TOE & CAMBER QUESTIONS?

[Orange 2010 Camaro]

I have lowered my 2010 SS 1.5 in. front & rear using a Ride Tech coil over system & now have a few questions.

#1 Does the car change to a TOE IN or a TOE OUT CONDITION for the front & rear suspension, after it has been lowered?

#2 What would the DECIMAL EQUIVALENT be for EACH DEGREE of NEGATIVE CAMBER after lowering the car USING 19 in. diameter wheels?

#3 For a STREET ONLY driven car what would be your suggestion be for the best TOTAL TOE setting be for good tire wear for both FRONT & REAR wheels?

Thanks In Advance For ALL Your Help.

Orange 2010 Camaro

[JusticePete]

If you are asking if your alignment changes when you install coilovers the answer is yes. How they change depends on how they were installed. i.e. were the eccentrics marked? Was a front camber screw used? and so on.

Front Camber -1.00
Front Toe 0.00
Rear Camber -0.50
Rear Toe IN 0.12
Rear Total Toe IN 0.24

The ZERO toe up front improves turn in and steering feel. The Toe IN for the rear provides straight line stability at speed.

Back to alignment, under the absolute best circumstances, the best an after suspension work alignment can be is whatever it was before the work started. It would be a very rare instance when the alignment would be perfect before the work started. My rule of thumb is after any suspension work the car goes directly to the alignment rack.

[Norm Peterson]

Originally Posted by Orange 2010 Camaro

#2 What would the DECIMAL EQUIVALENT be for EACH DEGREE of NEGATIVE CAMBER after lowering the car USING 19 in. diameter wheels?

This sounds like you're going to at least try to measure the cambers yourself.

Wheel flanges typically add 1.5" to the wheel's nominal diameter, so the outer diameter of a 19" wheel is going to be approximately 20.5". A 1° angle will create an 0.36" gap over that 20.5" distance.

Why not just get a digital angle finder and eliminate having to do any camber math?

But . . . you need a level setup area, else the true vertical you're probably measuring to won't agree with the car's orientation.


Norm

[Avalnch]

Go with Pete's alignment numbers and do it at an alignment shop with a laser alignment machine and knows what the hell they're doing.

[Norm Peterson]

<sigh> . . . if you know what the hell you're doing, you don't need the $$$$$ machine . . .


Norm

[JusticePete]

Norm I know you don't and there are others like you that don't. I learned from on older mentor. How did you learn?

[Norm Peterson]

Pretty much self-taught, like other things I've learned how to do. I must have inherited a DIY gene or two from my Dad (who could do just about anything he put his mind to), and I guess if I couldn't visualize the geometry of something like this I wouldn't have been an engineer for all those years (I'm 67 and retired now).

I can trace much of what I understand about steering, suspension, and alignment back to a 1976 edition copy of Fred Puhn's softcover book "How To Make Your Car Handle", which I still have. A few things I picked up from other 1970's autocrossers (that caster becomes camber when you're turning was one I can still remember being told about).

I didn't get the hands-on experience until around 1980, when with no advance warning whatsoever this happened to my 1979 Chevy Malibu ↓↓↓ . By the time I'd replaced it (myself . . . and the other three and a couple other parts as well) I figured it couldn't hurt to give DIY alignment a shot. After all, once you can make the necessary measurements, the rest is just moving things around to accomplish the adjustments and a little wrench work to secure them in place. Worst case, it'd have still been more than good enough to drive to get it aligned on a rack.



Best case, I wouldn't ever have to argue with anybody over getting it set to something more cornering-friendly .



Norm

[JusticePete]

Amazing what a Dad that get's his hands dirty teaches you - how to think and learn.

[Orange 2010 Camaro]

Originally Posted by JusticePete

Amazing what a Dad that get's his hands dirty teaches you - how to think and learn.

Thank You for the information thus far to all that responded.

I have lowered the car a full TWO in. front & back with the Ride Tech Coil Over Level 2 System, & changed to 19 in. BBS wheels using 265/35/19 in Pilot Super Sport tires.

I am also installing the NEW off-set REAR DIFF. DELRIN bushings from Hendricks Engineering to correct for the additional AXLE SHAFT angle that was created from lowering the car lower than 1.5 in.

The car is now TO LOW to get it up on an alignment rack.

I did build a work rack that I can drive the car up on to do all my fluid changes, exhaust & suspension work, as well as pretty much anything else I am doing with the car.

The one question that I still have, is after lowering the car, DO YOU GET A TOE IN OR A TOE OUT CONDITION?

The front & rear CAMBER has already been set. I just need to finish with setting the TOE correctly. Attached are a few photo's of my work rack.

All The Best,

Orange 2010 Camaro

[Norm Peterson]

Lots of 'if's' involved, and since it's highly situation-specific there aren't any absolute answers. Unless you had all of the exact as-installed dimensions of both the OE and the new configuration, plus the actual toe before, and ran through the geometry for both, you could actually be better off eyeballing it (if you knew what to look for).

But . . . if you were able to get the knuckle in exactly the same relationship to the strut inclination as before, if the upper strut ends of your new configuration are located in exactly the same position as before, if the OE LCA inclinations are at least not too much higher at the ball joint ends, and if the holes in the clevis portion of the new strut were identically positioned relative to the centerlines of the original struts, then the expected result is for camber to go more negative. With front steer setups (rack ahead of the axle line), this cause the toe to move in the toe-out direction (which means it could end up either less toed-in, toed-out, or even at zero toe, depending on where it started from, how much lowering, etc.).


Norm

[JusticePete]

What Norm just described is Bump Steer, caused by the arc the toe rod travels in pulling or pushing on the knuckle depending on the position of the toe rod in the arc.