Camber Gain during turn

[GMracer]

I'm currently building a 2001 silverado, full frame. If you want check out my thread. However my question is about camber gain. I was cycling the suspension the other day and full turn my wheels don't seem to camber back much, or at all. So I put the suspension in bump to replicate taking a hard turn and still I'm not getting much negative camber during a turn. What would be the best way to correct this? Thanks in advance!

[silver69camaro]

That's tough to answer. If this was a track-oriented vehicle, I'd redesign the whole suspension. If the camber gain is all you want to fix and don't care what else it will change, then shorten the UCA. If it's a street car, leave it be and dial in more static negative camber if you feel it needs more.

[GMracer]

Hmm, I just don't want it to feel unstable in cornering. Basically I used the stock mounting points from my truck and move them ALL upwards to get rid of the ridiculous downward angles at my low ride height. But it seems to have worked very well besides the camber gain.

[silver69camaro]

That shouldn't give you an unstable feeling, probably just make it push in a corner if you entered too fast...but that's typical of a pickup. Sounds like everything will be OK.

[GMracer]

Thanks Matt, I appreciate the professional insight.

[David Pozzi]

Positive caster is your friend.

[GMracer]

Isn't positive when the inclination towards the front of the vehicle? I don't see how that would help without adversely effecting my stability in a straight line

[David Pozzi]

No that's negative caster.
Positive caster is when the top balljoint is to the rear.
When the wheel is turned sharply, caster has more to do with wheel camber. More positive caster will tilt the wheel top inward at full lock or anywhere near it.

A typical spindle has 10 degrees built into it. That means that with zero caster, if you could turn your front wheels 90 degrees, the tire would tilt out 10 deg. Add more positive caster and it tilts out less or even tilts inward. You can only turn your front wheels a small amount of 90 degrees, so you don't see the full 10 deg camber loss.
David

[JRouche]

How did we go from camber talk to caster? Im confused now. Was the issue with camber or caster?? JR

[GMracer]

Caster effects camber...

I changed my caster and saw little to no change in my lock position camber. That's where I was confused. I guess I'll try it out and see how it reacts to the road first.

[David Pozzi]

generally you want around 5 degrees positive caster. More if the spindle has an inclination angle higher than 10 degrees.

I think I answered your question about inclination axis wrong above, the inclination for positive caster has the top balljoint to the rear of the spindle, the lower bj forward of the spindle, the axis hits the ground in front of the tire contact patch, so the tire trails the center of wheel rotation .

[Derek69SS]

I'm not familiar with that chassis, but lowering the upper control arm mounts (if you can) would definitely get you more camber-gain. Without knowing that chassis though, I don't know what else it might effect.

[jaybee]

Very interesting about camber change due to caster. I didn't realize that. So, how much change in caster are we talking about in normal cornering, maybe closer to 1-2*?