Camber plates

[robokill]

Ok the topic says it camber plates,

Seeing the use of camber angle in a car and the purpose that comes with it i think camber plates are useless on a AE86 the blue hachi racer from a friend of mine has everything we dream off but no camber plates he himself is a great mechanic (he has a blacktop in a TE71 now :-)

Finds the camber plates useless when i talked it over with a friend of mine who has 40 years of exp also preparing formula 3 cars etc he also says its pretty useless considering in a hachi you only camber the front.


What are your opinions on it????

[Mux213]

I'm no expert so I am probably going to say something stupid now

I think for racing around the circuit 'normaly' it has no use, to much unbalance front to back.

I think for drifting around a circuit it can be usefull for a lowered car since the rear wheels will brake traction anyways. That is, if I understand NoHachis remarks in other threads correctly.

Still the issue becomes a bit more complex because on our cars we have a solid axle. This means that no matter how much the geometry of our car changes, the wheels will always have full contact with the road. The only situation this doesn't happen is if we have 1 wheel in the air. So camber sounds pretty stupid on a solid axle.

On independent suspention like we have in the front, and other cars also have in the rear. Body role and shifting loads change the geometry of the suspention causing the angle at which the tire touches the ground to change. When this angle changes grip is reduced. So adding camber is one way to allow grip to remain by keeping the tire flat on the surface.

But in that way, 'static' (no idea if that is the right term) is always a compromise. While it may be set optimal under cornering loads, it may be wrong for pure braking loads in a straight line.

Anyways, I could be missing the point completely here NoHachi you should be able to give some sound advise on this?

[The Doctor]

robokill Wrote:he himself is a great mechanic (he has a blacktop in a TE71 now :-)

offtopic

That TE71, is that a white one?
I saw a white TE71 @ Drachten this year.
He drove 11.27 or so. Very impressive.

And the engine sounded pretty weird (almost like a motorbike).

Could it be him?

I also got a movie from this drag, but it's an 10mb mpg movie

/offtopic

[Ivan141]

The guy is a lil bit chubby...maybe it is him...amsterdam accent. I've only seen him once though, seemed like a nice guy, just a bit obsessed with wreckless driving
I wouldnt be amazed to find him on a drag event since he does about every sort of racing he can think of.

[NoHachi]

Camber plates not only change the amount of static camber, but also the rate of camber gain under suspension movement. They can be used as tuning tool to adjust the amount of camber gain on compression to the amount of body roll experienced. (look at the drawings in the other thread!)
I would think that it is always a good thing to have these plates set at maximum negative and then correct the wheelgeometry with some positive camber roll center adjusters (Yes positive). But I'm sure I'm missing some of the negative effects of the tilted struts. Probably some sort of bending force is applied to the struts that may reduce life expectancy.

And by the way...sollid axle cars do NOT have the wheel flat on the pavement during cornering. The car itself rolls and so do the suspension mounting points. The suspension has no choice but to tilt the complete axle. Basically it sucks, there is a reason that suspension technology has moved on since..

[ZaX]

Camber plates are very usefull on a drift car.
If fact, you don't need them if you can set the camber in any other way (like NRCA's).
I like runing my AE86 with 3° camber in front. I gave me much more grip and control in corners when drifting. I'd say more camber for drifting is good.
camber plates make no sence in drag racing or daily drive.

[Mux213]

NoHachi,

Shows again I'm not talking out of experience but from what I've heard. And what I hear is not always correct So I stand corrected