Camber Plates - Update with photos...

[Highwayman]

Following on from my recent post about track tyres, I've been wondering about the possibility of camber plates to offer a convenient way of adjusting camber when you arrive at the circuit, and then putting it back to standard for the drive home. This could potentially allow me to stick with the standard 7"/8" set up (as some suggested), but dial out some understeer for track use by setting some negative camber.

Does anyone on here have camber plates fitted on their cars? I'm looking to fit them with my Gaz Gold coilovers, which are still sitting in their boxes ready to fit when the weather improves [8|]. I spoke with one the of the guys on the Gaz stand at Autosport International at the weekend, and he seemed to think that this was something that they could offer relatively easily if there was a demand. I've got the number of their technical guy to find out more, so if anyone else thinks they might be a good idea and are interested, let me know and I'd be happy to speak with him about possibly getting a batch made up (and maybe even a discount...), assuming that the price is right [].

Phil

 

[Hilux]

There is much discussion regarding camber on this forum. Bottom line is ensure you have decent ARB`s Most dont but uprate the suspension alone but expect it to work with soft road OEM ARB`s If you want good tyre contact dont ignore an ARB upgrade.

 

[Highwayman]

Thanks Paul. I am planning on fitting the triangulation brackets and uprated bushes to the ARBs as part of my overall suspension upgrade, but wasn't planning on replacing the bar itself at the moment. Is that sensible? Phil

 

[Peter Empson]

I'm with Paul, biggest bang for buck is going to be the abr's, the 968 M030 are what I use and they're a massive improvement and were very reasonably priced last time I looked. Opinion seems mixed as to whether using the adjustment on camber plates is a good idea, many maintain that adjusting them throws everything else out of whack and you need another Geo to get it right again. I have always stuck to the track setup I've got and left them alone (which has quite a lot of negative camber), unless you're doing huge mileage (or use very soft tyres) the wear shouldn't be too great, they will follow the road a bit more but will make the car nicer for spirited road use anyway. I have the Racers Edge ones fitted and can recommend them if you're not worried about the extra noise/vibration (which is minimal) from their solid construction:

 

[edh]

Won't you also alter toe by adjusting camber? I reckon you can get a good compromise setup that won't need changing between road & track, which together with equal F&R tyre widths + some trail braking will remove any trace of understeer.

 

[zcacogp]

ORIGINAL: edh Won't you also alter toe by adjusting camber?

This is something I have wondered as well, from a different angle (see what I did there) ... There are a lot of adjustment parameters on the front suspension, as I realise having changed a front wishbone on mine yesterday: - Loosening and moving around the caster mount blocks at the back of the wishbone - Loosening and moving the adjuster tag on the caster mount blocks (which surely does the same as the above) - Adjusting the angle in the middle of the suspension upright (with the two pinch bolts, where the shock absorber joins the king pin) - Adjusting the toe in/toe out with the tie rods Any one of the above adjustments would affect more than one of the geometry parameters, so in the event of an adjustement needing to be made, which 'bit' should be adjusted? And what do you about the fact that adjusting that 'bit' may cause other parameters to go out of adjustment? Adding in the adjustment available on Camber Plates just puts another dimension into this problem. Oli.

 

[Hilux]

Thanks Paul. I am planning on fitting the triangulation brackets and uprated bushes to the ARBs as part of my overall suspension upgrade, but wasn't planning on replacing the bar itself at the moment. Is that sensible?

In my view the suspension should always be looked at as a whole. Without decent ARB`s for example you uprate the shocks and get sticky tyres and do a track day right? Then when the outer edges scrub out or your tyres overheat you wonder why. As Peter says: ARB upgrade is a must but remeber decent ARB`s resist weight shift BUT what is always forgotten - keep better tyre contact. I had KWV3 AND Weltmeister ARB`s - not cheap but awesome. Even tyre wear and temperatures and less understeer, better turn in and flat cornering.

Won't you also alter toe by adjusting camber?

Of course - always - no doubt.

