[stri8ed]

Sorry to post what is sure to be a newbie question but I cant find a definite answer. Im lowering 1.5" with FRPP K springs and I ordered camber bolts, but i only bought 2.. Then i "realized" i have 4 wheels lol. So wouldnt I need 4? and the CC plates are sold in sets of 2, so thats where I started wondering if camber bolts and CC plates are only for the front? again, sorry for posting a common question. -- I promise I wont ask if I need a tune for my CAI.

[jpac811]

You only need them for up front to get the align ment back. I didnt need camber bolts, just the CCs. You might need an adj. pan hard bar in the back to center the axle again.

[stri8ed]

I have the Adj Panhard bar. So the rear wheels dont change camber when lowered? Ill probably make due with the bolts and order the CC plates later.

[honaker_10]

You will only need 2 for the front. When the car is lowered it causes negative camber in the front wheels and usually that Is all that it needed is the bolts to adjust the camber close to stock camber or some people like a little negative camber anyways for autocrossing but it will ruin tires daily driving


Sent from my Autoguide iPhone app

[Whiskey11]

Originally Posted by stri8ed I have the Adj Panhard bar. So the rear wheels dont change camber when lowered? Ill probably make due with the bolts and order the CC plates later.

Live axle cars don t change camber, ever, unless the owner changes it themselves via very crude means like heating up the axle tubes. The only thing that an alignment shop cares about on live axle cars is lateral location and an adjustable PHB cures that.

[stri8ed]

Roger all, thanks.

[Heavy Metal Thunder]

I have a question about this topic. I have the prokit, tokico's, and bmr adj. PHB but don't have the caster camber plates. I got new front tires last week and the old tires were clearly more worn on the inside indicating some slight negative camber. Is there any way to adjust the camber of the front wheels at all without the CC plates? I mean it wasn't too bad at all so if I can adjust maybe half a degreee or a degree without getting the CC plates that adjust up to like 3 degrees or whatever I would be fine. If you can't adjust camber at all without the CC's and I sound like an idiot with this question I apologize. I know jack about suspension.

[wrathchild]

Originally Posted by Whiskey11 Live axle cars don t change camber, ever, unless the owner changes it themselves via very crude means like heating up the axle tubes. The only thing that an alignment shop cares about on live axle cars is lateral location and an adjustable PHB cures that.

Give me a big enough ramp. Ill change that rear camber

[wrathchild]

Originally Posted by Heavy Metal Thunder I have a question about this topic. I have the prokit, tokico's, and bmr adj. PHB but don't have the caster camber plates. I got new front tires last week and the old tires were clearly more worn on the inside indicating some slight negative camber. Is there any way to adjust the camber of the front wheels at all without the CC plates? I mean it wasn't too bad at all so if I can adjust maybe half a degreee or a degree without getting the CC plates that adjust up to like 3 degrees or whatever I would be fine. If you can't adjust camber at all without the CC's and I sound like an idiot with this question I apologize. I know jack about suspension.

ITS NOT FROM SLIGHT NEGATIVE CAMBER


Sorry, that is just a huge pet peave of mine. It literally makes me slide my chair back from my desk, and smack my forehead on my keyboard.

You absolutely, HAVE to have SOME negative camber. If you had 0 camber, your car would plow all over the road when you tried to turn at any thing even removely aggressive. Some cars do come from the factory with 0. Those cars, have handling problems, and in most cases, are coming from the factory, not inside factory alignment specs. (the 05 STI came with 0 camber and in some cases, slight POSITIVE camber, and as a result, was an understeering pig, and the first mod you wanted to do was an alignment to fix the camber and bring some negative in)

Factory alignment specs, call for some negative camber. Small amounts of negative camber will absolutely not cause any sort of uneven wear.


Aggressive but still reasonable negative camber would go all the way out into the negative -1.5 deg range or thereabouts, and even that, wont cause big amounts of inner edge wear unless you drive like a grandmother, or only go fast in a straight line (drag racers who dont corner hard ever and such)

[stri8ed]

^ Soooooo, what are you trying to say? lol. jk.

[Whiskey11]

Originally Posted by Heavy Metal Thunder I have a question about this topic. I have the prokit, tokico's, and bmr adj. PHB but don't have the caster camber plates. I got new front tires last week and the old tires were clearly more worn on the inside indicating some slight negative camber. Is there any way to adjust the camber of the front wheels at all without the CC plates? I mean it wasn't too bad at all so if I can adjust maybe half a degreee or a degree without getting the CC plates that adjust up to like 3 degrees or whatever I would be fine. If you can't adjust camber at all without the CC's and I sound like an idiot with this question I apologize. I know jack about suspension.

