How to adjust your camber, negative or positive using camber bolts and a camber gauge. Usually, all four wheels will feature some negative camber, and a vehicle will tend to pull to the side that has the most positive camber.Camber may need to be adjusted if your usage scenario demands better cornering performance. It’s that simple, and this is why the way you lower is so important. So what happens if caster is out of alignment? Simply put, the toe-in condition coupled with positive caster and negative camber, will concentrate all of the tire wear on the very inside edge of the tires. Racecar’s are generally set with toe-out, they are willing to sacrifice straight line stability for a sharper turn-in to the corners. Yes Bob,this issue is concerning the 53 210.I always make sure I use the proper forum for my questions.But I would rather ask the question here,than on the VCCA forum,too many people just telling me to read the shop manual over there with no real useful info.Not always,but most of the time. Why, you probably wondering, lets look. There’s just not enough of them and depending on where you live you may not have access to a good one! Remember there is no absolute right numbers to align your truck to. The pin is threaded so it can move forward or aft to set caster. This alignment information is used for high performance set-ups. The pin also has an eccenctric section in the center that the clamp bolt bears against to set camber by rotating the pin parallel to the car centerline. The front suspension Z dimension is indicated in Trim Heights. The question I have is that the Haynes manual tells me that I'm supposed to have 1 degree (+/-) 1/2 degree of NEGATIVE caster. Look at it this way, you've used a grocery cart, notice the rear wheels and how they are mounted slightly behind the vertical steering axis, or a motorcycle front fork slopes back providing positive caster. Excessive camber in one side can indicate a worse problem like a bent axle tube. If both sides are equal but too negative the steering will feel light, the truck will wander and be difficult to keep driving straight. Use the above image to determine if you have positive or negative camber. Tighten the upper control arm and replace the tire. As a general rule, if you drive hard, a little negative camber (around -1/4 degrees) can actually improve handling. The single most often tech call is about alignment, the lucky ones have been told by the local alignment guy “can’t align this thing, it’s been lowered”, the folks whom aren’t so lucky have spent nearly a $100 or more getting a bad alignment. Camber is not good for tire wear, Camber doesn’t improve directional stability, Camber adversely effects braking and acceleration. We have covered most issues you can encounter when it comes to alignment of lowered trucks. Race cars use negative camber to have more contact with the track in extreme scenarios. Example: tan^-1(12.21/499) = 1.40 where 12.21mm = distance from tire to level, 499mm = 19.5" wheel + 4mm of tire, 1.40 = angle of tire/wheel. How much camber is too much? http://chevy.oldcarmanualproject.com/shop/1949_53/... YOU TELLM 'HELLS A COMIN" I'm bringin it with me. Small metal shims are needed to do any camber adjustment. You will need to loosen the lock nut on the ball joint before adjusting. When I recently replaced the struts on both ends, and the lower control arms on the front end, I noticed the camber in the front is now much less, almost unrecognizable. The set up can range from -1.5 degrees all the way up to -8 degrees of camber depending on the chassis stiffness, spring rates and type of motorsport. That is why we often see the sports car having a negative camber. I know my 2000 528i is designed for negative camber front and rear. This was because of tires actually changing shape and altering the physical dimensions of the front end. Glad you asked! Dynamic camber is the static camber plus or minus the "camber gain." Camber and Caster are adjusted on the same pivot pin on the outboard side of the upper control arm. The car is completely stock as well. For example caster tended to be negative because at highway speed the dynamic caster resulted in a positive value, with a corresponding near zero or very slight negative camber. Use camber adjusting shims or camber adjusting upper ball joints. Yes Bob,this issue is concerning the 53 210.I always make sure I use the proper forum for my questions.But I would rather ask the question here,than on the VCCA forum,too many people just telling me to read the shop manual over there with no real useful info.Not always,but most of the time. If your wheel toes outwards at -5 degrees, that’s negative Camber. We recommend about 2 degrees of negative camber for high speed cornering. Some of these vehicles are bagged (equipped with air suspension) so that when parked, the body can be brought down lower than would be possible if driven.In general, lowering a car creates additional negative camber because of the nature of suspension design and wheel movement. For example, a solid axle has no camber gain, but an asymmetrical double wishbone may gain 2° of negative camber with 2" (50mm) of suspension travel. When to Adjust Camber Camber problems usually show up as handling or tire wear problems. Camber is the angle of how perpendicular your wheel sits on the ground. It only takes 1° of negative camber on a street vehicle to create this disadvantage. Instead of paying anywhere from $59-$79 for an alignment, ide like to do it myself. Lower the car and check the camber. I added a 1/4" to each side and the left front was nearly neutral but the right still had a quite a bit of negative camber. It was also popular to set the toe negative, now days you can decide how you would like your toe based on your driving style. The rubber bushings allow enough flex for the tires to lean as a result of the toe adjustment. Negative caster being like … Negative camber on the