Camber Plates?

[Rob McAuley]

Looking for some practical advice. My track car is also my daily driver. Last year, I had the shop push the wheels out to get maximum camber with stock parts. I was able to get 1 degree negative camber. I'm now wearing out the inside of my tires on the street, but the outside of my track tires still wear out first on the track. I need less camber on the street and more on the track.

There are camber plates available that you can adjust at the track to add camber/castor for the track, then reset for the street. The shop I use has told me that they don't work. You need to do an alignment to also adjust the toe-in whenever you do camber/castor. I believe them - I can see that increasing negative camber and/or increasing castor will also increase toe-in (which is not desireable at the track).

The question is, will the benefit of the increased camber out weigh the problem of the increase toe-in?

Has anyone ever tried adjustable camber plates, and used them without doing an alignment after each adjustment?

[Chris P]

Hi Rob,

Anytime you adjust camber, toe will be affected. It’s just a compromise you need to make.


"The question is, will the benefit of the increased camber out weigh the problem of the increase toe-in?"

I'm not sure what you are referring to? Tire wear or lap times?

I don't really think you can look at it like that.........
Both alignment settings are critical and need to be setup in harmony, any compromise here will have undesired effects. More or less, with toe (front) you are affecting the cars response and ability to “turn-in”, with camber you are maximizing your contact patch. As I’m sure you are aware a optimal toe setting is usually to be toed out with the degree of toe depending on the speed of the course and the car. With a car on OE suspension, the real problem here is the cars range of body roll, that is, unrestricted to the point where the tires camber curve is severely adversely affected. This in its self is where stiff springs and sway bars find a lot of there time on the track. Currently for track you don't have anywhere near enough camber to maximize the tire nor do you have the restricted body roll to keep the camber curve within an optimal range.

A solution, run the camber plates with alignment settings optimized for track use. Buy cheaper tires for the street that you can afford to replace more often. With this setup the idea is that you maximize your race tire life and lap times, however on the street you will go through cheap tires more quickly. In the long run this may be the cheapest option depending on how much street tires cost. Of course, stiffer suspension will limit your camber settings to what the tire wants/needs and not what it takes to fight the OE unrestricted camber curve.

Another thing to look at is doing the alignment setup yourself. Toe is quite easy to do on your own and I’m sure a quick google search will yield some informative results. Camber is more difficult to do and very hard to get 100% without a rack, however street cars are very sloppy by nature so this may not be a real concern anyway.



A few years ago i bought these plates for my car,
http://www.redpepperracing.com/gallery/albums/Krispy/aef.sized.jpg
Anytime i change the settings i go through camber and toe settings to make sure they are were i want them, and they do change.


Hope that helps you out a little.....
Good Luck!

[Chris P]

its late, i hope that makes sense...........

[John Hannaford]

Do both.

Do your street setup and paint mark your suspension. Then adjust to the track setup and do a new set of marks or count the turns on your adjusters and you're ready to do trackside changes.

[andrew1984]

mmmmmm , so toe in is bad?

i thought it made for more stable cornering?:confused:

[Rob McAuley]

Toe-in on the street = safe

Toe-in on the track = boring

I've heard that most shops set slight toe-in for the street, and neutral for the track. This makes the car a bit jumpier, but helps with cornering.

[John Hannaford]

Static toe-in increases straight line stability, within reason, but should be minimized for the track, since our goals are otherwise

Dynamic toe-in under bump/roll is the same as adding unplanned steering input in the corner - very unstable. That's why bump steer curves should favour toe out under bump, if they can't be made zero.

[Dave Barker]

Rob , my old Mustang used to have quite adjustable upper shock mounts but to get enough negative camber I slotted the bottom of the shock where it attached to the spindle . In the winter I would run stock settings ( to save tire wear) and in the summer I would slide the spindle inwards and the top mounts inwards maximising neg camber ( about neg 2.8) then go to the alignment shop and get the car set up with about as much toe out as I could reasonably stand . Then with the car on the rack I would start sliding the upper mounts outwards while looking at the toe measurement until I got as much toe in as I thought was reasonable on the street and marked the plates there.

When going to the track all I did is loosen the upper mounts and slide them in giving me more toe out and neg camber at the same time and did the reverse before coming home . It was a reasonable compromise .

BTW If the insides of your tires are wearing out on the street then just drive harder or make sure you take the circuitous route home .