Wheel alignment information for excessively cambered cars....

As we (should) know, camber is one of the things that makes the vip 'stance' so unique and FAT. It is also necessary to get the widest/lowest offset wheels under our guards with razor sharp fitment. [SIZE=3][B]But what can we do to maximize tire life on cars with excessive camber?[/B][/SIZE] 
Luckily, camber is not the biggest factor that causes bad tire wear; the biggest factor is [B][SIZE=3]incorrect toe settings[/SIZE][/B]. Even with mild camber, Incorrect toe can wear out a set of tyres in under a thousand miles
 
[COLOR=yellow][B]But what are the [I]correct[/I] toe settings?[/B][/COLOR]
I'd like to start a discussion to work this out. I've done a bunch of research on the topic; but I'd like to hear more 'real world' discussions from people who have actually DONE aligments with excessive camber, and to hear results, information etc. Hopefully we can come up with some good info on what the best settings are for cars with 5+ degrees of camber!
 
For starters, on my last setup i was running 6.5 degrees of camber on the rear of my car. I was running a few mm of toe in (4mm, or 5/32") and I managed to get about 10,000kms (6000miles?) out of my rear tires (including a flip of the tires so i was basically bald on both sides of the tread). If you are getting more than that, with similar camber, then TELL US YOUR SETTINGS! 
 
 
Now, here is some theory about wheel alignment
[URL]http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=4[/URL]
[URL]http://autorepair.about.com/od/glossary/ss/df_alignment.htm[/URL]
 
 
So far my research has given 2 very plausible but opposite theories:
 
[SIZE=3]1. Add a little toe-in to spread out tire wear across the tread pattern. This is the standard 'trick' that most aligners will do to help with excessively lowered cars. The Toe-in causes the the tire to 'scrub' sideways, pushing more of the tire incontact with the road and evening out the wear pattern. This is what I had on my previous setup.[/SIZE]
 
But....
 
[SIZE=3]2. The other point to consider is Camber thrust. This is the tendency of a wheel to push to the side its leaning into. Same concept with motorbikes, you lean and it makes you turn. So, with 5.3deg of camber, both sides of my car are attempting to turn inwards. Wikipedia actually mentions using toe-out to negate this effect and increase tire life.[/SIZE]
 
 
Now with my recent alignment I went right in the middle of this and got a 0 toe dialed in. Right away i noticed that the car was somewhat touchy on the highway, yet if i purposely turned the wheel to swerve it was sluggish to respond. I also noticed after a 100mile drive, that i had rubber dust all over my rear bumper and in my wheels. So i am guessing that this is no longer the ideal alignment setting.
 
Does anyone have any input, suggestions, experiences with this? Any wheel aligners in here? Or people with cheap supply of tires to test out both theories?

i was running -7* in the rear with the stock toe-in spec (according to the shop's hunter machine), which i don't have on hand. i managed to squeeze about 10k miles out of a pair of federal ss595 before i killed them (that's with flipping them side to side). after getting nankangs in the same size, with an alignment that's unchanged, i realized the rear is more twitchy. the car tramlines a lot more than it used to. maybe the narrowness of the nankangs means less contact patch is touching the ground? i'll be closely monitoring these tires to see how much i can squeeze out of them.

Hmmm, i never thought about tire brand, but now that you mention it, it makes sense. Of course the higher treadware rating the better, but i guess alot depends on how the tread (which was designed to travel at zero camber), behaves with 6-7 degrees of camber

even though i myself am excessively cambered, i have yet had a chance to really drive that sucker, but yeah, toe in sounds like a logical thing to cure the twitchyness/sluggishness, because the tires are biting hard.

im going to attempt this in slight physics term, with slight toe in, the bite is slightly harder. when turning, the force ends up on the outside tire, giving it more bite on the ground, thus a firmer/stiffer steering wheel. so yeah, it sounds logical to have slight toe. although im no physicist, it sounds logical to "me". if im wrong, please correct me.

