Camber Kit?
 

Fellas, question for you if you don't mind. I'm planning on lowering my Camaro to fill in the space between my wheels and wheel base. Is it necessary for me to buy a camber kit to prevent my back tires from butterflying? Thanks in advance.

As far as know, Pedders is the only one that has one. We actually have 3 kits:
1. front only
2. Reare only
3. both front and rear.

Dropping the Camaro seriously limits the rear camber. We have found thru serious testing that no one else has done or cares to have done, that if you set the rear cambers to -,5 degrees with just a drop coil, the reduction of understeer is blatantly obvious.

If you need more advise, just ask
mike
dms

ElDuran,
You live in Burbank, Cali, call Mike of Haddad Motorsports in Inglewood. He installed my Pedders Camaro Xa Track Extreme (Jan 30th, 2010) and my car handles like a dream. Drove all the way back to San Diego and the ride is better than stock (in my opinion).

BMR said they're about to release an adjustable rear control arm which should help bring the camber into spec. I'm waiting on that to see what they can do about it.

Thanks again, I will be calling him soon.

The factory rear already has adjustable camber eccentrics that typically will provide enough adjustment for most lowering springs. On our Project TriloG car we were able to lower the rear to almost 1.5" and still fall within the -.2 to -.6 degree alignment spec. If you remove the eccentric washer as shown below their is actually 14mm of adjustment in the rear cradle. This roughly translates to about 3-4 degrees of total adjustment at the wheel. That does not mean that you can get -3 to -4 degrees of camber in the rear, just that you have somewhere around 1.5 to 2 degrees of adjustment in either direction, assuming you are starting off in the middle of the range (each car will be a little different).

http://www.bmrfabrication.com/Image1.jpg

Camber bolts are an option and will give you a little more adjustment, one sometimes 2 degrees, depending on the application. In some situations these work great. The issue with camber bolts is that the only way to build more adjustment into an existing slot is to either reduce the diameter of the camber bolt or make an offset bolt. Either way, it compromises the strength of the bolt. For lightweight imports, this may not be an issue but this car weighs 3800 pounds and their is a reason GM uses 14mm bolts. This is one of the main fulcrum points for the rear suspension that serves double duty, it not only acts as a camber adjustment but has the majority of the spring load applied. It is not our recommendation to compromise this bolt in any way.

In our testing we have found that this new platform loves negative camber, front and rear. If you plan to autocross or road race your car with R compound tires, chances are you will not be able to get enough negative camber with the OE eccentrics. On the other end of the spectrum, we have determined that when drag racing, these cars like a little positive camber. On a typical launch, the car wants to compress the suspension to a point that it enters negative camber resulting in decreased tread contact. By setting the static camber a little positive, it keeps it closer to zero during compression on launch.

Keep in mind that these examples are both extremes in two different areas but if you plan to do either or both, you will probably not have enough camber adjustment. This is why we are developing lower control arms with up to an inch of adjustment. 50-75% of people just wanting the lowered "look" will probably be fine with the factory adjustment, for everybody else our control arms should be available within the next few weeks. :drool:

Thank you sir for the info. Greatly appreciated.

Excellent post guys, the kind of rear camber adjustment post I have been looking for.

We have yet to see a rear Camaro that is dropped in the 1.25 to 1.5 range that had less than -1.0 degree camber in the rear. Now if you have drop coils only, and no matter whose coils you are using, setting the rear cambers to -.5 degrees, you will find the handling is far superior than at -1.0. Now if you are a serious drag racer, being able to get your rear cambers to +.5 is a significant benifit.

For those that do not want to do any suspension upgrades, adding 1.0 front caster, and setting the rear camber to 0, will seriously improve the handling and reduce understeer effects.

But if you are never taking the Camaro hard and are totally satisfied with the handling of the Camaro in stock format, and there are lots of you, then you do not need to do it at all.

mike
dms

Mike, when you say you haven't seen less than -1.0, do you mean that immediately after the drop they are at -1.0 or more (meaning -1.1, -1.2, etc) or do you mean that you have not been able to achieve less than -1.0 (meaning -0.9 or -0.5) with the factory eccentrics. The reason I put the "meanings" in there is so that when you are saying more or less camber that is the direction I think you are moving in my mind. With that being said, on a car with a roughly 1.25" to 1.5" drop, how close to 0 camber have you been able to get to with the stock eccentrics on the cars you have worked on knowing there is a slight variation from car to car.

Thanks in advance...

What I am saying is that with a drop of 1 inch or greater, the lease amount of negative camber that I could adjust to is -1.0 degrees. I could increase negative camber, but with drop coils only that would increase understeer

mike
dms

OK, you're probably gonna get a little pissed now but I am thick today, it is Monday after all, and our semantics of less/more/negative/positive may be a disconnect here... tolerate me here for a minute.

Based on what you lay out here I read it as saying that with a 1" drop or more I would not be able to get the car into the -0.9 to -0.7 range and pretty much nowhere near the -0.4 GM spec (I believe it is -0.4 with a .75+/-)

Thanks again...