How to run Negative Camber

[CrispMofo]

A newbish question:
Besides buying adjustable camber strut mounts for the FRONTS, is there another way to get some NEGATIVE camber for the FRONTS and REARS?

I'm rolling my fenders and want my 17X7.5's +15 in the front to look sweet.

[andrave]

hahahaha

dude you dont want negative camber, it eats up your tires and gives you a smaller contact patch....
maybe a little bit for autocrossing and such, but all your gotta do is lower your car on the stock suspension pieces to get that.

[CrispMofo]

oh! that's it. kewl.

[s0ldats]

Originally posted by andrave
hahahaha

dude you dont want negative camber, it eats up your tires and gives you a smaller contact patch....
maybe a little bit for autocrossing and such, but all your gotta do is lower your car on the stock suspension pieces to get that.

[UCC0279]

Well.

The front suspension of 240SXs is strut type, you
are not going to gain negative camber by lowering your
car. No upper control arms or such....... wouldn't gain - camber.

As for reat suspension, yes you will get lots of camber with lowering
however your toe setting will be screwed. Alignment would be a must.

BTW, negative camber eats up your tires but not much as long as your toes are ZERO. It's the toes eats up tires not really camber.
Depends on type of your driving style, negative camber in general is your friend especially on track.

later

[andrave]

its camber that eats up my tires in the back...


I don't think camber is good for a street car, and you don't need it enough for an autocrosser to make the compromise in tire life worth it.

[Tricky1980]

i just autoX this season.. well 4 events and all other daily driving with my car lowered with 2deg - camber in the rear, and i have no extra tire wear at all.. they are the same all the way around.. i bought new rims and tires at the same time so they started out all equal... maybe im doing something different and don't know about it.. but i want a little camber in teh front for next season... i need to adjust that!
JaY

[knightrider]

to answer the original question, to adjust camber without getting camber plates, u can get camber bolts, they are lopsided bolts that give you adjustment, but the downside is you only get about .75 degrees iirc. and they can move when driven hard, like Grants car at DD7, after every run, he would have to readjust them. i would spend the money and just get camber plates.

[andrave]

camber bolts move all the time, like stated above, I think its better to spring for true camber plates in the front and adjustable arms in the rear... they aren't cheap though.

[s0ldats]

at first i thought you guys were joking around but i guess you're serious. camber won't put excessive wear on your tires. it is toe that will. just get adjustable arms and some camber plates for the front. after you adjust the camber get an alignment. even if your toe is at 0 right now it will cahnge when you change the degree of camber.

[andrave]

I think you are mistaken. camber causes wear on tires.
come to my house. check it out.

[Dousan_PG]

Originally posted by andrave
I think you are mistaken. camber causes wear on tires.
come to my house. check it out.

really? come out to my house

look at -3.5 degrees w/ 0 toe for 4 months (daily at 300miles per week) and 5+ track events and see MINIMAL wear.

or a friends w/ -2.5 daily driven as well with track events with next to no abnormal wear


sounds like your car has other issues.

[Var]

Originally posted by UCC0279
Well.

The front suspension of 240SXs is strut type, you
are not going to gain negative camber by lowering your
car. No upper control arms or such....... wouldn't gain - camber.

As for reat suspension, yes you will get lots of camber with lowering
however your toe setting will be screwed. Alignment would be a must.

BTW, negative camber eats up your tires but not much as long as your toes are ZERO. It's the toes eats up tires not really camber.
Depends on type of your driving style, negative camber in general is your friend especially on track.

later

240's do gain negative camber in the front when you lower your car. It's not as much as the rear but it's still enough to be noticed. No offense but dont post unless you know what you are talking about.

As far as tire wear. Negative camber doesnt increase tire wear by much, but it still does. And you will notice the inside of you tire wears out quicker because the outside isnt touching. But it's not so drastic. I think the toe change chews up and shreds your tires because the tires are both trying to move in opposite directions ...this is just my own theory not for sure.

[Dousan_PG]

westboroughpimp: you da man!

wear is minimal with camber
toe kills...FAST
unless its a small amount (like a few MM)

yes lowering car in front DOES camber in. crap i wish i had the specs when i lowered my car from stock to about 3 inches..

hmm the most we could fix in front was -1.5 camber (WITH camber plates on tein HEs)

oh but lowering front doesnt add camber...

[Steeles]

Originally posted by dousan36
really? come out to my house

look at -3.5 degrees w/ 0 toe for 4 months (daily at 300miles per week) and 5+ track events and see MINIMAL wear.

or a friends w/ -2.5 daily driven as well with track events with next to no abnormal wear


sounds like your car has other issues.

aaron you need to take pictures of your camber and tire wear for every time this subject comes up

[Dousan_PG]

yes sir

this is the only one i got

4 months
FM901s
5 or so track events..i forget
front left here

most wear is from track..drifting events

i dont have 'street' wheels/tires yet
i will shortly. then the 'test' can really begin.

[s0ldats]

Originally posted by dousan36
yes sir

this is the only one i got

4 months
FM901s
5 or so track events..i forget
front left here

most wear is from track..drifting events

i dont have 'street' wheels/tires yet
i will shortly. then the 'test' can really begin.

word my brotha

[s0ldats]

Originally posted by andrave
I think you are mistaken. camber causes wear on tires.
come to my house. check it out.

come to my house and i'll show you tires used with camber + bad toe. in 1 month my new 2 front tires are bald on the inside. (due to a fight with a curb)

[Heartwork]

Originally posted by andrave
hahahaha

dude you dont want negative camber, it eats up your tires and gives you a smaller contact patch....
maybe a little bit for autocrossing and such, but all your gotta do is lower your car on the stock suspension pieces to get that.

