what camber acceptable for a daily driver?

Jim Williams · **Posted:** Tue Feb 03, 2004 6:27 pm

assuming I can legally get *any* negative camber out of my front-drive Integra GSR, how much is too much on the street in terms of tire wear and driveability?

I know there are some contact patch issues for straight line braking and accelerating, but what other drivability issues are there? Does the car tend to dart around more as the wheel goes through bump & rebound?

The car tends to destroy the outside edges of the front tires regardless of tire pressure when a/x'd. How much camber is enough to offset this effect?

any experienced help appreciated.

DickRasmussen · **Posted:** Tue Feb 03, 2004 7:06 pm

Jim,

Chances are that within Stock limitations you won't be able to get "enough", let alone "too much". My Mustang has negative 1.125 to 1.25 degree and is driven fairly gently (to save the tires) with no excess wear or other problems from that much negative camber. Tires are 245/45X17.

Aaron Buckley · **Posted:** Tue Feb 03, 2004 7:08 pm

Jim,
You won't have to worry about funny wear or ride until you're at about -2.5 degrees. Unfortunately, you'll be lucky to get a -1 degrees. Have the alignment shop maximize as much as you can get out. You'll find if they can get anything, turn in will improve, and you'll notice very little changes in braking effectiveness. - AB

Kevin Hoff · **Posted:** Tue Feb 03, 2004 7:56 pm

I agree with Aaron -- the braking thing is blown way out of proportion for the amount of camber possible in Stock legal cars. It _starts_ to become an issue above -3 degrees with stiff race tires.

You will notice a bit more dartiness with added camber but, in my opinion, it's nothing to worry about unless you also add lots of toe out. (or have the grove following fools known as S-03's!)

Significant negative camber with near zero toe doesn't wear tires out for me. Add just a bit of toe out though and watch your tires evaporate! :lol:

--Kevin H.

Rob Keehner · **Posted:** Wed Feb 04, 2004 1:06 am

Jim I have 2.1 Degrees thanks to the slotting strut allowance in my Cav and they wear kinda funky on the inside. But my car is also strut based with a modicum of body roll :roll:

which is part of the problem. My street tires are fine as long as I don't kill them. Alot of STS cars with Azenis are running from 1.5 to 2.5 degrees if that helps any. Do you even have any adjustment on an Integra. If not it's really not a big deal Azenis are pretty stiff.

Graham Jagger · **Joined:** Fri Aug 29, 2003 12:53 am **Posts:** 1718

Kevin Hoff wrote:

You will notice a bit more dartiness with added camber but, in my opinion, it's nothing to worry about unless you also add lots of toe out. (or have the grove following fools known as S-03's!)

Significant negative camber with near zero toe doesn't wear tires out for me. Add just a bit of toe out though and watch your tires evaporate! :lol:

--Kevin H.

How much would be a little bit of toe out?
I have -.8 camber and 1/8th total toe out in front.
So far I haven't seen anything terrible with it but was told any toe out would scrub the tires all the time and wear them. Not sure how much is too much for tire wear.

Graham

Kevin Hoff · **Posted:** Wed Feb 04, 2004 2:13 pm

Graham Jagger wrote:

Kevin Hoff wrote:

You will notice a bit more dartiness with added camber but, in my opinion, it's nothing to worry about unless you also add lots of toe out. (or have the grove following fools known as S-03's!)

Significant negative camber with near zero toe doesn't wear tires out for me. Add just a bit of toe out though and watch your tires evaporate! :lol:

--Kevin H.

How much would be a little bit of toe out?
I have -.8 camber and 1/8th total toe out in front.
So far I haven't seen anything terrible with it but was told any toe out would scrub the tires all the time and wear them. Not sure how much is too much for tire wear.

Graham

Well it seems to be different on every car. If you aren't having problems it's OK! On my old VW, 1/8 out would chew up tires with a venegance. On the WRX 1/8 out seems to be OK, although I run near zero myself. Maybe Tom will see this and chime in.

--Kevin H.

Tom Hoppe · **Joined:** Wed Aug 20, 2003 10:16 am **Posts:** 387

Quote:

Maybe Tom will see this and chime in.

