much camber you have now?  Typically, camber isn't what accelerates tire wear (although it can), it's your toe settings.

More camber is probably going to help you on the autocross course.

I don't know your suspension specifically, but in generally when you lower/raise your car it effects the toe settings, which lead to tire wear.... so if you are going to be lowering/raising the car you are going to want to get an alignment done to stop accelerated tire wear.  Usually, that isn't very cost effective, so people tend to find a happy medium between the two and just leave it alone.
 

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Jason Frank
Bridgestone / datatoys.com / Redshift Motorsports STS Civic Si

TeamUndercoatRacing.com

I forget what the camber was at, its been awhile since an alignment (going in for another in a few weeks), but the toe in and the rest of the alignment was in spec, its the camber that caused this kind of tire wear. There is enough negative camber that it is visible to the naked eye.

My rear is out of spec, i knocked the rear beam out of true somehow and I have massive amounts of toe in on my driver's side rear tire and it is "chunking" on the inside edge just like a typical out of toe tire will wear. The front tires aren't chunking at all. 

I drive a 100hp Scion XA in STS without a ton of modifications.

Intake, header(not really necessary), exhaust, springs, wheels, tires.  That's about it.

The car can hang, as illustrated by my autocross school teacher winning STS in my car.

It's the driver that needs working on.

I am FAR from an experienced or polished driver, but I have beat cars with twice the power.

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"Most amateur drivers go too fast in slow corners and too slow in fast
corners"
Emerson Fittipaldi

my car has a 115hp, i'm not worried about the power all though I do want a few cheap mods to get a few more hp out of it.

 The chassis mods I am doing are necessary though. The brakes are unsafe and the understeer is horrendous. Your xA is most likely a lot better handler than my car out of the box (My car doesn't even have independent rear suspension) and then the car weighs 3800 lb or something.  Not the best car to start with. Even the best driver would have a hard time winning STS with my car, it desperately needs a few chassis tweaks to be brought up to par. I know there are cars that can beat cars with twice their power stock for stock, this car is not one of them.
 

eurotrashed:

my car has a 115hp, i'm not worried about the power all though I do want a few cheap mods to get a few more hp out of it.

 The chassis mods I am doing are necessary though. The brakes are unsafe and the understeer is horrendous. Your xA is most likely a lot better handler than my car out of the box (My car doesn't even have independent rear suspension) and then the car weighs 3800 lb or something.  Not the best car to start with. Even the best driver would have a hard time winning STS with my car, it desperately needs a few chassis tweaks to be brought up to par. I know there are cars that can beat cars with twice their power stock for stock, this car is not one of them.
 

3800lbs? You better check the calibration on whatever scales you used. The mkV jettas are around 3200lbs and weigh more than the mkIV. Unless you have 800lbs of stereo equipment.

You may want to check the front end out, one thing the mk4 cars have been known for is the lack of any camber in the front at all (-0° to -0.5° max) When the front lower control arms are lowered past level, camber starts going less negative. Worn bushings causing tire wear?

 

Clayton

yeah, you are right, 3800 is a lot, its right around 3000lb.

 

Everyone I know with a lowered MKIV has negative camber as an issue. The guy I bought my wheels of was lowered 1.5" I think and his tires were worn on the inside, my friend who slammed his car has negative camber, and my car at a 2" drop, control arms just above level and I have negative camber. Negative camber seems to be a pretty common problem. And I am sure both the shops I go to would find any worn bushing that I haven't replaced yet. 

I never heard of negative camber being a problem, especially on a mac strut suspension.    I run a little over 2 degrees negative on a daily basis on my Civic with zero toe front and rear and have pretty even tire wear.  

 Exactly how much negative camber does your car have in the front?
 

I already said like 10 times, I don't have a number for the camber but it is visible to the naked eye.  I know camber isn't an issue on MKIII and older VWs, but VW gave MKIVs no way of adjustment. I've always heard, and seen, negative camber on lowered cars, but most cars have at least some adjustment.