WRONG
in high performance driving camber change (positive gain) will occur when the suspension travels bump/rebound...when this happens, you will partially lose contact patch unless travel is limited with 0 or postive camber settings....that is why negative camber to a degree is desired

[andrave]

if your wheels don't fit and you need enough camber to tuck them in, thats not what you want.
and in drag racing you don't want negative camber.
even modern day drifters don't use much negative camber.

and negative camber angles the tire, and that wears out the inside edge faster.

[docrice]

let me add my $0.02 on the matter. we're agreed that changing the toe of the car causes excessive & unever tread wear. now, just looking at the physics/mechanics of changing camber on a car, it seems that it WOULD have an effect on tire wear as well, agreed? I'm not going to go into technicality or compare its magnitude to that of toe, but we'll just say that if we had no experience with this matter that it seems logical that negative camber would cause interior tread wear. Why is it that some of you "seem" (since we can't confirm anyone's results here) to have considerable wear that is supposedly (trying to be a little nonspecific since there's no certainty here) due to camber while other have next to nil? Consider the tires themselves. doesnt it make sense that the amount of flex in a tire could somewhat negate the camber? So, assuming i'm on the right track here, tread patterns and stiffness, rubber composition, sidewall height and flex would all play a role in determining how much camber really affects tread wear. Is it logical to say that a car with super lo-pro tires and a strong sidewall and tread would have its tires wear significantly more (due to camber, not in general) than a car with taller, softer tires? just a thought to consider before this turns into a pissing match....

let me know if i'm wrong, i'm open to suggestion...but what tire/wheel sizes are you guys running and what kind of wear are you getting....?

[Heartwork]

Originally posted by andrave
if your wheels don't fit and you need enough camber to tuck them in, thats not what you want.
and in drag racing you don't want negative camber.
even modern day drifters don't use much negative camber.

and negative camber angles the tire, and that wears out the inside edge faster.

partially true that most peopel will only do negative camber to fit wide wheels and they just leave their car at taht and dont drive hard or whatever, but negative camber is still desired whether you wanted to fit wide wheels and automaticaly have to negative camber or not and drive hard/track/auto-x/drift....

again, please read my above post, where camber gain will occur with bound/rebound... i.e. if u had 0 or positive camber and u corner thru a corner the suspension will bound and rebound, the tires will gain positive camber over the initial 0/+ camber settings, actually losing more contact patch, as opposed to negative camber....if u set negative camber to the front tires and go thru the same corner, you will gain positive camber, but will not reach that point where it will be more than 0 degrees camber, thus still maintaining the most contact patch....

[Var]

Originally posted by docrice
just a thought to consider before this turns into a pissing match....

let me know if i'm wrong, i'm open to suggestion...but what tire/wheel sizes are you guys running and what kind of wear are you getting....?

no one here is having a pissing match. It's pretty civilized compared to some other threads. but..the only thing that would SIGNIFICANTLY alter your tire wear is the rubber compound. A soft tire that would normally wear out quick would also show more noticable signs of camber wear..but again it's not that bad. Look at dousan's tire. It's probably been raped and it still looks cool(semi-cool? maybe not that cool). And it's a soft compound tire. I got stock 15 inch wheels with Falken Azenis. I have Tein front pillow ball mounts which are set on maximum negative camber. Before i got these pillow ball mounts i had ~ 1 degree negative. If i hadnt done so much turning i suppose the inside would have worn out quicker on my last set of tires.. But my tires only lasted 6000 miles anyways. I wanted to milk every last bit out of them before i got a new set. If you are worried about tire wear dont buy good tires. buy some h-rated all seasons they will last you 40K or more. Or maybe you can think of it this way. Get your fenders rolled and pulled and they money you spend on that will eventually(in 10 years or so) pay for itself cause you got another 500 miles out of your tires with 0 camber.

[cdlong]

Originally posted by dousan36
yes sir

this is the only one i got

4 months
FM901s
5 or so track events..i forget
front left here

most wear is from track..drifting events

i dont have 'street' wheels/tires yet
i will shortly. then the 'test' can really begin.

is it just me or does that wear look uneven. the tread looks a lot thinner on the right side (inside?) and the tread blocks look rounded over. after approximately 5000 miles i would call that excessive (i realize they've been beat on, i'm talking about side to side). even if all the wear is from drifting, the fronts shouldn't be affected that much.

[Var]

I think the direction of the tire is confusing you. or maybe it's confusing me. Dousan the wear on the right isnt from camber right? it's from turning.

Alright here's another way you can look at it. Maybe the wear is uneven but it's not cause the inside is wearing out sooo much faster. It's cause the outside isnt wearing at all.

[Dousan_PG]

its from drifting
front tires sliding with the car and turning/countering/etc

that's why i said

4 months AND 5 track events

that's alot of drifting events!

[cdlong]

drifting or not, wouldn't the tires still wear evenly with less negative camber? the right side is the inside, correct? with that much camber is the outside edge of the tire even touching the ground? whatever, drifting throws this whole discussion off. but i wouldn't call that wear minimal or even. i'd be interested to see your "street" setup when you get some miles on it.

[Dousan_PG]

street setup/
um..dont have one. car's always ready for track
2 - 3 times a month next year and this past year was averaging about 2 times a month.

car's always ready for fun!

[docrice]

ya know, dousan, you could probably make some good money selling those tires on ebay to ricers....only take a picture of the outside tread, say they were run lightly on a race vehicle for only a few months....guarentee some idiot would buy them...

[cdlong]

Originally posted by dousan36
i dont have 'street' wheels/tires yet
i will shortly. then the 'test' can really begin.

Originally posted by dousan36
street setup/
um..dont have one. car's always ready for track.

this is what i was refering to. and you managed to not answer any of my questions