Mad Negative Camber. Why?

Mad Negative Camber. Why?

Author
Discussion

Fox-

13,228 posts

245 months

Sunday 29th November 2009
quotequote all
The style? It's a crap old Polo?

warped head

272 posts

172 months

Sunday 29th November 2009
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number2301 said:
Mattt said:
Is it just me who doesn't get this 'Dub' thing?
No it isn't. Euro style is no different to the plastic fantastic Halfords specials of old. I've no time for all the 'track style' cars either.
Track style cars are ok IF used on track.

The amount of spackers with roll cages and what not in cars that have never seen a track is just stupid.

As for the daft amount of negative camber its because the cars are so low that without it the tyres would be ripped to shreds in a second on the arches,

Also due to the fact that most dubbers run stupidly wide wheels that protrude from the arches lots of camber and stretched tyres keep the cars 'legal' although the legallity of stretched tyres is something that i question.

i wouldnt say im a fan of stretched tyres but i dont see anything wrong with 6.5" tyres on a 7" wheel, but 6" wide tyres on 9" wide wheels is just taking the piss and then some

thinfourth2

32,414 posts

203 months

Sunday 29th November 2009
quotequote all
TwistingMyMelon said:
DubZeus said:
My old Polo was lowered on coilovers, had 6 degreees overall camber on the front, handled really well in the twisties but felt twitchy on the straight. Tyres would last around 700 miles but I did it for the style.


Dont care if you hate it end of the day, I loved it & thats all that matters.
"Felt twitchy on the Straight...700 miles on tyres" Prick
Oh ps off with the whole you must conform to my way of thinking you short sighted little man

See those sad old differs in hi-viz sat pointing a speed gun at any passing car that is where you are heading

Lighten up

n3il123

2,602 posts

212 months

Sunday 29th November 2009
quotequote all
DubZeus said:
My old Polo was lowered on coilovers, had 6 degreees overall camber on the front, handled really well in the twisties but felt twitchy on the straight. Tyres would last around 700 miles but I did it for the style.


Dont care if you hate it end of the day, I loved it & thats all that matters.
700 miles on a set of tyres? 700 miles? you are taking the piss?! fking hell are you made of money?!!!

B'stard Child

28,324 posts

245 months

Sunday 29th November 2009
quotequote all
n3il123 said:
DubZeus said:
My old Polo was lowered on coilovers, had 6 degreees overall camber on the front, handled really well in the twisties but felt twitchy on the straight. Tyres would last around 700 miles but I did it for the style.


Dont care if you hate it end of the day, I loved it & thats all that matters.
700 miles on a set of tyres? 700 miles? you are taking the piss?! fking hell are you made of money?!!!
Nope too tight to do the tracking - if that had been right tyres would have lasted 7000 miles

Alfanatic

9,339 posts

218 months

Sunday 29th November 2009
quotequote all
Don't they sometimes do that on the rears to clear the wheelarches? If you lower the car and also put bigger diameter, wider tyres on the car, they start fouling the rear arches pretty quickly. Adding negative camber can give more clearance.

If it's natural then the camber change shouldn't be any more pronounced than it would be on the same car in very heavy cornering. Most suspensions will increase negative camber in compression, usually by design to keep the wheel upright on the road, but as far as I know only swing axles, as found on Beetles, Merc 300SL Gullwings, etc, change camber so extremely because they are pretty much forced to swing around a radius less than half the car's width.

Airbag

3,466 posts

195 months

Sunday 29th November 2009
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Mr MoJo said:

Worse.

WTF is going on there? Did someone leave that out in the sun or something?

clarkey318is

2,220 posts

173 months

Sunday 29th November 2009
quotequote all
thinfourth2 said:
TwistingMyMelon said:
DubZeus said:
My old Polo was lowered on coilovers, had 6 degreees overall camber on the front, handled really well in the twisties but felt twitchy on the straight. Tyres would last around 700 miles but I did it for the style.


