Alright, I know most of us know the basics about camber, and its been gone over before, but its come to my attention that some of those old suspension threads that I found so helpful are now no longer on the boards (or maybe I just couldn’t find them?—if you find one please post it in this thread so people can link to it…thank you)
[size=4]CAMBER[/size]
Camber at Zero
Looking from the front of the car head on you will see the wheels are straight up and down. Like this:
. . . .
ll. . . .l
ll. . . .l
ll. . . .l
ll. . . .l
ll[/U]. . . .[U]l
*tires are outlined in red, ignore all the periods, they are simply there for spacing.
Negative Camber
Again, looking from the front of the car head on. Now you will notice that the top of each wheel point in towards the car. Like this:
……
…//…~~
…//…~~
…//…~~
.//…~~
[U]/~~/[/U]…[U]~~[/U]
Positive Camber
Now from the same viewpoint. With positive camber the tops of the wheels will point outward. Like this:
.…
.~~…//~…/
…~/~…/
…~/~…/
…~/~[/U]…[U]/
…[U]~
Measurement
I also should mention that camber is measured in degrees. The degree is the angle off of the center line. Imagine a line perpendicular to the ground, thus parallel to the wheels when your suspension is at zero camber. For the following illustrations this line will be yellow, again the tires are outlined in red.
Camber at Zero:
…l…ll
…l…l
…l…ll
…l…l
As you can see the wheel is parallel to the yellow line, thus the angle between the two lines is 0.
Negative Camber:
*Note: in this picture the line is on the face side of the wheel
…l…//
…l…/
…l…//
…l./
The angle in between the yellow line and the wheel, measured in degrees, is the amount of negative camber.
Positive Camber:
*For this illustration i’m going to move the yellow line to the other side to make it a little easier to see. The line will now be on the backside of the wheel (car side).
.~~…l~…l
…~
…~~…l~.l
…~
The angle in between the yellow line and the wheel, measured in degrees, is the amount of positive camber.
Why is this important?
-If we lower our car we automatically give the suspension more negative camber. The lower you go, the more negative camber you will have. But what does this mean to you and me?
1)Tire Wear: The camber on our cars is supposed to be at 0 degrees. However there is room for it to be off. Generally, 0 degrees +/- 1 degree is acceptable. But for example if you lower your car 2" you will then have approx -2 degrees of camber…as you can see its over the limit that Honda recommends. Having negative camber will wear out the inner part of your tires faster than the outer part. How fast it will wear out will depend on a few things:
-How negative the camber is. The more negative, the faster they will wear.
-How soft your tires are. Obviously if you are using very soft race compuound tires they will wear out much quicker than if you’re using some harder all season tires.
-Your other alignment specifications. There is more than just Camber. There are also “Toe” and “Caster”. Typically we don’t worry about caster because on our cars it is not adjustable, and usually not a problem. Toe on the other hand is adjust able and is crucial. With the toe set properly a little negative camber isn’t a huge problem. However if both the camber and toe are out of spec your tires will wear even faster than if only your camber is out of spec.
2)Handling: As a general rule negative camber helps your car to handle better. Ever notice how race cars always have negative camber? well, they do. Next time you’re watching Speedvision or a CART race look out for that. I won’t go into the mechanics of this or how much negative camber is ideal, since i’m probably not the best source for that info.
What do you do about fixing your camber problem?
Quite simple really. Since lowering Hondas/Acuras has gotten so popular there are a handful of companies out there that make Camber Kits. There are front and rear kits (see teg tips for cheap and easy rear camber fix) that when installed put your camber back to what it would be stock, or at least closer to stock. Some kits are adjustable, some are not, and some adjust for more negative camber than others…so shop wisely. Some companies that make camber kits for our cars:
Ingalls
Specialty Products
Progress
Sprint
…there are others as well…
VERY IMPORTANT
If you get a camber kit after you have lowered the car you will need to get an alignment ASAP. Installing the kit on a lowered car can throw the Toe settings WAY off. You must remember that Camber is not the only reason your tires will wear out faster, Toe is also a factor and it can be just as bad or even worse!
Hopefully this will be of some use to somebody.
