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Camber Settings

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twas_brillig

Jedi Knight
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The Forum recently had a Tube Shock Conversion thread discussion, which led to a further discussion regards camber. Have a look at that thread for background (and do a search for camber, and you'll find a lot of intriguing discussion), but I figured I'd start this thread with the "Camber Settings' title to capture anyone who has installed the adjustable plates from Kilmartin and Dennis Welch et al, and was wondering what the recommended settings were.

From Denis Welch Motorsport:
"Thank you for contacting DWR, With regards to your question it does depend on what the car is being used for and what tyres you have on the car. But for a typical road car you would be looking at 3/4 & 1 degree negative."
Doug

From Kilmartin:
" I think most people would go for around 1 degree negative camber for road going Healeys. For competition maybe 3 – 5 degrees negative.
Kind regards
Greg Kilmartin"
 
I've been researching, and experimenting with, alignment settings for a while now (but am in no way an 'expert'). For a road car, I don't think you can go wrong with 0-1deg negative. The 'book' setting is 1deg positive, but most of the shop manual mostly pertains to cars with bias-ply tires (anyone know why bias-ply tires usually got a positive setting? I'm guessing because early cars had solid front axles). Negative camber will give better 'turn-in' while sacrificing some straight-line stability. My dad explained camber to me as: "Think of an ice cream cone laying on its side on a flat table; if you roll it it will scribe a (solid) circle, with its tip at the center." So, with pos. camber the wheels will pull away from the car, and with negative will they will push towards the car. This is called 'camber thrust.' Toe needs to be adjusted appropriately; from Wikipedia:

"This tendency to turn increases the rolling resistance as well as increasing tire wear. A small degree of toe (toe-out for negative camber, toe-in for positive camber) will cancel this turning tendency, reducing wear and rolling resistance."

It will also take up some of the slack in the steering linkage. Excessive camber will cause greater wear on the outer (pos.) or inner (neg.) part of tire tread (in a 'saw tooth' pattern). Note with large neg. camber setting you can run out of safe toe-out adjustment with the stock center tie rod.

There's tons of articles on the internet (it's a complex subject): > Reading and Analyzing Camber Curves <
 
Doug-

What is your question? Are you looking for the optimum camber setting? If so, it really depends on you driving style and the performance set-up of you car. On my '65 BJ8 "family Big Healey" I ran about 1 degree negative camber. With a larger front sway bar, poly bushings, uprated front level shocks and 205 X 15" Dunlop Sport tires, I found this was the perfect set-up for street performance and cruising with a family of four (2 small kids) on a three hour round trip roadie to the Oregon Coast beach and back.
Now, the set-up on my '57 100-6 MM vintage racer is much different. Bias-ply Hoosier 5.50 x 15" race tires, 800 lbs shortened front springs, 1" lower spring mounts, 7/8" custom front sway bar and mounts, DW high ratio steering box, etc, the camber setting is negative 3 degrees.
So, you really need to know your car and the style of driving you intend do.....


 
Agreed. When both us and our cars were young, wheels and tires were skinny -as we were too.
With wider rims and radials, the centrepoint of the contact patch has presumably moved further out, its size and shape changed, the suspension probably acts slightly differently, as do the sidewalls. And I'm still looking for absolutely solid advice on tyre pressures too!
What I think most of us are after is a baseline setting that would represent what the factory setting would be if the cars were still being manufactured today, with the modern tyres and pressures and sizes and rim widths. And your experimentation and experience effectively matches the recommendations of Denis Welch and Kilmartin, so I think we've managed to achieve (and share!) our baseline data.
Thanks to all! Doug
 
Long before the camber plates were available from suppliers like Tom's Import Toys, DW, & Kilmartin an 'old school' racer trick was to use Austin Westminster stub axles. They are a direct replacement for Healey stub axles but when mounted on a Healey, they give about 3* negative camber. The only downside was they used ball bearings instead of rollers and, of course, now days they are probably unobtainium (I have a set if anyone wants to try them).
 
I still have a set of off-set bushings that allow you to dial in about a degree of negative camber. I still haven't installed them. I think I would need to get an alignment and then use the data to rough estimate the right placement of the bushings and then go back to the alignment shop and see where I landed. It all seems to work fine with the stock settings, so I'm in no hurry, but I should go and have the toe in set.
 
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Ideally you want the contact patch of your tire to be in its middle. In the days before the Interstate highways, roads were crowned so that water would run off. And the front wheels on those early cars had positive camber that was well suited to those early roads and the skinny bias ply tires.
But times have changed. The roads are flatter and the tires are fatter and tires are now radial ply. So change your camber settings. There are a number of ways to do it - just do it. It will improve your car's handling and It will not put a strain on your suspension. The Healey front end is the same as a full size Austin sedan. It's practically bullet proof. I recommend anything in the range of neutral to one degree negative.
 
I used offset bushings to get 0.6-0.7 neg camber on my BJ8, which had at least the spec 1deg positive to begin with.

As for alignment shops, make sure they know their way abound Armstrong shocks. I took my BN2, with Kilmartin adjustable plates, to a shop that 'specialized' in antique cars. I was a bit unhappy when they started hammering on the shocks, but didn't say anything. I think they didn't realize you have to loosen the bolts that hold the bump stops as well as the four that secure the shock. After that, I took matters into my own hands and bought a kit:

wheelalignmenttools.com

4-wheel Alignment System - Tenhulzen Automotive | WheelAlignmentTools.com

Features The only all-in-one 4-wheel alignment solution designed for individuals, racers, and independent shops Measure Toe, Camber, and Caster Owners have the freedom to make alignment adjustments whenever they wish, at no additional cost to them The system can be used while the car is on...
wheelalignmenttools.com


I had to have my Mustang re-aligned after hitting a hard bump and adding some suspension mods. The kit agreed with the laser alignment rig within a couple tenths of a degree; alignments are usually given in a range anyway, within a half-degree is usually sufficient. For toe I found toe plates to be the easiest to use, and feel they're pretty accurate.

As for tire pressure, the 'survey said' between 28 and 30psi is popular, a little more in the rears can offset understeer a bit. Be sure to set the pressures you want before alignment.
 
Based on the Forum (and other sources/guesses), we run 30-32 psi front, 28 psi rear, and 32 in the spare.
 
A note from Denis Welch:
"We work on 1-2mm total toe-in. The sliding plates will not adjust the castor. Castor on Austin Healey’s is not adjustable. Back on the subject of Camber the eccentric Nylon Bushes SUF105 will usually give a nice amount of negative camber to a road car."
1 mm equals 1.26 thirty-seconds; 2 mm equals 2.52 thirty-seconds.
 
A note from Kilmartin:
"Not sure if you would need to alter the toe in, from the standard setting. Original Healey caster angle is set at around 2 degrees, which cannot be adjusted unless you start bending shocker arms. This is not ideal as the lower trunnion bushes will be under a certain amount of strain. We offer on our chassis a 4 degree caster angle option. We achieve this by lowering the rear wishbone mounts and raising the front wishbone mounts and angling the shock plate at 4 degrees. Because the car runs a king pin this is the only correct way of achieving a greater angle that I know of."
 
Bob_Spidell said:
Didn't some owners heat and bend the upper A-arms? I don't think I'd be comfortable with that.
Click to expand...
I was at a presentation in the 1970's by a body shop owner, and he mentioned that they had done this type of modification. I don't think anyone would recommend that today, due to metallurgical etc. etc. concerns.
 
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