front wheels of a rear wheel drive car is the most common set up to have. 5. There are 3 Big Things when it comes to alignments – Camber, Caster and Toe and as Jeff explains in the video below (scroll down) these adjustments can be accurately done by you, at home, in your garage, as many times as you want. Use the parking brakes to jack up your car. Follow the machine's direction to determine the alignment … It is important to note that some might argue that you can not have too much positive caster. Concerned bout the passenger side. A slight amount of negative camber can increase the amount of lateral grip a car has at the limit, though too much negative camber can result in uneven tire wear, reduced grip, and premature tire failure. You have to keep in mind that the suspension has rubber bushings. The reason that any driver might want this though is that it does have a noticeable impact on your car's handling abilities. Positive Camber: Negative Camber: Adjusting Camber? Check out the videos, DIY ALignment on a 2007 Silverado with a Calmax 4/6 kit. My left rear tire is straight up and down, maybe 1/4 negative camber and my rear passenger side is bout 3/4 inch negative camber. Negative camber does have some drawbacks on a car, like having premature wear & tear on the tire & providing less stability on straight roads. Hi all. Also the rear camber looks pretty extreme. The toe setting is typically used to help compensate for the suspension bushings compliance, and to enhance tire wear. After new bushings and setting the toe in there was still about 1 inch negative camber on both sides. Most often, camber measurement can be corrected with a camber bolt. If you can find a good alignment guy, it’s not a bad idea to perform regular alignment checks, especially if you have expensive wheels and tires and certainly if you notice your truck pulling to one side or if you hit a “pothole” etc. now that i have added my 3.25" lift my camber seems to be off. Usually, all four wheels will feature some negative camber, and a vehicle will tend to pull to the side that has the most positive camber. I'm one of those stubborn people that just won't let this go. Refer to Trim Height Inspection in Suspension General Diagnosis. Camber may need to be adjusted … If you want more negative camber, thread them out. Keep in mind this will most likely be negative camber. Thanks! I know my alignment is negative camber, if you want you can just put a negative in front of the tan^-1 if you want to. Just like high performance tuning of engines, you can do a high performance “tuning” of your suspension with alignment. Loosen the upper control arm where it meets the shock tower. Because of this most rear wheel drive vehicles use some positive toe-in, which allow the wheels to run parallel to each other at highway speeds. Increased toe-in will typically result in reduced oversteer, and improve high speed stability, but too much and you get an unresponsive, thick feeling. So how can I do it? … Part of the oni-camber look is lowering the car's body as much as possible. The control arms, top and bottom yellow parts, are usually adjusted by cam bolts or eccentric-washer bolts to effect camber and caster changes. If this pivot angle is leaning toward the back of the truck it is positive caster, and, of course, if the angle is rotated toward the front of the truck, it is negative caster. On rear wheel drive trucks they push the front end down the road causing the control arms to “deflect” rearward against their bushings. Especially when it comes to lowered trucks and suv’s. By adding negative camber, you’re optimizing your car for cornering grip, but you’re also losing straight-line grip. You will be adjusting the camber where the ball joint adjoins the upper A-arm. For street guys a little toe-in is probably the best choice. Threading the ball joint into the A-arm (toward the wheel) or retracting it (away from the wheel) moves the angle outward or inward, respectively. You may have spent more hard earned money on wheels and tires than your lowering kit, easy to do, so make dang sure your not wasting your dough after getting your “look”. I added another 1/2" to the right just to see if it straightened it up but it still had 3/4" difference from the top of the rim to the bottom. I'll replace everything in the front end if I have to but I … So moving the upper control arm in or out (relative to the frame) is how camber is controlled. Camber shims alter the spindle angle slightly to adjust camber. TOE IN/OUT Back in the old days, before radial tires and power steering, alignment values were a lot different. Stock suspensions may feature cam bolts, eccentric washer bolts, turn-buckle joints, or shim adjustments. Cutting, heating, or even using engineered lowering coil springs will cause negative camber every time and you need to have the ability to adjust the camber enough to offset this. Not telling you anything you don’t already know, but alignment is very important! Increased tire contact patch during cornering, increased turn in response, improved directional control, improved steering (“feel”), improved steering (“self-centering”). Toe can also be used to affect your trucks handling. When getting a wheel alignment, what should camber be set to for performance driving? Toe in and out i can adjust just fine, but is there an adjustment for Camber on these jeeps? I don't have a caster/camber adjustment tool and I've been trying to work up some sort of mach system to get some close readings. Measure and adjust the caster and the camber with the vehicle at curb height. Heck you can be the local alignment expert for your club! If you are the spirited driver from the camber tutorial, you could benefit from some of the handling properties of positive caster. The A arms are not equal and there is no way to adjust … Camber doesn’t improve turn-in, Positive caster does. 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