I just rebuilt the front end on my 87 camaro,( ball joints,inner and outer tie rods,adjuster sleeves,center link, idler arm,pitmin arm, struts and upper strut mounts,and new sway bar and end link bushings) when all this was completed I took the car in for an alignment. I got the car back and it handles great and runs nice and straight when on flat roads. Problem is when I am in the curb lane on ashphalt roads,which pitches towards curb.The car really wants to pull to the right, and I also noticed that it chases the truck tire ruts in the ashphalt. Seems fine on concreat roads. Is this normal ? I rember reading in one of the post about cars chasing the tire ruts, but I'll be darned if I can find it again.Is this normal? I thought I read something about adjusting the steering gear.
Thanks for any input.

 

What tires are you running?

Wider tires and tighter suspension setups do tend to do that. GM got tired of dealing with the complaints with the C5 vettes and actually started putting significantly narrower front tires on the standard models just because of that. Sometimes you can get rid of some of it by getting rid of flex in the suspension pivot points (4th gens really respond with replacing the rear front control arm bushing with a bearing, but that suspension is actually designed around the idea of that bushing flexing to allow the arm to move), but that may be more hassle then you're willing to go to and typically by the time you get it really under control with wide tires you have a pretty harsh ride.

 

I am only running P235 60 R15s,But it does make sense that the tighter the suspension is the more the road surface will effect it. THANKS for your input, I can't wait to see what happens when I install my SFC's.

 

Do you have a print out of the alignment settings? If so, post them here.

 

No I don't have a print out.

 

It's generally recommended here to go for a half a degree more caster on the passenger side of the car, to get rid of the car wanting to pull towards the sidewalk.



The settings above are quite different from stock settings (4.7 deg caster on both sides and +0.3 deg on the camber) Stock settings should be avoided at all costs.

 

So what is the difference between street and hard street use. And are you saying that 4.7 deg caster and+0.3 camber are the stock settings.I like to take my corners tight and fast, is that considered hard street use ? Which settings should I use for my type of driving that won't eat my tire's to fast.

 

Need some negative camber otherwise the outside edge of the tire will wear.

As for the pulling, any chance the rims were changed to ones that have less offset? That is moving the rim toward the outside of the car.

This will increase the scrub radius which affects the amount of force the wheel/tire will place on the steering.

RBob.

 

The rims on the car are the 5 spoke Z28 rims ( I believe ) they were on the car when I bought it. I always had a little pulling on the ashphalt roads, but after the new parts and aliengment it's more pronounced. In the chart above from Reid Flemming should I try the hard street settings?

 

Personally I'd run a combination of the street and hard street settings.

Camber -0.5 to -0.75
Caster 5.0 left and 5.5 right (or as close as you can get)
Toe In 3/32

The -1 setting for camber is for the people that like to have lots of fun with their cars, but don't do much highway driving. If you do lots of highway driving, aim for -0.75 camber at the max. But even -0.5 is still really good.

-1.0 camber can result in inside tire wear on cars that see lots of highway miles.

The +0.3 camber (stock) setting WILL wear out your outside front tires. Guaranteed.

You may or may not be able to get 5 and 5.5 on the caster setting. Lowered cars can get higher caster settings than stock height cars. And aftermarket solid bearing strut mounts tend to have more adjustment than stock strut mounts.

 

Thank you so much, I will go with your recommendation, I like having fun but do a little highway driving.THANKS AGAIN

 

Glad to help.

When you get the alignment, try and get the before/after sheet and post it here. Alignment shops are notorious for doing the bare minimum in terms of alignment. Plus it's always interesting to see how much driving difference a member gets after a GOOD alignment.

 

those are the numbers that Global West published in the early '90's or maybe earlier (I didn't get into f-bodies till '92 and that was about the time that GW was developing a lot of their f-body stuff).

You'll find that a lot of cars can't quite reach those numbers, as you move the caster + you can't get as much negative camber. I usually end up happiest with around -.75 to -1 camber, and then run as much caster as I can get with that setting (I've slotted the tops of the strut towers to get that up around 6, and usually at that point you're so far over in the strut tower opening that you can't run the stock strut rod shields). Oh, and usually set the toe to around 1/16" in.