Dont care if you hate it end of the day, I loved it & thats all that matters.
"Felt twitchy on the Straight...700 miles on tyres" Prick
Oh ps off with the whole you must conform to my way of thinking you short sighted little man

See those sad old differs in hi-viz sat pointing a speed gun at any passing car that is where you are heading

Lighten up
Thing is, those don't have ABS (Correct me if I'm wrong) and the harder you brake the more negative camber due to suspension compression, effectively meaning that that car has sod all grip. Basically that car is dangerous and should be scrapped.

nike 5

169 posts

188 months

Sunday 29th November 2009
quotequote all
As, has already been said by others, it is because of lowering car.

As I understand it, for each corner, there are two wishbones (top/bottom) which are of unequal length.
Each wishbone, pivots on the mounting point to the chassis.
At the other end of the wishbone, the upright (which the wheel is essentially attached to)joins the two wishbones.
With unequal wishbones, they each have different radius, which means they have different circumferance.

Which means, that if you move 4cm around the circumferance, on the small radius wishbone, it will move closer to pivot point (centre of circle), than the longer wishbone.

As the two wishbones are connected (via the upright) this means that, as they moves upwards/downwards through their individual circumferances, the camber will change.
The idea being that when you turn a corner suspension (body rolls) the camber of wheel will change to an equal degree, keeping tyre flat on the road.

+ + +

Just a thought - when a car is lowered causing the wheels to sit at a negative angle (when at rest).
When the lowered car then goes round a corner, the suspension will compresses (further), and will cause the wishbone angle to increase further, and therefore the (comical) negative camber will increase further?

+ + +

Alternatively, I may have missed the point of question.
Why do people have have such comical negative camber.
In which case I have no idea.



Dunk76

4,350 posts

213 months

Sunday 29th November 2009
quotequote all
nike 5 said:
As I understand it, for each corner, there are two wishbones (top/bottom) which are of unequal length.
Each wishbone, pivots on the mounting point to the chassis.
At the other end of the wishbone, the upright (which the wheel is essentially attached to)joins the two wishbones.
With unequal wishbones, they each have different radius, which means they have different circumferance.
Very few cars have double wishbone suspension at all, let alone in all four corners. A lot don't have any at all.

The only ones in my entire car history to have double wishbones are the Mantas, the Merc Cosworths, and possibly the V70 (I've not checked it). Everything else has either had Macpherson Struts, or trailing arms.

warped head

272 posts

172 months

Sunday 29th November 2009
quotequote all
its not done by lowering a car necesserily (sp?)

I had a car lowered by 70mm and after tracking EVERYTHING lined up as it should and nothing was outside of manufacturer tollarences (sp?)

Just some people will lower a car and deliberatly set up a car to look like that cos its cool init.

But a fair few cars will go back to normal or somewhere near when tracker properly afterwards

triggersbroom

2,376 posts

203 months

Sunday 29th November 2009
quotequote all
Mr MoJo said:
Worse.
rofl Looks like someone dropped something heavy on that car!

Grand piano anyone? wink

clarkey318is

2,220 posts

173 months

Sunday 29th November 2009
quotequote all
nike 5 said:
As, has already been said by others, it is because of lowering car.

As I understand it, for each corner, there are two wishbones (top/bottom) which are of unequal length.
Each wishbone, pivots on the mounting point to the chassis.
At the other end of the wishbone, the upright (which the wheel is essentially attached to)joins the two wishbones.
With unequal wishbones, they each have different radius, which means they have different circumferance.

Which means, that if you move 4cm around the circumferance, on the small radius wishbone, it will move closer to pivot point (centre of circle), than the longer wishbone.

As the two wishbones are connected (via the upright) this means that, as they moves upwards/downwards through their individual circumferances, the camber will change.
The idea being that when you turn a corner suspension (body rolls) the camber of wheel will change to an equal degree, keeping tyre flat on the road.

+ + +

Just a thought - when a car is lowered causing the wheels to sit at a negative angle (when at rest).
When the lowered car then goes round a corner, the suspension will compresses (further), and will cause the wishbone angle to increase further, and therefore the (comical) negative camber will increase further?

