Camber bolts or camber wedges?

[wesleyk5]

I installed Eibach Pro kit springs,FRPP HD strut mounts and camber bolts recently on my stang. My brother sent me his old camber bolts(he installed Steeda camber/caster plates on his car). After the install I put the car on our alignment rack at work. The factory spec for camber is -.75 degrees. The drivers side camber bolt would only allow -1.5. So i went ahead and set both sides to -1.5. A month goes by and i put a set of 20" wheels and tires on the car. When I take the OE Pirellis off the car to put the 20's on I notice the inside shoulders of the front tires are destroyed. I drive 80 miles round trip each day, 75% of which is highway. This is too much neg. camber for me(forgot to mention i'm putting $800 worth of Michelin PS2 rubber on the front of my car). I talked to our mechanic and he told me to put the wedges(MSRP $25.00) on the car. They were very easy to install and adjust and I've got it set exactly where i want it now...-.80 degrees. Don't know if this has been covered before but i just thought i would share. Included a pic of wedges. They are the shiny metal in the pic.

 

[DusterRT]

What toe setting are you using? I run -2.75 degrees of camber and my tires wear pretty darn evenly with zero toe and regular rotation. -1.5 degrees shouldn't be a big deal..how many miles did you put on it before noticing the tires?

 

[wesleyk5]

I'm running .03 degrees of toe in currently. I had orginally thought -1.5 of camber would be ok. But aparrently it's not ok for MY CAR. My point of posting this thread is make people aware of the wedges as oppose to the bolts(at this point in time i don't want to invest in plates). The wedges have a much wider range of motion compared to the bolts.I run a staggered tire setup so i can not rotate my tires. -2.75 degrees of camber is alot(this is similar to what most european cars are setup like......and i see alot of pissed off MBZ and BMW owners because their cars eat up the inside edges prematurely). Rotating ur tires is the best thing u can do for the tires..next to proper inflation. Mustangs with solid rear axles especially benefit from rotations because the rears are always at 0 degrees of camber. 2000 miles on the oe Pirellis before i noticed

 

[DusterRT]

Ouch. 2000 miles is all? .03 degrees isn't much at all, .10-.20 is factory spec.

I think something else has got to be wrong, but that's just me and my humble opinion. I also had a little front-driver that I had -2.5 degrees in with zero toe, and have never had an issue with chewing up tires on it either. Who is doing your alignment?

 

[wesleyk5]

I,m keeping a close eye on the tire wear. As for who does my alignment. A coworker of mine. I work at a high performance wheel and tire store in the ATL,GA area(actually we have 4 stores in and around Atalanta). We specialize in everything from Ferrari,Lambo,Porsche to full blown road race cars.

 

[DusterRT]

Hmm. You know I bet the low profile tires are what's killing you, there's a lot less sidewall to flex so the load is a lot more concentrated when running a lot of camber..

 

[wesleyk5]

The excessive tire wear was noticed while the OE 17" Pirellis were on the car.

 

[Norm Peterson]

A camber setting of -1.5° or higher is going to require that you corner fairly hard on a regular basis, which your drive description does not suggest is practical. Worse still is the concentration of wear while braking, particularly if you are frequently having to brake fairly hard. As the front suspension compresses, camber goes more negative at a rate of about half a degree per inch.

0.03° toe is pretty minimal. I wonder how much and in what direction it changes from there as you drive due to factors like bushing compliance and bearing play.


Wedges are probably better than garden-variety crash bolts and OK for mild to moderate driving. Did you also have to open up the holes slightly in either the struts or the knuckles, or are the bolts still the reduced shank/eccentric things?


Norm

 

[wesleyk5]

You raise a good point about braking and bushing play. As far as the knuckles or strut... no mods were needed at all, the bolt is small enough diameter to provide the required adjustability, but yet strong enough for the load. the wedges will be able to give up to about -3 degrees camber which might be what I set it to when the car goes to Sebring Intl Raceway in May for Camp Steeda. (gonna do more research on camber setting preferences before Sebring though)