 

[sawood12]

ORIGINAL: Highwayman Thanks Paul. I am planning on fitting the triangulation brackets and uprated bushes to the ARBs as part of my overall suspension upgrade, but wasn't planning on replacing the bar itself at the moment. Is that sensible? Phil

My experience is that the triangulation brackets and solid top mounts are a very worthwhile upgrade - cheap and gets the best out of the standard ARB. When I installed the KW on the old girl I wanted the Weltmeister ARB's too as Paul Hilux raved on about them, but my budget didn't stretch. I did, however, refresh all the ARB bushes with new stock ones. I also installed some Racers Edge solid top mounts - though they were adjustable that is not really useable because as you alter camber you alter toe. However I was delighted with that setup and didn't find body roll to be an issue at all - so unless you're running super stiff suspension, slick tyres on a race set up car I don't think you get that much out of uprating the ARB's. With stiffer suspension and slick tyres leading to higher cornering speeds you may very well start hankering for more roll control, but on road tyres and fast road suspension like KW, standard ARB's felt perfectly fine to me. At the end of the day you need some compliance in the suspension. A super stiff setup will not improve grip or handling - there is an optimum. As you go round the corner and the body rolls the suspension geometry changes and reduces the tyre contact patch with the road loosing you grip. If you have some compliance - either from the bushes, tyre side walls or a combination of the two, then you have some flex in the setup to maintain the tyre contact patch on the road. It is generally accepted that 16" rims work the best on 944 race cars, I guess the extra sidewall compliance improves grip.

 

[Big Dave]

Yes i installed my camber plates to do exactly what your wanting to do. BUT. YES it does affect the toe settings, when you increase / decrease the camber,,,so i just set what max camber i needed for track use + kept them in that position. Only benefit i got from the camber plates was to eliminate some of the flex you normaly get from the rubber in the standard top mount.

 

[Highwayman]

Thanks for all of the comments, which make for really interesting reading [] . Given the mileage that I'm planning on doing, it seems sensible to go for a fixed set up running negative camber then, with solid top mounts of some kind. Sorry to be a pain and keep this thread running, but what's the best way to do this then; camber plates set to a fixed setting, or some form of solid top mount? Any links to websites where I could pick up either would be appreciated, as I haven't got to grips with all of the various options yet [&:]. Phil

 

[Peter Empson]

I'd go for the adjustable camber plates again everyday, really happy with mine.

 

[Lizard]

Quite common with the m3 lot to run a 2 setting camber plate idea, lets you run the mega camber slicks need, then go back to non tyre destroying mode for road. Only takes 2 mins & you need to jack it up to remove slicks ayway to drive home so takes literally a few secs longer, generally they set the toe up for road as its where they did the miles & ran the toe compramise for track. I personally just run a fixed compraise but dont do mega road miles in my track cars.

 

[sawood12]

If I recall correctly on the 944 the steering knuckle is forward of the hub so you'd end up with toe-out if you increased camber. I think this would lead to scrubbing on the inner edge, lack of high speed straight line stability (a wandering effect) but better turn-in that toe-in - so if you can cope with the high-speed straight line wandering thing it would probably work fine for you. I think it was Fen who set the road settings on the extreme of the toe-in range so the toe-out effect was minimised when you increased camber. I seem to remember he thought that was an acceptable compromise. I also seem to remember when I had my KW and camber plates installed I asked Promax to do the same on their 4-wheel laser alignment machine. I think they did as Fen did and measured the toe settings with the camber on max negative, but the toe-out effect was too great so I didn't go that route (maybe my camber plates had more adjustment range than Fen's). If you ask Tom (Barks 944) nicely he might look in my old cars history to see if they printed out the results.

 

[Neil Haughey]

I think you do need to be able to run slightly different setups for different tracks but I can't really see how one can do this without a geo recheck/adjust. Its not just the fact that the toe changes but that you would likely want to change it at the same time.

 

[edh]

I think it's all too much trouble for a track car - you can get a good fixed setup that works for road and track. the best way to deal with understeer is to spend the savings on track time & instruction...

 

[Neil Haughey]

ORIGINAL: edh I think it's all too much trouble for a track car - you can get a good fixed setup that works for road and track. the best way to deal with understeer is to spend the savings on track time & instruction...

