Camber Curves, caster numbers

[jpierson77]

I have posted in here a few times looking for setup advice and I feel I have narrowed my search for a new front suspension set up for my 1st gen f body. Im torn between the DSE speed kit 3 or the ATS Chicane Lm kit with afx spindles. It seems that both are going to get the improved caster through the a-arms correct? Both are to improve bumbsteer, so it seems the last of the big problems to fix is the camber curve. Form what I gather the DSE uses a partial(not as drastic of a move) g-mod to improve the camber curve. Ats uses the spindles. With a cost of the ats being $1000 does the ats improve the camber curve that much over the DSE. Or woould the benefit be just that the ATS now allows me to run better brakes. The other option would be to go DSE and order stock ats spindles and still be about $400 ahead. So basically I am looking for cold hard numbers on the geometry anyone know how much better the ATS kit is over the DSE kit? I ran a search and didnt find anything in the way of numbers.

[TitoJones]

I have yet to see anything in the DSE speed 3 kit that addresses the bumpsteer issue. They use factory spindles and Moog replacement tie rod ends which will not improve the bumpsteer over factory at all.

The DSE speed 3 kit relocates the upper control arm about 1/2 way between stock and a G mod to improve the camber gain. While it helps improve the camber gain, it does less than a G mod would and well less than our Tall AFX spindle will. They mainly use it as a combination upper control arm mount and double sheer coil over mount. The way they mount the coil over shock (inverted; they have told people it was for weight distribution) makes it impossible to adjust while mounted. The lower control arm, sway bar and spindle need to be seperated, the coil over needs to be completely removed from the car, and then you can adjust the ride height. In my opinion that defeats the point of having an adjustable coil over.

As far as the upper control arms and amount of caster they can give, the Global West arm will allow for more postive caster with less shims than the DSE one will. When we tested them the most we could get out of the DSE arm was about 4.5-5 degrees. The GW one allowed for 6 degrees.

Our AFX spindle address the camber issue, and bumpsteer issue; plus we give you C5 corvette hubs with a bearing surface almost 3 times larger than a factory spindle.

Bottom line is our Chicane-LM was designed to head to head with aftermarket frames, and the Art Morrison C5 frame is the only frame that beats our geometry.
Our geometry will yield .9 degrees of neg camber gain per inch of travel which exceeds the DSE hydro formed $7000.00 subframe. Our Chicane-LM coil over will allow for ride height adjustments without removing anything from the car, and if you opt for the 8300 series Penske shocks, you can even adjust the valve settings with a few clicks.

We posted our camber, caster and bumpsteer graphs over at Lateral-G. I'll try and find them.

Tyler

[6'9"Witha69]

Tyler, Where on your site are all the new products (swaybar, penske shocks, etc.)?

[TitoJones]

Still cutting the pics out in photoshop. I'll have them up late next week.

Tyler

[68Formula]

DSE doesn't use shims at all on their uppers. They have replaceable inserts that allow an offset for the mounting holes. I have 4 degrees caster on mine (just in the uppers) with the standard insert. Next alignment I will go with more offset to see what the maximum possible is.

The DSE lowers also have additional caster built in. Dialing in positive caster with just the uppers effectively moves the wheel rearward. Dialing in positive caster in the lower does the opposite. So spliting the caster between the upper and lower allows you to have 6 degrees or more total while keeping the wheel more centered in the wheel well. The DSE lower also has a dropped pocket which reduces the ride height without affecting suspension travel.

[TitoJones]

DSE doesn't use shims at all on their uppers.

They still use shims between the cross shaft and the frame. The inserts in the cross shaft will allow you to alter the current amount of caster without needing to add or delete alignment shims.

They also only added about a 1/2 degree of caster into their lower control arm. The GW upper still has the advantage since you don't have to purchase LCA's to get where you want to be.

Tyler

[jpierson77]

TITO
So then does the GW lower control arm not add any caster? How about wheel size for the front end with your kit, whats the max size i can run without rubbing? THe steering box included with your kit is the lees box correct?

[Marcus SC&C]

Forget the ad hype and boil it down to the actual geometry change/improvement based on the movement of the suspension pickup points and the choice is an easy one. Pretty much everything else is fluff.
The G mod has always been a step in the right direction. A bandaid but a fairly effective one as bandaids go. It`s just not nearly enough. Basically it makes very poor suspension geometry... kinda indifferent. But then it wasn`t designed to cure all of the Camaro`s ills it was designed to cheat in TranAm racing and be subtle enough that they might not get caught. A milder version,will still be a step in the right direction but it`s gonna be a baby step I don`t care whos name you slap on it. Geometry and physics aren`t impressed by names,they pretty much don`t care.
Even back in the Trans AM days they knew the cars needed a taller spindle,hell GM even built a tiny run of them before they were outlawed by SCCA. They knew the outter tie rod end was in vertical misalignment and tried various ways to fix it. This is nearly 40 years ago! Those guys weren`t so dumb,the same kinds of fixes work just as well now and it`s easy to quantify. Just do it and measure it!
Today we see a watered down G mod (or for most brands no G mod at all!) and no bumpsteer correction touted as fantastic performance Camaro suspension?

If you do what you`ve always done you`ll get what you always got. Make tiny changes,you`ll get tiny gains.
Now we have things like the AFX tall spindles/Chicane package and our Street Comp Stage 2-Plus etc. that bolt on and give you the real geometry gains those racers wanted so bad but had to fight the rules to get. We`re not bound by SCCA TransAm rules so we can cheat all we want.
All of the companies mentioned here make nice quality products but some will DO a lot more than others. If you really like DSE stuff,or GW stuff or whatever run their arms with no G mod and AFX tall spindles or even our Plus series X-tall ball joints (which raise the UBJ pivot point without changing the spindles) and tall tie rod ends and you`ll really have something because you`ll have made actual profound changes to the flawed factory geometry. Mark SC&C

[jpierson77]

Thanks everyone for the posts, this will help as near the purchase of new parts.