More caster = more self centering and more stability at speed (dedicated drag car suspensions are often set to 6-10* just to make them as stable as possible). Toe in helps some also (toe out makes it twitchy, but gives you faster response which is why they use it for slalom). Enough negative camber will cause more wandering (and eventually hurt braking), but like others have said these cars need some to keep them from chewing up tires. Go around -.5 if you're concerned about it, but if you are pretty aggressive, then you'll want a little more (when I was younger I used to swear by -1 to -1.25*, got perfect tire wear and a lot of tickets)

 

heh, yea. It can also be quite hard to find someone that will set the alignment to your numbers rather than what it shows in the computer. I usually ask and also ask if I can be present when the work is being done, and if I get a no on either I go find someone else.

 

Well I got the new alignment done, They tried to get it as close to the #s I requested as possible, but as they showed me, with the stock front end they were limited on just how much they could move it. The biggest difference was in the toe, and that seem's to have made quit a difference in the car running for the curbs. I am a lot happier with the way it drive's now. I need to get a scanner so I can post all the before and after settings.I love to drive it hard and will invest more into the suspension now that you have give me some education on the settings and what they do. Thanks ALL

 

Why on earth did the factory set these cars up with positive camber, that's retarded....
And just to add some input, toe wears out tires more than anything, every 1/8th of toe is equivalent to dragging your tires sideways 28 ft for every mile you drive, so if you toe the car out, make sure you find a happy medium for the way you use your car.

Generally for better handling, cast is increased for straight line stability at speed, but also to increase camber while turning, camber is generally brought inboard a little more, and for steering response, toe should be out a bit, factory toe is generally in a little bit, as when the car goes forward it will toe out a little bit.
Also caster is often biased for road crown(roads are not flat, they rise toward the center so that water can drain off) hence if everything is even, the car will pull to the side of the road, I suspect this is why the OPs car might have been pulling to the right, esp. if the factory specs didn't account for road crown and it was aligned to factory specs. Though if it is set up to be biased and you are driving on a 2 lane highway in the left lane for example, then you would most likely pull to the left.

 

The positive camber was for legal reasons, it induces understeer under all conditions, and an understeering car is considered safer for the average moron behind the wheel. An understeering car sort of fixes itself when you get into trouble and let off the gas, where an oversteering or even neutral car will try to loop or otherwise get you into trouble.

The problem with your toe comments is that we're aligning cars in a static state, but when the car starts moving the bushings and suspension linkage flex/compress and tend to go slightly toe out, so most cars are setup with a little toe in to compensate.

 

I know that about the toe, I said as much...And yeah, I could see that reasoning for the camber, honestly though, I'd feel safer in a rwd car that oversteered than understeered...

 

If you don't have a scanner, just type up the numbers for us.

As I understand toe in/out, when you accelerate, the car toes out slightly. When you brake, the car toes in slightly. This being the reason why autocross cars (particularly short track) prefer toe out numbers. They're doing mostly hard braking more than anything.

So for the average person driving down the road, a small toe in is preferable to toe out.

With stock rubber or even poly bushings up front, the 3/32nds total toe in numbers work well. For cars with del-a-lum or steel bushings up front, the 1/32nd toe in number is an option. Regardless though, if you have zero toe in, the car will be twitchy on the highway as it will want to dart sideways on you with every imperfection in the road.

 

So to pull this thread out of the graveyard, I have a similar issue after getting a full alignment to the factory specs. What they did was this:


Can anyone look at this and tell me how to improve my ride? I do drive a lot on the highway, but in general I would tend to the harder street use settings.

 

Looks like they did exactly what is discussed above. I can't remember which toe in or out is + or -. I'm not sure why it shows almost a half degree of positive camber on both side, then says 0 cross camber but a little negative is the preferred.

they should have set the caster even or at least within .5*. That much difference in caster can make it pull. Usually we just push the strut mounts back (towards firewall) as far as they go.

Maybe someone else knows for sure or you can just ask the shop if + or - is toe in or out but .09* total toe is 3/32". That is .045* on each side. You most certainly want .09* or 3/32 total toe in on these cars.

I would go back and have it done to the specs posted above on the chart. I'd go with the hard street settings but only -.5* to -.75* on each side of camber. A full degree of negative camber will effect your tire wear more than you want if you do mostly highway driving.

Might cost you extra. I took mine to a trusted shop, sign on the wall said $59 or $69 for 2 wheel alignment. I paid around $100 cause they charged me labor rates instead cause such specific settings took longer than normal.