Camber setting for SPF

khall · #1 (**permalink**) 05-15-2003, 08:30 PM

I am going to dial in a little negative camber on my Superformance (BF Goodrich TAs) to inprove cornering in the next SoloII autocross. The SPF owner's manual suggests 0.5 to 0.75 degrees negative for "competition". Most of the autocross crowd suggests 1.5 to 2.5 degrees front and rear. Has anyone on the list experimented in this range?

agro1 · #2 (**permalink**) 05-16-2003, 08:22 AM

It'll be a [bigger] handfull at over 2.00 neg. camber. 1.5 is the most I'd go to.

BlueRooster · #3 (**permalink**) 05-16-2003, 12:06 PM

what do you mean by a bigger handful? As you set the car with a higher -camber? Does it turn slower at higher speeds?

agro1 · #4 (**permalink**) 05-16-2003, 01:22 PM

It would make an already twitchy car even more twitchy...It would turn in very well and corner - but straight line at speed over any sort of uneven surface would cause it to dart around...Basically you'd just have to stay on top of it. That much neg. camber is usually only done on track cars. It would make street driving a nightmare IMO.

Denny S. · #5 (**permalink**) 05-16-2003, 06:47 PM

MY Contemporary was supposedly set up by the former owner with a load of Negative camber. Since I set the camber myself I can only tell you that my front wheels leaned in at the top almost an inch and a half. Needless to say the front tires lasted all of 3000 miles. After a few phone calls to figure out the logistics of changing it ( Don Borders @ Image ) we put 1/8 inch shims behind the upper control arms and now I have just about 1/2 inch .. THe car tracks on the Highway
like it's on rails compared to before. At my normal highway speeds it was really tricky before, but now it's a whole new car... 100 mph plus was very scary, but now it tracks straight and has no twitch whatsoever...

khall · #6 (**permalink**) 05-16-2003, 07:09 PM

I talked to a couple of our local vintage experts today and they said that the two different camber suggestions are related to bias ply vrs. radial ply tires. The radials are more sensitive to camber changes and the rule of thumb is .50 to .75 degrees of negative camber for them with the larger numbers for bis ply. Makes sense to me.

So I set my front at -0.50 deg camber today with 5.5 deg positive caster. Actually, I found that you have to disconnect the steering arm to change the caster. I originally had over 8 deg positive on both sides (my bubble gauge reds 8 max.) So now I am trying to set the tow. My vintage friends suggested that I set 1/8" tow out to help corner turn in. So I put a piece of tape on each front tire and measured both front and back. No luck. I assumed that the measurement would be taken at the tire surface but one turn of the steering arm = 1/4" change at the tire. Hmmmmm. So where is the measurement taken?