Did you receive an alignment at all after the drop? What are your specs if they are? I'm MORE interested in your toe values than I am your camber values. Negative camber by itself will contribute some inside tire wear due to loading the inside of the tire more than the outside, but to really get a lot of wear from camber you need a lot of it to have camber be the sole reason. When you lower your cay the car will toe out as well as have more negative camber and it is the toe out that causes a lot of tire wear.

The factory specs -.75 degrees of camber with +/-.75 degrees of wiggle room, so the factory specs are 0 to -1.5 degrees of camber. I can't remember what the toe specs are but I think its like .10" toe in +/-.10 degree so the total range is from 0" to .20" toed in. I would set this value to zero if possible.

Wraith, I'm not sure what adding noticeable amounts of negative camber to a live axle car would accomplish aside from just being damned odd. In a corner your outside wheel would be fine but your inside would be all sorts of messed up in staying negative!

[wrathchild]

Originally Posted by Whiskey11 Did you receive an alignment at all after the drop? What are your specs if they are? I'm MORE interested in your toe values than I am your camber values. Negative camber by itself will contribute some inside tire wear due to loading the inside of the tire more than the outside, but to really get a lot of wear from camber you need a lot of it to have camber be the sole reason. When you lower your cay the car will toe out as well as have more negative camber and it is the toe out that causes a lot of tire wear. The factory specs -.75 degrees of camber with +/-.75 degrees of wiggle room, so the factory specs are 0 to -1.5 degrees of camber. I can't remember what the toe specs are but I think its like .10" toe in +/-.10 degree so the total range is from 0" to .20" toed in. I would set this value to zero if possible. Wraith, I'm not sure what adding noticeable amounts of negative camber to a live axle car would accomplish aside from just being damned odd. In a corner your outside wheel would be fine but your inside would be all sorts of messed up in staying negative!

What is your front camber set at?


If you are at say -.75, go to -1.2 and see what your turn in does.

More negative will keep the outer tire standing up straighter in a hard turn, particularly on that initial big shift as the body slams down (even if its an un-noticeable slam down, the initial weight shift onto that wheel hits harder than the sustained force). The inside front wheel isnt AS important as the outside one, when it comes to understeer. Most of the force is on the outer front wheel. In fact, its not uncommon for some RWD cars with a stiff suspension to lift the inside front wheel completely off the ground in a hard turn (M3s do this almost every time, even in a slalom) (yes, I know M3s are NOT mustangs, I am using it to illustrate how little force is on the inner front wheel)

Live axle or not, you still want that outer front wheel straight, and -.75 isnt going to cut it unless you are on really high spring rates and stiff swaybars.


Basically, when the car rolls, your static camber flys away like it was never there to begin with. On a REALLY hard turn in, -.75 will turn into positive camber in pretty short order. (again, unless you have big spring rates and stiff sways to stop most of the roll)

I know you are into the autocross scene, see if you can find out what the SM2 guys are running in their Mustangs (I think SM2 would be their class, I think SM is for sedans. I ran my turbo miata in SM2 and my WRX, STI and FXT in SM) or one of the other higher mod classes. I am betting closer to -2.0. That is a bit of a guess, but I bet I am not far off.

[Heavy Metal Thunder]

Hey thanks guys for your in-depth answers. But all I really wanna know is if it's worth spending the $200 or so on CC plates to prevent premature tire wear which I don't think is really an issue since I had those tires for 15k miles before they needed to be replaced. My alignment feels spot on to me; no shimmy or pull in either direction, oversteer/understeer etc. (although I'm not sure if oversteer/understeer would be from an alignment issue). So I was just wondering if it is better to fix this by getting CC plates, if a realignment would work, or if I'm just better off leaving it alone since my tire life didn't sem dramatically affected and the alignment feels steady and straight.


Also, do the CC allow for adjustments in toe values or just camber? If my issue is that they toe outward, I assume I'd be better off getting a realignment.

Sorry to sound like a lazy car enthusiast. I know I'm trying to get a simple answer and resisting knowledge. Suspension and alignment just don't get my blood pumping I guess. I drive like a granny and the closest my car gets to a track is the parking lot of a nascar race.

[Whiskey11]

Ohh boy, misunderstanding here, when I said I'm not sure what negative camber does ona live axle car I meant I'm not sure what negative REAR camber is going to do for handling on a live axle car, geing that the outer wheel would be fine being closer to vertical but your inside wheel is only going to stay majorly negative since its angle is tied to the other end of the axles angle.

