How to get more rear camber!

[RAAMaudio]

Wow, first time I saw this thread and some of the comments are astounding!

I spent a great deal of time combined with decades of experience under my belt when I decided to change the rear camber and toe and it was a very serious effort to get it right in alignment and knowing it would hold up to the harshest pounding I would put it to, jumping curbs at speed and any pot hole I might run across on the street.

The end result was having the owner of the then current ST1 NASA Vette come up to me and say he could not gain on me in the attitudes at MMP(old name) when he normally about runs over most other race cars.

All I did was add enough to be very close to the same difference front front to rear as the stock setup, just more negative camber on both ends, the car was very balanced in slow, mid and high speed corners and very easy to drive.

4 years, 21k miles, still solid as a rock, I know how to weld quite well.

I did it to add the camber and help clear the rear fenders to run 9" wide wheels under rolled and pulled fenders. I dialed in zero rear toe to keep things simple and set the ride height so the geometry was correct so the only mod needed from street to track was wheel/tire swap and adjusting the dampers.

While I was at it I modded the axle and a 5-way race grade sway bar to fit but found I just did not need to run it, cool, saves weight, too bad I wasted all the time doing it as never even installed it once I found how well the car worked.

I also have zero chassis braces except the $2 scrap metal 2 point up front, the only place I could see that needed a bit more stiffening.

Stock front bar with urethane bushings, all the rest done as well and BC coilovers, nothing fancy like my last track car with 3-way Ohlins.

I was on the very first Cyborg so not making that much power, running 5 seconds faster than a buddies national champ spec miata and 4 second slower than a $250k just built and tuned Cayman R on much stickier tires which really blew them away when they knew what I had ran.

IF, somebody had produced metal shims that also had ABS sensor and bolt load geometry sorted out properly I would of gladly ran them but nothing ever came out, still not so that I have heard of. My setup was far safer and has proven reliable.

Have a great evening
Rick

 

[green_henry]

Wow, first time I saw this thread and some of the comments are astounding!

I spent a great deal of time combined with decades of experience under my belt when I decided to change the rear camber and toe and it was a very serious effort to get it right in alignment and knowing it would hold up to the harshest pounding I would put it to, jumping curbs at speed and any pot hole I might run across on the street.

The end result was having the owner of the then current ST1 NASA Vette come up to me and say he could not gain on me in the attitudes at MMP(old name) when he normally about runs over most other race cars.

All I did was add enough to be very close to the same difference front front to rear as the stock setup, just more negative camber on both ends, the car was very balanced in slow, mid and high speed corners and very easy to drive.

4 years, 21k miles, still solid as a rock, I know how to weld quite well.

I did it to add the camber and help clear the rear fenders to run 9" wide wheels under rolled and pulled fenders. I dialed in zero rear toe to keep things simple and set the ride height so the geometry was correct so the only mod needed from street to track was wheel/tire swap and adjusting the dampers.

While I was at it I modded the axle and a 5-way race grade sway bar to fit but found I just did not need to run it, cool, saves weight, too bad I wasted all the time doing it as never even installed it once I found how well the car worked.

I also have zero chassis braces except the $2 scrap metal 2 point up front, the only place I could see that needed a bit more stiffening.

Stock front bar with urethane bushings, all the rest done as well and BC coilovers, nothing fancy like my last track car with 3-way Ohlins.

I was on the very first Cyborg so not making that much power, running 5 seconds faster than a buddies national champ spec miata and 4 second slower than a $250k just built and tuned Cayman R on much stickier tires which really blew them away when they knew what I had ran.

IF, somebody had produced metal shims that also had ABS sensor and bolt load geometry sorted out properly I would of gladly ran them but nothing ever came out, still not so that I have heard of. My setup was far safer and has proven reliable.

Have a great evening
Rick

How difficult was it to replace the front sway bar bushings and was it worth the effort?

 

[RAAMaudio]

The bushings are not to bad if you have the right tools to reach the bolts, I do not recall what I used as it was nearly 4 years ago when I did mine.

Much more difficult due to having to drop the subframe are the steering rack bushings which help with feedback and control but overall not the actual handling, still worth it to me but it was hard to get the subframe back into proper alignment.

Hardest bushings are the rear axle ones, pulled the axle, used a shop press with the axle hanging from a cable.

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Likely mentioned on this thread is the none ST rear axle, I think it has -1.2 camber but is softer so a rear sway bar might be needed.

I always do the rest of the suspension first, bushings, coilovers, spring rates, alignment, test then add in sway bars as needed as much better to deal with handling in those areas before using sway bars, they are the last part for fine tuning. I have had pretty exotic sway bars on some cars and expected to need more on this car but it worked so well just did not have to do so.

I also bought a used STB to test but it did not fit with my other mods, I highly doubt it would do anything not worthy except add weight which is counter to real performance, always.

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I do not know it all, not even close, just have done this for a very long time and I always study my suspension books, draw out the geometry to ensure not overly lowering the car(which sadly most lowered cars are just to low and give up a great deal of grip). I also read the posts and learn from those that might know more than I do or have done something I have not thought of I might want to test.

My goal on this car was to have great handling on the track or the street, not to stiff, easy to setup with just damper adjustments if possible and it worked out far better than expected. Of course there is more left on the table but it would require serious fine tuning per situation and I did not want to go there, done enough of that for one lifetime

 

[Woods247]

Yeah unfortunately there still isn’t anything “bolt on” to adjust rear camber. My ghetto washers have had airtime, potholes, track rumbles and loooong +80mph carousels without issues. Before the rear camber I wasn’t comfortable driving the car nearly as fast around track as I do now. It sounds like our BC/Swift suspension is similar too. I run it pretty stiff on track and still have a little rub when it bottoms out. I need to raise it a little and corner balance again. I also have a traction bar, four point and rear bar that definitely stiffened up the car. LSD is next. More power is pointless without it.

 

[M-Sport fan]

^^^Yes Rick, IF you had taken it any further, you might as well have turned it into a full-on trailered race car (fully gutted interior/dash/Aim digital cluster, race steering wheel, light race seats/full 6 point harnesses, extinguisher system, maybe a fuel cell, FULLY tied-in to the unibody, triangulated, to sanctioning body specs, cage, Lexan everything window related, etc., etc.). LOL

But you stopped just at the right point to still be 'streetable', and livable, on a somewhat utilitarian basis.