+ + +

Alternatively, I may have missed the point of question.
Why do people have have such comical negative camber.
In which case I have no idea.
I had a car lowered by about 90mm and managed to get the camber absolutely fine. It's mostly to get the un-necessarily large tires under the arches. Small amounts of negative camber are fine, most manufacturers allow for +/- 2 degrees either way.
The idea of negative camber is to provide better contact patch during cornering and this, in theory, means that the negative camber will decrease under cornering. In practise I think you're right though, under cornering and, more concerning, braking, the negative camber will increase due to suspension compression.
Would be interesting to know the amount of camber used on touring cars etc just to highlight the idiocy of the situation.

Mr2Mike

20,143 posts

254 months

Sunday 29th November 2009
quotequote all
DubZeus said:
My old Polo was lowered on coilovers, had 6 degreees overall camber on the front, handled really well in the twisties but felt twitchy on the straight. Tyres would last around 700 miles but I did it for the style.
Anything for the style. Never mind about safety or dynamics, or the fact that it's a small shopping car inherently lacking in style.

ZeeTacoe

5,444 posts

221 months

Monday 30th November 2009
quotequote all
clarkey318is said:
Thing is, those don't have ABS (Correct me if I'm wrong) and the harder you brake the more negative camber due to suspension compression, effectively meaning that that car has sod all grip. Basically that car is dangerous and should be scrapped.
what difference does abs make to the suspension?

clarkey318is

2,220 posts

173 months

Monday 30th November 2009
quotequote all
ZeeTacoe said:
clarkey318is said:
Thing is, those don't have ABS (Correct me if I'm wrong) and the harder you brake the more negative camber due to suspension compression, effectively meaning that that car has sod all grip. Basically that car is dangerous and should be scrapped.
what difference does abs make to the suspension?
None at all, but with a small contact patch there is sod all grip so the wheels would lock up very easily leaving you with very little control. ABS would at least make the problem less severe.
What I don't get is why the VW boys put 9 inch wheels on their car, run 6 inch tyres on them and then have enough negative camber that there is only a 1 inch contact patch? Why not just use bicycle wheels? Would save you money on tyres that's for sure.

japcrazed

28 posts

183 months

Monday 30th November 2009
quotequote all
Remember in my'yoof' having a mk2 XR2 which as standard have noticable negative camber,though not crazy like some modded vee dubs or vip jap saloons.

JB!

5,254 posts

179 months

Monday 30th November 2009
quotequote all
That White Mk1 is too much... As is that "bosoku" thing.

On my cupra (16x6.5") I run no caster, slight toe in, and a couple degrees of camber all round due to polybushes not appreciating caster or excessive toe.

When my 16x8.5's go on I'll have to run both stretch (195/45) and probably more camber to keep the tread inside the arch. I'll also be running 20 and 30mm adapters...

It's all fashion really, form over function, but a well excecuted dub looks a million times better than "gaz" in his saxo...

Marf

22,907 posts

240 months

Monday 30th November 2009
quotequote all
JB! said:
It's all fashion really, form over function, but a well excecuted dub looks a million times better than "gaz" in his saxo...
Yet "gaz" in his saxo could probably run rings around a gashed up well excecuted dub around some b-roads.

I guess some people are far too concerned about how their car looks, rather than how well it drives. redface

bales

1,905 posts

217 months

Monday 30th November 2009
quotequote all
Marf said:
JB! said:
It's all fashion really, form over function, but a well excecuted dub looks a million times better than "gaz" in his saxo...
Yet "gaz" in his saxo could probably run rings around a gashed up well excecuted dub around some b-roads.

I guess some people are far too concerned about how their car looks, rather than how well it drives. redface
And thats the crux of the matter, some people are more interested in how their car looks....so what, big deal.

Why should be making a car peform better be any more relevant than making a car 'look' better in their own opinion?

Why bother decorating your house to look better if it does the job of keeping you warm and not falling apart?? Silly argument really, each to their own I say.