andrewhake

I think I have a decent understanding of how increasing the front negative camber will effect the balance of the car. But I wanted to get other people's experience and results. The main thing I have noticed with a stock AP2 with stock alignment is a tendency to understeer on entry into low-speed corners. Specifically a low-speed downhill corner. (Uphill doesn't seem to be as much of a problem) Through mid and high-speed corners the balance seems quite good. I think the obvious answer to this problem is moving to a square setup to change the balance with tires, but I am interested in what is possible through alignment changes alone.

Will increasing the front negative camber (while leaving the rear alone) help decrease low-speed understeer without dramatically effecting mid and high-speed balance? To some extent I would imagine there is always going to be a compromise somewhere, and you must pick and choose, but was interested to see if there might be a method that would retain the higher speed balance and improve the lower speed.

Thanks!

andrewhake

To provide more specific information. I am looking to start increasing the amount of negative camber on the stock car systematically until I find the balance that suits me best. Stock is F -0.5 R -1.5, so I was considering moving to F -1.2 R -1.8 using 225/255 Bridgestone RE-11A. I have gone through a set of RE-11A's already using the stock alignment and with my next set I am going to try slowing adding more negative camber. It seems the S2000 is quickest and happiest right on the edge of oversteer (as am I).

ScandinavianFlick

Generally speaking, adjusting the front camber (on S2000s specifically) to max, and then adjusting the rear to match, then altering rear toe to increase or decrease steady-state oversteer is a proven approach. On-track tire wear and temperatures will give you a general idea of how effective your camber settings are- even wear and inner edges that are 10-20*F hotter generally means you are utilizing the contact patch effectively.

TwoRs

Tire temps will provide the perfect answer. But..........
Yes, more negative with toe out, will dramatically change front grip when everything is considered! Street, track and race being primary for how much.

Unbr3akable

Tire temperature reading are the way to go – all the magic happens at the contact patch. Without a front camber kit, I doubt you'll get enough negative camber but I would dial in as much as you can. With a slightly lowered car, stock adjustments, I max out at ~ -2.2 degrees up front. Tire temperature gradient (NT-01) is flat, indicating insufficient negative camber... shock of all shocks. From my experience, you should notice the biggest difference mid-corner (maximum lateral acceleration), i.e. when the car is settled and you need the negative camber to compensate for the lost camber due to chassis roll.

andrewhake

Thanks for the good suggestions. I am mostly concerned with how the car may respond to these alignment changes considering everything else will remain unchanged. Ride height, spring rate, roll center, etc. It seems that on most cars even a small amount of change in camber can have a rather large effect on the contact patch of the tire and how well it is utilized.

Should I even be considering a change in camber balance front to rear as a method of changing the balance of the car under low speed conditions? Or should camber be adjusted simply to make better use of the tire? Then adjusting other things to change the balance? It seems that it will be most noticeable when the car has settled (as some have mentioned) and therefore be more noticeable in mid to high speed corners or continuous radius corners?

I think maybe I should revise my initial statement and say that I am getting understeer in relatively low speed continuous radius hairpins. In lower speed 90 degree corners for example the car behaves just fine. Maybe it is also a question of how I enter those particular corners? This could definitely be the case. Maybe this should be a discussion of driving technique rather than car setup? While I still plan to increase negative camber to make better use of the tires, it would be even better to have a different technique to rely on when coming across corners like this that give me trouble.

Does anyone have any advice or techniques to avoid understeer in corners like these? I have tried quite a few things but nothing seems to do the trick so far.

sillyboybmxer

I autox........and I went from running factory -ish alignments (more negative in the rear) and i decided to go for "max front camber" and my plowing on corner entry was almost gone in 95% of situations. I wont ever go back.

andrewhake

Excellent good to know. With a staggered setup it seems to make the most sense that running more negative camber in front than in the rear would be ideal. Do you run a square setup? What is your front and rear camber balance?

sillyboybmxer

I was on factory wheels 225/255 when I decided to start messing with alignment( I have since switched to having 245/40 on the front and 255/40 on the rear)
I believe I was -2.8/0 toe/6 degrees caster in front and -2.5/1/16 toe in for the rear. I am lowered so I dont know if you can get nearly that much, but its my opinion I got tons faster with a lot less work once I changed the alignment to max negative in the front.

Bullwings

My alignment settings for when I was fastest with a STOCK class s2k - stock suspension, ap2v2 wheels and 225/255 tires was:

5.5 caster
-2.7 front camber
0toe

-2.4 rear camber
0.18 degrees total toe in (0.09 each side).

It completely transformed the car. Dipstick who has a mod class s2k and a regular stock s2k he uses as a DD drove my car and commented on how good the turn in was and how neutral it felt - he said his stock s2k didn't handle anything like mine. He drove my car as WSIR and did a 1:40.xxx with me in it.

Good luck getting that much front camber though. I maxed out at -1.8. The -2.7 was with hardrace camber joints.

As far as driving technique - i'd recommend more trail braking if you're not doing it already.