Camber question
 

My 240SX has been sitting in the back of a garage for 5 months now. We pulled the KA24E about 3 months ago and I purchased a RWD SR20DE waiting for a wiring harness though. While the car has been sitting there I have been accquiring parts for it. As far as suspension goes, I've had a set of Eibach Sportline springs put on it to drop it a little over 2 inches. I've purchased a set of front Cusco camber plates but can someone tell me what else I will need to correct the camber and get a good drive out of my car when it is ready for the road? What type of shocks should I get? Do I need rear camber plates and a camber correction kit? What is the deal with the "Battle Version"?:dunno:

There are no rear camber plates - rear is not a strut setup.

There are a few ways to adjust rear camber though. www.pdm-racing.com sells whiteline eccentric bushings that will allow for some adjustment.

Cusco (I think) makes a replacement tubular upper rear suspension link with rod ends that will allow for adjustment. I don't know how much that baby costs, but it's a nice piece.

You can also slot your arms to allow for a little more adjustment.

-Justin

several companies make rear camber solutions.

*HOWEVER* even with the harshly lowered sus, the camber isn't your enemy, it's the factory toe-in settings at the rear of the car.

With this alignment, your tire wear will not be a problem, and your handling will be great:

F -1.5 - -2.0 camber
toe - zero

R -1.5 - -2.0 camber
toe zero

The toe setting tends to exaggerate any camber that might be present because in addition to the tire running at an angle to the road, it's being dragged across the road too (think about it).

I probably am gonna try and run 3deg of camber front and 2deg of camber rear next time I go get aligned (spring).

camber is your friend:wave:

yes but do you know why?

yes, when cornering the tires roll, loosing contact patch. so use put a little bit of negitive camber so when you turn you'll regain that lost contact patch you would have lost with 0 camber. too much neg cam, makes it harder to brake becuase of no patch. im tired. need sleep:thumb: :notify:

close!

The part about losing contact patch is right -- depending on suspension design, as you turn, one side will compress and the other side will decompress. the decompressing side is going to be losing camber (well, gaining it, actually) and the compressing side will be gaining some camber as well.

The "optimal" contact patch is one that is pretty much using the whole tread width across the tire, and for some strange reason this occurs with a little bit of camber.

MacDonalds (McPherson) struts like we have up front are known for little camber change across the movement range of the sus, so it can be acceptable to run large amounts of static camber up front. F1 cars look like they run 5 degrees or something of static camber -- those cars also barely roll a few mm in corners. They can get away with this because the sus doesn't move that much (and the geometry doesn't get all that much affected).

In the rear you want to run a little less camber in general in order to get power down to some extent, but you do need some to promote good handling balance and traction in the turns, too!

You're absolutely correct about too much neg camber making braking difficult -- TOO much neg camber results in LESS static contact patch. Imagine a wheel that looked like / , where just the edge is touchign the road. On braking you get even MORE camber and now you've got this iddy biddy tire piece touching the ground -- not very much to grab the road with!