when my project is ready for the road, my first attempt at driving will be with toe at 0, then i will be working from there.
Charley

well im sure tire materials, tire contact patch, has a big role as well.
Charley

on a side note, to combat camber thrust, you could instlal traction rods...that would get rid of slop from OEM bushings

Yeah, traction rods are also on the agenda - the more pillowball joints the better! But the camber thrust is not avoidable AFAIK, its just a phenomenon that affects tires when they are tilted (just like when you roll a tire; roll it while its angled and note how it turns to one side)

interesting thread

ill keep this thread subscribed

Well an update, i tried measuring my own alignment this evening (using planks of wood and a measuring tape) and from what i can see i was 5mm Toe out, straight from the aligment shop!
 
Could explain the buildup of rubber on the rear bumper! I corrected it and went for a little test drive. Seems much more stable on the road and not as much tyre dust on the back bumper after a 10 minute drive. Will see how it goes after a 200mile drive tomorrow

That much toe out will make the car  twitchy and definately not extend tire life.  Unfortunately I do not have any intelligent addition to the argument for toe in vs toe out extending tire life while cambered however.

Ok so i have come back from my 200 mile drive with only one chassis hit and no tire blowouts. Rear tyres were corrected as i stated, but there was still alot of rubber pilling going on on the back tires (rub the contact patch and you come off with little bits of rubber on your fingers)
 
But apart from that pilling, there didnt seem to be any noticeable wear on the rear tyres from before to after...
 
Then i checked the fronts. All this checking the rear toe settings, i forgot that i also had 4.5 deg camber up front, and hadnt checked the toe settings. Result: I now have to flip my front tires, after a total of about 1500km (950miles). Dammit!
 
But i have come up with an interesting plan to find out what my ideal toe settings will be.
 
Since we know that incorrect toe causes the tires to slip sideways as you drive, i am going to work out [I]which[/I] direction the tires are slipping. To do this I will use 4 pieces of thin cardboard (waxed, so they have minimal friction over each other).
 
The plan is to put 2 sheets ontop of each other, and roll over them (just slowly for now - with the fronts, and then the rears).
The direction which the sheets slide over each other will tell me which direction the car wheels are trying to slide (and then with some maths i should be able to figure out exactly how many mm of toe in/out i need to correct it)

Isn't it toe in?

Hahaha such a simple basic idea, yet that ish sounds like it'd play a huge role in solving those problems. 
I wanna say I'm getting good tire wear, front and rear, but haven't put thousands of miles on my tires. Since the AF meet, they look about the same, to the naked eye and since then I probably got somewhere around 1500-2000 miles.

You should always have a small amount of toe-in within manuf. spec.. As a car speeds up the tires will straighten out. Every model is different so you need to speak with your alignment shop to figure out what number that is for your car.

Yeah i was reading about that - they put some toe in, to counter the effect of rubber bushings. As you roll/brake the freeplay in the rubber bushings pull the wheel back a bit, giving you neutral toe.
 
In my case 2 out of 3 suspension arms in the rear are already pillowball though, so i would have alot less movement than stock (so whatever number i come up with, if you have stock arms add a few mm of toe in)

something to consider, high end dealerships i.e. mercedes benz, bmw, etc. use sand bags in each of the seats to simulate a full cabin of passengers, of even a full tank of gas because added weight will change alignment specs. i never added sand bags but compensate with a little more here or a little less there. but after when im done, i have to put on about 2 miles in a test drive to make sure the car goes straight. 
 
on my alignment computer, mercedes benz requires a push rod to be placed between the front of the front tires, to push them apart, to simulate the car driving down the road... 
 
thing is check during my pre-alignment inspection are upper/lower balljoints, wheel bearings, inner/outer tierods, upper/lower control arm bushings, rack and pinion bushings, if applicable-upper strut bushing... in the rear, upper/lower ball joints, any of the rear arm bushings. i really dont like those OE rubber bushings, ive aligned my A3, test drove it, put it back up on the rack and the rear toe was out slightly. no matter what, once you leave the shop, your alignment specs are gonna go out somewhat... different psi in the bag, weight inside the cabin, empty or full gas tank, at chick riding passenger and skinny dude driving.... 
 
just my 2cents...=)

Thanks for the info Mista808, I take it you work at an alignment shop?
 