Most of the S197 guys I have talked to that autocross run closer to -2.5 degrees or more. MacFailson strut and all that jive in combination with relatively soft springs and big bars to make the car daily driveable.

My front alignment is close to stock, I have never had it measured. I was waiting to tweak the alignment when I could afford the Ford Camber bolts (only thing class legal) then I keep farting back and forth between not doing the bolts and just jumping to STX and doing plates, then back to bolts and staying in F stock. Blah blah blah I can't decide. Not going to lie, I am a bit chicken shit when it comes to modifications, more the spending money on them then installing them. My financial situation is about to change a bit (things getting more expensive and not making more money) so I am playing that out before going crazy. Between that and needing new tires I'm nervous about going to extreme.

AI just need to shit and get off the pot an get the rear sway bar and the bolts and be done with it!

Edit: typing on a phone sucks sorry for spelling and grammar....

[wrathchild]

DO IT!!!! (shitting and getting off the pot)

I dont know about mustangs, but on the FWD cars I autocrossed I ran a TINY bit of toe out in the front, to help turn in. On my WRX I ran 0 toe up front, and VERY slight toe out in the rear, to help get the car to rotate (WRXs like to understeer, so you have to fling the car around a bit) But in autocross form, the WRX was a little bit of a handful driving around on the street. -1.7 up front -1.2 rear 0 front toe and a little rear toe out, meant it followed every rut in the road to where it almost wanted to yank the wheel from your hands But man was it responsive.

[Whiskey11]

Originally Posted by wrathchild DO IT!!!! (shitting and getting off the pot) I dont know about mustangs, but on the FWD cars I autocrossed I ran a TINY bit of toe out in the front, to help turn in. On my WRX I ran 0 toe up front, and VERY slight toe out in the rear, to help get the car to rotate (WRXs like to understeer, so you have to fling the car around a bit) But in autocross form, the WRX was a little bit of a handful driving around on the street. -1.7 up front -1.2 rear 0 front toe and a little rear toe out, meant it followed every rut in the road to where it almost wanted to yank the wheel from your hands But man was it responsive.

I will probably stick to neutral toe up front until I feel I need more turn in response. For a car that 95% of the time sees public roads and daily driving, toe out isn't going to do much except add to tire wear. At this point I'm planning on new tires every season anyway (yay tax returns) but I may run this first set of star specs till they have no shoulders and see how long they go to the wear bars. My KDWS on the car went 24k which is about 6k short of their treadwear indicator (400) some I'm assuming they didn't like the massive understeer BS from autocrossing. Rear sway and camber bolts and a good alignment will help with that.

If I just went for the full build of what I have left it would be 1800$ not including brakes (stock ones are fine for now) or tires and wheels. The only way that is happening is a.) New job, or b.) My R700 sells. Neither outlook is looking too likely atm.

Anyway, enough OT! Camber bolts, yeah.... Ford>all others. They have the proper torque settings and bolt diameters to not compromise front end strength. For folks with road course work or autocross in mind, that is pretty major (IMO) but for a DD, a set of the Eibachs or BMR bolts would be adequate.

[Heavy Metal Thunder]

ummmm... sooo... I guess I'll just leave it.

[wrathchild]

Originally Posted by Whiskey11 toe out isn't going to do much except add to tire wear.

Which is the reason why people see inner edge wear when they lower the car without doing an alignment. They think its the negative camber. It isnt. Its the toe out that happens when you lower the car.

I got up under the nose of my car, loosened the tie rod ends, and cranked them in a couple turns on each side. You dont NEED a rack if you make the changes equal on both sides. Ok you NEED a rack to measure it, but you dont NEED a rack to keep it straight. Actually you can do it with a tape measure.

[wrathchild]

Originally Posted by Heavy Metal Thunder ummmm... sooo... I guess I'll just leave it.

Did you get any sort of alignment? If not, I am betting you are toed out in the front.

How is the wear on the inside? Is it even and flat? Or is it scooped a bit? If its scooped a bit, you most likely have toe problems.



If so, what are things set to? HOW MUCH negative camber do you have? Like I said, you need SOME, but if you arent jamming through turns, you are going to be fine with more "relaxed" settings. Maybe -.5 or so and you would still be fine.

You gotta keep in mind, how little of an angle, even 1 degree is. We are talking about your wheels being 89deg instead of 90. Its miniscule. Tire wear doesnt start to become a factor till at least like -1.3 or so, even then, its not really a factor till past -1.5