I'm sure that if my negative camber was something not normal, that the VW specialty shop that aligned it and said he can't adjust the camber, its just how MKIVs are, or the other VW specialty shop that looked at to make sure everything was correct and that the rumor I had of camber adjustment was false, would have had something to say

eurotrashed:

I've always heard, and seen, negative camber on lowered cars, but most cars have at least some adjustment.

Some cars have adjustment from the factory, some don't.  For instance, most of the Hondas you see on the road do NOT have camber adjustment from the factory...

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Jason Frank
Bridgestone / datatoys.com / Redshift Motorsports STS Civic Si

TeamUndercoatRacing.com

get some grippier brake pads. solo isn't like a track day where you're likely to boil your fluid. my mkIV Jetta was a little spongy from day 1, ABS is your friend, you'll stop eventually.

oh and i say bah to your "too much neg. camber". of course it's visible to the naked eye. there are many autocross cars that look broken, but it works!

If your inside edge wear is severe on the very edge, it's probably toe. True enough, it may be toe exaggerated by neg. camber. Camber wear would be steady, but increasing across the whole tire, more visible from the middle out. Even if it's in spec, if you don't rotate often enough, many VWs get funky wear patterns.

Consensus is that extendable ball joints are not legal in ST classes.

BTW, if you're concerned about understeer, you may be suprised how much you can adjust just from tweaking your tire pressures (stagger front/rear). Start about ten pounds higher than you run on the street, and adjust down. Don't try this on the street, please.

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Carrie
'89 STS2 CRX Si (Thanks Ian!)
'88 STS2 CRX Si (it's heeeeee---eeere!)
'93 ES MR2 in L1 on occaision (Thanks Jerry!)

Mugenlude:

eurotrashed:

I've always heard, and seen, negative camber on lowered cars, but most cars have at least some adjustment.

Some cars have adjustment from the factory, some don't.  For instance, most of the Hondas you see on the road do NOT have camber adjustment from the factory...

 

Yeah, I've seen some riced out Hondas with some pretty nasty negative camber 

scarrie:

get some grippier brake pads. solo isn't like a track day where you're likely to boil your fluid. my mkIV Jetta was a little spongy from day 1, ABS is your friend, you'll stop eventually.

oh and i say bah to your "too much neg. camber". of course it's visible to the naked eye. there are many autocross cars that look broken, but it works!

If your inside edge wear is severe on the very edge, it's probably toe. True enough, it may be toe exaggerated by neg. camber. Camber wear would be steady, but increasing across the whole tire, more visible from the middle out. Even if it's in spec, if you don't rotate often enough, many VWs get funky wear patterns.

Consensus is that extendable ball joints are not legal in ST classes.

BTW, if you're concerned about understeer, you may be suprised how much you can adjust just from tweaking your tire pressures (stagger front/rear). Start about ten pounds higher than you run on the street, and adjust down. Don't try this on the street, please.

 I've already said I am getting brake pads. For the first few corners my car's brakes are firm, then they get A LOT spongy. Regardless if I can boil brake fluid at autocross or not, I want to address this issue since it isn't that much money so I have a sense of safety on the track or on the street.

My tire wear up front was typical negative camber wear, and is the wear I see on any lowered MKIV VW. The rest of the the alignment was in spec, including toe. And since my tech said I had a lot of negative camber and you can see the negative camber, its pretty obvious is camber related wear esp since the rest of the alignment was in check. I know what wear from toe looks like, I can show you my rear tires.

I know some tweaks I can do such as tire pressure to lose some understeer. I ran 8mm spacers on my front wheels with nothing out back for a week or so and I was surprised at how much understeer I lost. But then I pushed a little harder and I just got the understeer at a higher speed. But with swaybars being not that expensive and known to be the best way to correct understeer on a MKIV, I think I will make that investment. Everyone says its the most noticeable suspension mod they have done to their car.