I agree on the weighting factor, putting friends in the car etc to simulate actual conditions. Unfortunately many of the alignment shops here are already annoyed with having to work on a lowered car, let alone let you do your own stuff like that.
 
Will try the cardboard sheets idea soon. I am keen to see what the result is!

some good tips in here thanks

OK, so after Mister808's post above i started to realise that with all the laser accuracy of the shop based alignment tools, [COLOR=yellow][B]its actually pointless if your rubber bushings are giving you 5mm movement the minute you roll off their machines.[/B][/COLOR]
 
Moreso if your bushes are stuffed from the harsh ride of coilovers etc.
 
So i built my own alignment machine (this is also in my build thread):
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v257/dbloemhard/Cedric/CIMG3493.jpg[/IMG]
 
Calibrated it:
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v257/dbloemhard/Cedric/CIMG3494.jpg[/IMG]
 
And measured my toe (dont mind the incredibly dirty car + temporary bumper):
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v257/dbloemhard/Cedric/CIMG3495.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v257/dbloemhard/Cedric/CIMG3496.jpg[/IMG]
 
And found that the 'factory toe settings' that the alignment shop set me up with, were [B]COMPLETELY WRONG[/B]. Not just a few mm; but a combined total of 20mm toe in on the front, and about 10mm toe in on the rear!
 
You might think i am crazy for trusting a home-made alignment rig over a laser alignment machine, but the mechanics are simple, i am just measuring the distance between the front and rear of my wheels and i found a huge difference. That explains why my front tyres would wore out after the 200mile roadtrip!
 
[COLOR=yellow][B]So the second discovery: Laser alignment machines are not necessarily accurate.[/B][/COLOR] They need calibrating too, and i'm guessing the place i went to hadnt done theirs for a while.
 
I have now set my wheels to zero toe all round. [I]This might not suit other cars though.[/I] I am running pillow ball front caster arms, rear camber arms, and rear toe arms so i have very little bushing movement (tested this by going for a very jerky test drive - brake, accell, brake etc - then measuring again with no change in alignment). [U]For cars with stock arms i would leave the factory settings...[/U]
 
 
Next, i wanted to verify my new alignment settings, by checking side-slip as i had mentioned in a previous post.
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v257/dbloemhard/Cedric/IMAGE_231.jpg[/IMG]
2 sheets of laminated particle board which had very little friction between them (first test i tried to roll over them with no 'stoppers' on each side - i ended up shooting the top sheet about 3m behind my car from the static thrust of my rear wheels)
Results: ZERO side slip on any of my wheels 
 
This appears to squash the theory that toe out is required to counteract 'camber thrust'; or at least its negligable with my 5.5 degrees of camber.
The real results will be posted in about a week. I have a 1300mile roadtrip planned over xmas, and i will post back with the tyre wear results when i get back.

hey dom, youer wheels are different finishes.
in case you didnt notice

Damn, looking forward to hearing the results of your journey. This is awesome info. Sticky like candy.

I myself have been thru this sam scenario.  i paid to have my alignment put to spec my camber wasnt able to be corrected, but my toe was to prevent the extreme tire wear i was getting, and the tire shavings on the rear.    but after about 200+ miles, i was still seeing the same shavings etc.  

i to fell on my own homemade alignment setup but not as nice as your wooden setup!  I used the old school method of string..   With my old 18's i had it perfect and ran a good 500+ miles and didnt see a ounce of tire dust on the bumper or rim.   


as you can see a very basic way of doing an alignment, but it did it for me at the time..
[IMG]http://i30.tinypic.com/ic47zq.jpg[/IMG]

Hope to learn something in this thread!  ive learned alot on my own from playing with my alignment... down with the lasers!!:biggthumpup:

Only problem with your method of using the string is that the front and rear track on our cars is most likely different (rears being wider). That would lead to both front and rear being toe-in as you are pointing the rears in towards the front and vice versa.
 