Track day car certainly. Funnily enough ppl complain a lot about understeer but something I noted first time out in the race car at Mallory was that I actually had less corner exit understeer the faster I went. Sounds counter intuitive but makes perfect sense in hindsight. TBH I think you can find ways to drive around pretty much any characteristic, whether that is fast or not is a different point and on another level does it matter unless one is racing and purposely chasing time?

 

[edh]

I think it's corner entry understeer that affects most people - brake, lift, nose goes light, turn, understeer.... and that's where trail braking really helps. Maybe you get less exit understeer as you go faster, because you're not on the throttle so early - just hanging on round the bend.... I find if I am going too slow round some corners - particularly the fast ones like Island (Oulton) or Coppice (cadwell) I get on the throttle way too early, because I'm not actually approaching the apex fast enough...

 

[Neil Haughey]

ORIGINAL: edh I think it's corner entry understeer that affects most people - brake, lift, nose goes light, turn, understeer.... and that's where trail braking really helps.

Ahh well that is a different point and more about driving technique. Something I suffered from was coming off the brakes to hard and unsettling the car, its a difficult thing to teach yourself to brake earlier to give room to come of the brakes smoothly as you tend to think the later one brakes the faster you will go. I already knew that these cars are very stable on throttle when the back end squats down and not quite so great when hard on the brakes, but jumping in my race car the jump from road to S2 to race S2 only amplified the effect, as in the car is wonderfully stable and grippy on the throttle and yet can dance around all over the place when braking to the max. Seeing other cars going faster in specific parts of the track made it blinding obvious. I knew I was doing this wrong but didn't have enough time last season to put it into practice and struggled from sticking rear calipers anyway (back end locked solid a couple of times []). The very best drivers can carry more speed at initial turn in, trail off the brakes a little nice and smooth and scrub off the speed catching a little drift into the corner by getting on the throttle nice and early. The top MX-5 racers all do it but it needs balls of steel and talent to match to do that repeatedly. I followed Alex Eacock for example in qualifying a couple of times and noted he does it quite a lot.

 

[chrisg]

Apologies for the delay in replying. I run adjustable camber plates, with the M030 front & rear ARB's, strengtheners for the front ARB's and a strut brace. As per Ed's suggestion, my understanding that is the biggest gain with the adjustable plates comes not from changing them between track and road but because they have less give in them and tighten everything up. If you run negative camber > -1 and any castor you will upset the tracking. So, in short best to set the tracking at zero, with ~ 2.25 or 2.5 negative camber at the front as a good track/road compromise. If you run more than this you will: 1. Get very bad tramlining and darting around on the road - most road surfaces have notable 'lean' or camber to the left for rain run off. 2. Get excessive wear on the inside of the front tyres. Chris

 

[Hilux]

ORIGINAL: chrisg Apologies for the delay in replying. I run adjustable camber plates, with the M030 front & rear ARB's, strengtheners for the front ARB's and a strut brace. As per Ed's suggestion, my understanding that is the biggest gain with the adjustable plates comes not from changing them between track and road but because they have less give in them and tighten everything up. If you run negative camber > -1 and any castor you will upset the tracking. So, in short best to set the tracking at zero, with ~ 2.25 or 2.5 negative camber at the front as a good track/road compromise. If you run more than this you will: 1. Get very bad tramlining and darting around on the road - most road surfaces have notable 'lean' or camber to the left for rain run off. 2. Get excessive wear on the inside of the front tyres. Chris

Following on from my recent post about track tyres, I've been wondering about the possibility of camber plates to offer a convenient way of adjusting camber when you arrive at the circuit, and then putting it back to standard for the drive home. This could potentially allow me to stick with the standard 7"/8" set up (as some suggested), but dial out some understeer for track use by setting some negative camber.

Bottom line..................... ......................Adjust your camber and your toe settings change - fact! EDH is absolutely correct - get it set to where it works and leave it alone. Get decent suspension and bloody great adjustable ARB`s (not Mo30 - its far too soft and on extreme camber you will feather your inside edges!) set it up professionally and off you go. With adjustable ARB`s you can dial out or in understeer/oversteer to some degree and gain flatter cornering and increased tyre contact thereby reducing understeer at the front to some degree with better turn in. You dont need more than 2 degrees at the front in my opinion unless its a track specific car and you certainly dont need adjustable camber plates unless you want silly amount of camber or to change the king pin inclination.