For the WRX, the magic point seems to be right at -2.5 degrees. I ran one lap of america which included almost 7K highway miles with -2.5 and no camber and had absolutely no inner tire wear.

Last season in STX I ran -3.25 with 0 toe and started getting a little bit of inside wear. Then after messing with the front suspension (and thus screwing up my toe just a tad) I finished off a set of stock RE92 tires from 3/32" or tread to almost steel cord on the inside in 2K miles

-Tom

David Teague · **Posted:** Wed Feb 04, 2004 2:34 pm

Jim with the GSR have a double wishbone suspenstion there is not factory camber adjustment so if you are running stock you will be lucky to have any, however since it is a doulbe wishbone you do gain camber when you suspension compress's so its not that bad of a thing.
If you are in street prep or sts and cange lower your car legally, I have been runnig -2 in the front and -1.5 in the rear of my del sol (Same suspension) for about 3 years now and it is my daily drivers, I have 1/8th total toe in the front and 0 in the rear. I got about 35000 miles on my last set of tires with these settings and the inside of the tire was bald and the outside was down to the wear bars not even wear but pretty close. Hope this helps.

Graham Jagger · **Joined:** Fri Aug 29, 2003 12:53 am **Posts:** 1718

Well in the front the max I can get is -.8 of negative camber. Typical on C4s. I tried a little toe out based on some specs that I got. I've come to the conclusion that I liked it better with 0 toe in the front. Now in the rear I have almost -2.0 camber with a little toe in. That works well on these cars and I haven't noticed any tire wear issues. I think the magic number is about -2.5 in the rear like Tom mentioned.

The Kumho MXs were new in May and now have about 3/32 left on them. But the wear is even across the surface and I only had to flip them across once to balance out the wear. And that was all outer edge from autox, not inside edge from negative camber. I think a couple of visits to Laurinburg is more wear on the outside than all the street driving wears on the inside from negative camber :wink:

Graham

Richard Casto · **Posted:** Wed Feb 04, 2004 3:32 pm

David Teague wrote:

Jim with the GSR have a double wishbone suspenstion there is not factory camber adjustment so if you are running stock you will be lucky to have any, however since it is a doulbe wishbone you do gain camber when you suspension compress's so its not that bad of a thing.
If you are in street prep or sts and cange lower your car legally, I have been runnig -2 in the front and -1.5 in the rear of my del sol (Same suspension) for about 3 years now and it is my daily drivers, I have 1/8th total toe in the front and 0 in the rear. I got about 35000 miles on my last set of tires with these settings and the inside of the tire was bald and the outside was down to the wear bars not even wear but pretty close. Hope this helps.

Much the same with me (Honda, double wishbone, no factory camber adjustment). I have my car slightly lowered for STS I think I am around -1.5 deg with about 1/8th toe out in the front (slight hint of toe out in rear). I drove Azenis all year last year (autocross and street). Inside 1/8th of fronts were worn pretty well with middle/outside on wear bars. But if I had rotated my tires more it would have been less apparent. It can be very darty on uneven pavement, but is fun to drive.

Jim Williams · **Posted:** Wed Feb 04, 2004 8:43 pm

Great info, all. Thanks.

The honda double wishbone doesn't have factory adjustment, but I'm allowed to push all the locating points to the limits of the holes. Sounds like I won't have to worry about having "too much" neg cam for street use, but I now know to keep an eye on the toe-out as well.

It seems that the strut cars can use more static neg cam because they don't have any camber gain in bump. I guess that's one of the benefits of the honda set-up.

Thanks again.

David Teague · **Posted:** Fri Feb 06, 2004 10:49 am

Jim Williams wrote:

Great info, all. Thanks.

It seems that the strut cars can use more static neg cam because they don't have any camber gain in bump. I guess that's one of the benefits of the honda set-up.

Thanks again.

Yes that is a main advangte of the honda setup now if they would have just built in some factory camber adjustment it would be the perfect suspentison

When I was autocrossing my del sol in the stock class I had Oscar's guys at sturdivants psug all the locating pouints and I think I gained like -.1 degree of camber... not too much to worry about, however toeing out the front and rear on my car made a hugh differncem of course it was also very very loose, but very fast when I could keep it togther.

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what camber acceptable for a daily driver?

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