I took my supra to the alignment shop today and they informed me that both front wheels are 0.1 degrees out of spec for the camber (the eccentric is all the way out). 0.5 degrees would put the camber back into the center of the spec range. Do our cars really benefit from a strut brace? Could the brace correct the camber or should I look for more positive camber from a camber kit? BTW my car was lowered (before I got it) using Eibach lowering springs.
Strut brace or camber kit?
- Thread starter teebone
- Start date
what were the measurement for the camber. iirc -.8-1.2 is good. if your tabs havent bent back you should be able to adjust them. i have eibachs and can adjust mine to 0 but i left them at -1.2.
i personally wouldn't worry about it but its up to you. i have -1.4 front (frozen camber bolts) and -1.2 rear with minimal inside tire wear. with a little negative you'll get better handling but nothing major.
With Eibachs you should be capable to align to spec as said before. I remember there being a thread about it...
ValgeKotkas;1420052 said:
^^^Very true. After installing my Eibach pro springs the alignment shop had no problems re-aligning all four wheels
Since the front end is double wishbone (relatively equal length arms IIRC), there won't be a lot of change in camber when lowering. It sounds to me like the alignment shop is trying to shaft you (had a shop do this to me with my dd...told them to get the car off the rack and I was going to take it elsewhere) or your adjusting bolts are frozen.
RiyadYar;1420224 said:
With a machpherson strut, lateral loads go primarily through the lower A-arms, but because there is a moment about the hub, there is a smaller reactionary force going through the strut itself. That force can make the strut towers flex, making a strut tower bar helpful.
With a double-wishbone setup, lateral loads go primarily through the lower A-arms, but again there is a moment about the hub. However, with a double-wishbone design, the reactionary force to cancel this moment comes from the upper A-arms and not the strut. The strut itself is free to handle vertical forces. Since a strut tower bar only is effective in stiffening the tower against lateral loads and since the upper A-arms don't mount to the tower, stb's do very very little in our cars.
ma71supraturbo;1420296 said:
With a machpherson strut, lateral loads go primarily through the lower A-arms, but because there is a moment about the hub, there is a smaller reactionary force going through the strut itself. That force can make the strut towers flex, making a strut tower bar helpful.
With a double-wishbone setup, lateral loads go primarily through the lower A-arms, but again there is a moment about the hub. However, with a double-wishbone design, the reactionary force to cancel this moment comes from the upper A-arms and not the strut. The strut itself is free to handle vertical forces. Since a strut tower bar only is effective in stiffening the tower against lateral loads and since the upper A-arms don't mount to the tower, stb's do very very little in our cars.
Thank you, I've alway been curious.
double wishbones are in theory supposed to keep the suspension at a near-constant camber through a somewhat limited frame of motion. the issue, with most vehicle (my LS400 for example) is that the upper and lower A-arms are NOT equal length, and thereby any significant lowering results in a change in camber. my Lexus, for example runs ~-3.0 degrees of camber in the rear, daily, with the factory camber adjustments maxed out for positive.adampecush;1420291 said:
You actually want camber to change when it's loaded (as in a turn) as it helps handling. It's why the arms aren't equal length.
Strut tower braces do help, just not nearly as noticable as a Macpherson strut type of suspension...
Poodles nailed it on the head about you wanting camber gain cause of handling. The uper and low arms on our cars and pretty far from being equal in length. As the chassis rolls from cornering forces and suspension movement through its range of motion, the tire would not stay flat on the road if the the arms were equal. This is called decambering. By having unequal length control arms (upper being shorter then the lower), the upper arm moves through a tighter radius then the lower thus pulling the top of the spindle (and wheel for that matter) inboard giving you more camber. This help to keep the tire contact patch flat on the ground as the chassis roll angle changes....
The reason why you typically need to set a car up with negitive camer from the get-go is because the rate of gain in camber is not equal to the rate of change in chassis roll angle and this among other reasons is why you want to limit roll angle with stiffer suspension and sway bars. You could change the lengths even more to make the camber gain equal to the chassis roll change, but this cause other problems with things like roll center height and swingarm length, and instant center and so on, but that take a lot more explantion and is not what this thread is about.
Back on the subject of the strut tower bar, the are helpful to a very small effect in increasing chassis stiffness and the stiffer the chassis, the better the suspension can do its job and thus the better the car will handle... With that said, most are for show more then anything as others have said. Unless its one piece bar and endplate, it is pretty much uneffective , that there are two load being applied, both vertical and horizontal load. If the bar is seperate and bolts to the endplates, the bolted section effectively acts like a hindge thus allowing the chassis to flex and yet thats what its supposted to stop. The other thing that adds to this is that you just adding a single bar to a box which has ver little effect. Inorder to make it truely effective, you have to triangulate the box in order to make the box still and unflexible. This is the reason for diagonal bars in say a roll cage....
As for the camber problem in the orignal post, it could be a few things. One they are trying to rip you off but I dont thing that is the case as it was not mentioned that the shop was trying to sell added stuff to correct the problem. Two, you have bent suspension components, but this is probably not the case either as both side are seamingly out equally. Three, the guy didn't set everything up correctly. Fore, you have worn bushings. Thats all that comes to mind at the moment, but there's probably more that Im forgetting.
Poodles nailed it on the head about you wanting camber gain cause of handling. The uper and low arms on our cars and pretty far from being equal in length. As the chassis rolls from cornering forces and suspension movement through its range of motion, the tire would not stay flat on the road if the the arms were equal. This is called decambering. By having unequal length control arms (upper being shorter then the lower), the upper arm moves through a tighter radius then the lower thus pulling the top of the spindle (and wheel for that matter) inboard giving you more camber. This help to keep the tire contact patch flat on the ground as the chassis roll angle changes....
The reason why you typically need to set a car up with negitive camer from the get-go is because the rate of gain in camber is not equal to the rate of change in chassis roll angle and this among other reasons is why you want to limit roll angle with stiffer suspension and sway bars. You could change the lengths even more to make the camber gain equal to the chassis roll change, but this cause other problems with things like roll center height and swingarm length, and instant center and so on, but that take a lot more explantion and is not what this thread is about.
Back on the subject of the strut tower bar, the are helpful to a very small effect in increasing chassis stiffness and the stiffer the chassis, the better the suspension can do its job and thus the better the car will handle... With that said, most are for show more then anything as others have said. Unless its one piece bar and endplate, it is pretty much uneffective , that there are two load being applied, both vertical and horizontal load. If the bar is seperate and bolts to the endplates, the bolted section effectively acts like a hindge thus allowing the chassis to flex and yet thats what its supposted to stop. The other thing that adds to this is that you just adding a single bar to a box which has ver little effect. Inorder to make it truely effective, you have to triangulate the box in order to make the box still and unflexible. This is the reason for diagonal bars in say a roll cage....
As for the camber problem in the orignal post, it could be a few things. One they are trying to rip you off but I dont thing that is the case as it was not mentioned that the shop was trying to sell added stuff to correct the problem. Two, you have bent suspension components, but this is probably not the case either as both side are seamingly out equally. Three, the guy didn't set everything up correctly. Fore, you have worn bushings. Thats all that comes to mind at the moment, but there's probably more that Im forgetting.
No there are no camber kits unless you get aftermarket arms etc...you have another problem that is causing the shop to not be able to align the car so fix that first