I saw a method on a suby forum, which used 4 heavy duty jackstands placed equal distance around the car with string on both sides. Measure the distance from the string to the front and rear of the wheel and note down the measurements for all 4 sides:
 
FL: 100/105  FR: 123/123
 
RL: 80/85  RR: 103/108
 
etc. 
 
Then adjust until all measurements are in spec, and you can then also work out the thrust angle (whether the fronts are pointing the same direction as the rears)
 
 
 
But i do have some bad news. The initial drive test was good. But having 200lb of luggage and passengers in the car seems to have had a big effect. Tyre shavings are back and i can feel that i used a fair bit of tread on the first leg of my journey (550km). Hopefully i can do a weighted test tomorrow, with people in the car to see how my toe is affected by different ride height...

[QUOTE=Dominik;290346]Only problem with your method of using the string is that the front and rear track on our cars is most likely different (rears being wider). That would lead to both front and rear being toe-in as you are pointing the rears in towards the front and vice versa.
 
I saw a method on a suby forum, which used 4 heavy duty jackstands placed equal distance around the car with string on both sides. Measure the distance from the string to the front and rear of the wheel and note down the measurements for all 4 sides:
 
FL: 100/105  FR: 123/123
 
RL: 80/85  RR: 103/108
 
etc. 
 
Then adjust until all measurements are in spec, and you can then also work out the thrust angle (whether the fronts are pointing the same direction as the rears)
 
 
 [/QUOTE]

yea that was my usual method, but my neighbor had my jack stands.....lol





[QUOTE=Dominik;290346]
 

 
 
But i do have some bad news. The initial drive test was good. But having 200lb of luggage and passengers in the car seems to have had a big effect. Tyre shavings are back and i can feel that i used a fair bit of tread on the first leg of my journey (550km). Hopefully i can do a weighted test tomorrow, with people in the car to see how my toe is affected by different ride height...[/QUOTE]



i was told that weight causes more toe in.

Well, ended up taking my dad's car for the second part of my journey (1000kms); i didnt want bald tyres and i was worried about the po-po where i was headed.
 
But on the return leg (another 550kms) i had more weight on the way back (Z32 brakes in the trunk) and yet this time i did NOT have excess tyre wear. Tyres were smooth and had no saw-tooth pattern. I'm gonna keep monitoring my tyres for the next few weeks and see how i go. I still think zero toe is the best solution.

Have some questions that can maybe be answered here...

I recently put 15mm spacers on the rear of my car, and as a result, I have to sacrifice my factory alignment settings in the rear in order for the tires to clear when I dump my car. My car had a generous amount of toe-in in the rear, and now it looks more "straight" and not as skewed.

Since doing this, the inner-portion of my rear tires has worn tremendously. Is toe-in a necessity for tire wear on lowered cars? I definitely have seen what it can do when the toe settings are screwed with in the rear...

Factory toe in is only a few mm; not visible to the naked eye. 
 
One thing i have noticed, when i set my toe to zero on the front my car tramlines and wanders all over the road; giving a few mm toe in keeps it much more stable
 
(seems that no matter if i have toe in or neutral, camber will kill my front tyres)

Yo, Dom, is this you? I found this pic in taketomi's blog on carview.
 
[IMG]http://i46.tinypic.com/23ifr88.jpg[/IMG]
 
Killin' it

Yup. thats me with my mate's Aristo. I love that pic; I thought i posted it on my build thread? I got some more updates now with the sideskirts etc, but will post those soon...

definitely sex on wheels imho!  i've really been considering importing a y33 gloria or cedric prolly my favorite platform overall y34 comes in a close second...