I already know my Coupe handles fairly well, but I was sure I could get better turn-in with a little more negative camber at the front.

So, I've bought myself some Eibach camber bolts and a camber / castor gauge

I've measured my camber and found that I have over half a degree difference between sides, and that my driver's side has zero degrees of camber.

I'm pretty sure that a degree of negative camber on both sides will make a load of difference

Should be able to get it done on Thursday when the car is at Motormech for some other bits & pieces.

Once I've finished tinkering, I will be hiring the gauge out to anyone that wants to check their own car

Nigel excellent add on. I did it a year ago. Just for comparison how much did you pay for camber bolts. I paid approx GBP 60

Rui

Hi Nigel, I've done this mod myself. Have messed around with the settings and have found 1 deg negative with std toe in best. I'm currently running this set-up

Eibach/Bilstein
Upper and lower braces
New wishbones
New Top mounts
Camber bolts

Cheers Tim

ive been posting in another thread about handling & more or less have done the full suspension package apart from the arb,s....i don't do any track days, but i do like to DRIVE the coop when the opportunity arises : :D...i cant believe how more planted it feels now, i,m putting off the arb,s at the moment, but the big question for me is....is it going to make even more of a difference, & are they difficult to fit ........jings I'm going to have to stop sometime
sorry to detract from oringinal post.....Jim

Jesus.. You're in for a shock Nigel!
I have -1.25deg camber (which was max for H&R bolts), works well for both road and track.

Be sure to use the correct torque to tighten them, I've read about snapping camberbolts (probably too tightened).

Nigel - with your suspension go for -1.3 neg on the front. It made the front end on mine bite a lot harder when I was on the same suspension. You may find that when it does dig in the car can feel a bit like it 'flops' onto the front outside wheel. You will certainly have to have the front dampers set to hard IMO when you want handling. When I got to this stage I had the choice of a whole suspension change or adding an uprated front ARB to go with the rear one, but then I'm pretty fussey.

You have to drop the fuel tank to do the rear arb. Speak to Julian at Balance motorsport:

http://www.balancemotorsport.co.uk/

..and undo the ventilation hose and the exaust heatshield.

oh yeah, forgot about my roll bars 22mm whiteline rear and dedra 4x4 front with uprated drop links... Did make a hugh difference... cheers tim

just for info my race car has -4 on NSF, -3 OSF

and the rear really could do with neg camber about -2.5 as I wear only 2 inches of the outside of the rear tyre. Get some neg rear and you'll be flying. I have many idea of the rear, and very good contact who could do the work.

Nigel, if you ever DO fit the camber bolts, ALWAYS fit them in the UPPER hole, else they may shear in the LOWER position, all about leverage.

Also, make SURE that you use the CORRECT torque value, as they are an M10 shank on them.

I have the correct torque rating (55 lb-ft) and I clearly remember DrFrag's problem with a snapped camber bolt, so I'll definitely remember to fit in the upper hole.

Rich - I assume any rear camber adjustment is permanent and done through eccentric bearings for the rear radius arms? If there's a way of playing around with camber adjustment at the rear, I may be interested.

While you're at it, why not get the front sub-frame welded and fit a rollcage too. Uber stiff shell then

Looks like a nice bit of kit Nigel, remember the bubble camber gauges need a level surface to set it up correctly and you always need to adjust the toe setting after camber adjustment.

Zero to minus 1 degrees is standard for the coupe but running a little more and having them both set the same will give a nice improvement in turn in

Just as an aside. Although your handling with negative camber is going to improve - how will this affect tyre wear?

I know on the Uno T, I owned donkeys years ago, some negative camber was dialled in, but we had major issues with inside of the tyre rims wearing very quickly.

I think if you run negative camber, in order to preserve the inner edge of the tyre as best as you can, you may need to dial in a small amount of toe-out, or at least perfect toe...?

It really depends on how much you dial in. I did not notice the tire wear being too bad with -1.3. I'm going to go for -2 this weekend, but I dont do that many miles so i'm not that bothered if the tires wear fast.

I've been running -1.2 for about 2 years with no tyre wear issues. So long as the toe is set correctly and you dont go crazy with the camber it will be fine.

Si, at -2 deg, you will have less tyre contact on the ground when traveling in a straight line, be careful if its wet, you might also get tramlining unless you get a really accurate setup.
If the contact patches on the tyres aren't identical then it will fight you under acceleration, especially in a high power FWD car like yours.

Can't you run more caster on your top mounts to give you more camber when the wheels are turned ?

The Castor is already dialed in.

I'm going to play around with the camber a bit more. The top mount is not adjustable, so I'm going to slot the damper a touch so that I can go up to -2 with a camber bolt if I want to. I was also going to try some toe out...

I'll start a separate post to let you know how I get on.

Bloody hell!

How did I ever win the handling at TOTB with zero degrees on one side and half a degree on the other??

Its now set to about 1.25 degrees on both sides.

The handling has certainly changed - it torque-steers a bit now (although the tyres are well past their best). the steering also moves around a bit more as the cambered tyres follow imperfections in the road. So, its definitely a bit less "planted" in the straight-ahead position.

However, the way it goes round corners is just brilliant Turn-in is greatly improved and feel from the steering is much better.

The camber bolts are actually for an Alfa GTV, and fit the Coupe hub just fine. The only problem is the range of adjustment - I'm pretty sure they're made to correct excess negative camber from lowering, rather than for dialing in even more, so they are pretty close to their limit of negative camber. However, the bolts were just £10 off Ebay - new ones are about £20

Once I've re-checked the settings, I'll be making the camber gauge available for hire. I can either deliver it to Paul's at Motormech, who can do the work for you, or I can have it delivered to your door.

Glad to hear! Told you so!
That max setting of around -1.25 is the case with the H&R bolts too.
You'll get used to the little tramlining!

Nigel, did you adjust the toe settings back to standard after adjusting the camber ? Changing camber throws the toe out by miles so it probably will torque steer.

I'm on the same camber setting as you with no torque steer at all, just great turn in and grip

That's a damn good deal on them Nigel - my Eibach camber bolts were £60!

I'll get the tracking done today - its probably not as bad as I originally thought - its just that the steering wheel is feeling MUCH more 'alive' in my hands, although it never feels twitchy.

Alfa GTV camber bolts on Ebay for less than £20

bloody hell why do i think i may need/want these bolts

^ Same boat! Any opinions on whether it is worth it on a standard car?

definitely worth it, but probably only after you've done the far more obvious handling mod of decent tyres and a strut brace

ive just ordered myself bolts jings...i can hear the little lady not MORE stuff for your car
ah well that's married life for you

Humm, £20 for the bolts and my cars at Paul's on Friday - Nigel, how confident are you in your guage and would you consider leaving it with Paul until Friday? (happy to arrange delivery to you afterwards)

Graeme - as I said earlier in the thread, I'm going to be hiring this gauge out to fccuk'ers (also will be hiring out my Sykes Pickavant Code reader)

I'm perfectly happy to let Paul use the gauge - he spent a couple of hours using it with me on Thursday, so he's fully aware of how to use it.

If I was posting the gauge out, I would be asking for a holding deposit, but if its ONLY going to Paul's, I'm willing to forego the deposit.

For return delivery, you can post it (as long as its sent recorded, insured and signed-for) or you can deliver by hand (Coventry during the day or near Lichfield in the evening)

If you're heading back to Manchester, you could take a small detour from Birmingham and drop it in at my house.

I *might* even get you to leave it at Paul's for the next hirer