The Ultimate Guide to Suspension and Handling: Part Six, Adding Negative Camber

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 The Ultimate Guide to Suspension and Handling: Part Five, Adding Negative Camber
 A camber plate allows for fast adjustment of camber on MacPherson strut suspension.  However adjusting the camber at the top of the strut affects the steering axis angle which can have other effects.

Unfortunately, camber is not adjustable on most modern cars. Even if camber is adjustable, it’s rarely adjustable enough to align a lowered car correctly. The best way to adjust camber on the typical MacPerson Strut is to use a camber plate. MacPherson Strut camber plates use an adjustable top mount which locates the upper shock mount spherical bearing in a retainer plate that slides laterally on a slotted track.

 The Ultimate Guide to Suspension and Handling: Part Five, Adding Negative Camber
 Elongated bolt holes with a lower eccentric are a pain but a better way to make large adjustments of negative camber in strut cars.  You can duplicate this cheaply by slightly grinding out , drilling or slotting one of your strut mounting bolt holes so you can move the wheel toward negative camber.  This is typically better than using small diameter cammed camber bolts which usually end up slipping.

A less expensive but less handy way to make your camber adjustable is to weld a U-channel bracket to the lower control arm mounts and install a lower control arm bolt with fixed eccentric cams riding in the U-channel.  Turn the bolt and the eccentrics move the lower control arm in and out adjusting the camber.

 The Ultimate Guide to Suspension and Handling: Part Five, Adding Negative Camber
 For multi link suspension, adjustable links are the best way to adjust camber like these parts from SPL.

Simply enlarging the two lower mounting bolt holes in the strut housing about 1/16” with a drill, holding the wheel in the direction of negative camber and retightening the bolts can give you quite a bit of no-cost camber adjustment.

 The Ultimate Guide to Suspension and Handling: Part Five, Adding Negative Camber
 Eccentric bushings like these Whiteline parts can also be used to adjust camber on some cars.

 

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