camber specs...need advice

[GShocka04]

well after lowering my car 1.5", my camber is at -1.1 for the front right, -1.7 for the front left, -2.6 for rear left, and -2.7 for rear right. i was told that they are supposed to be at +3 for FR, 1 for FL, .5 for RL, and .5 for RR. is that what the camber is supposed to be at, and if so, could i just get a ingalls camber kit for the front and then $15 rear camber mod for the rear.

 

[brentsd]

no your camber in the front should not be at +3... i believe the farthest negative camber you can have in spec is... 1.2? right about there give or take a tenth. The rear you can adjust with the $15 dollar rear camber kit. I can't remember where about spec is for the rear tho, but they should have given you a computer printout of all your specs telling you what your camber, toe, caster was and what spec for the car is. look at that sheet.

 

[GShocka04]

he gave me a printout and those were the specs that it said. so if he was wrong, then what should the camber for each wheel be?

 

[Spidey]

A little negative camber up front will be fine and actually help with fast cornering, your rear is way off though, I don't remember what the stock specs are but I'll see if I can find them.

 

[brentsd]

ok well those are probably the correct specs, i'm just saying the printout also should have had the stock specs on it so you know what you need it to be at. does that make sense? Sorry if i'm confusing

 

[whitegst]

I put on the camber kits for both f/r and the camber degrees on all four corners are diff. than yours. By looking at the factory spec, the front camber should be anywhere between -0.60 ~ +0.44 and the rear camber should be somewhere between -1.84 ~ -0.84 degrees. Try setting the camber negative (-) within those range. So it will give you a little better handling at the corners. I hope this will help you a bit.

 

[Doug99RS]

These are the specs for a 2gnt.
Front
Camber: -0.83 to +0.17, with -0.33 being desired
Caster: +3.17 to +5.17, with +4.67 being desired
Toe: -0.06 to +0.06, with 0.00 being desired

Rear
Camber: -2.17 to -1.17, with -1.67 being desired
Toe: 0.00 to +0.12, with +0.06 being desired.

You will need to get something done to the front to get the camber at least even from side to side. The front left is leaning inboard by 0.6 degrees which will cause it to push the car right. The rear is a full degree more negative than spec BUT it is at least even. The biggest two things you need to worry about when changing the suspension or even a stock suspension is keeping the left side even to the right. Front to rear is important for understeer and oversteer desired effects but side to side makes the biggest differences in vehicle pull, tire wear and ease of turn from side to side.

If you're going to make any changes to the suspension now that it is lowered I would recomend a front camber kit of some sort to get left to right camber even.

I'm interested to know if your car is pulling now and what the toe settings are at since it is possible to counter a pull caused by camber with a slight change in toe.
Doug

 

[GShocka04]

well the place i went to said they wouldnt do an alignment until i got camber kits put on. and the toe is at -3/16" for FL, -5/16" for FR, 1/8" for RL, and 5/32" for RR.

 

[Doug99RS]

While it's been forever since I've converted fractions in to decimals, I do know enough to be able to say those readings are far from desired since they are not even.

If you plan on continuing to drive this car for 1,000 or more miles I would really recomend having that place or ANY alignment shop at least set the toe to 0.00" on the front (desired) and 0.06" rear (desired). This will keep your tires from being eatin up from a toe problem. Toe is the number one killer of tires on cars that have been lowered and not properly aligned afterwards. This will buy you a considerable amount of time as far as wear goes and with a slight tweaking of the right front toe you won't notice any pull or drift related to that extra 0.6 degrees of negative camber on the left front.
Doug