So I got new tyres and they said the front needs or should have adjustable arms for camber... Looking at the report they are 1.insert forgotten numbers here* degrees... Is this too much? I mean it's stock height taking in consideration 'sag'...are they just aiming for 0 degrees? They said I should get them otherwise the front wheels will wear out in the inside (obviously) Should I be worried due to that being a factory arm set to that camber? I don't mind getting the arms but just want to be sure as I don't want to wear them out, or have them scollop out and make a hell of a racket... Thanks
Well... Zeds normally run a little negative camber, which means that yes, you do tend to wear the inside of the tires a little more. I think the manual says the camber should be somewhere between -0.5 and -1. Dont quote me on those figures, I could very well be wrong. If you are running positive camber, then obviously you'll wear out the outside of your tires and your handling will be worse. Yes, the stock front arms on the zed have no room for adustment, so when you lower the car or your stock suspension sags a little, you will run more negative camber which will wear out your tyres prematurely.. You can either get adjustable front upper control arms (and possible even adjustable toe rods) or do what I have now and buy a shim kit from places like z1 motorsport or CZP. The shim kit essentially gives you that extra little bit of adjustment you need to remove some of that negative camber and bring it back to stock settings. The adjustable arms are also fine, but its more stuffing around, more expensive and then there are issues with certain brands and qualities and the arms breaking. I had some adjustable arms on my NA, and they were great, but sometimes they would creak. And adjusting them was a pain....
Check my signature. Camber wear is almost a myth. Toe will kill a set of tyres in a week, wearing them at the most cambered point. Expand your knowledge...
Thanks guys ill look at the paper work tonight if you really need the exact numbers but I could very well just check my book. I'm not afraid of negative camber I know it's a good thing... But just wanted to know if it was going to be too much wear... To the point of wrecking $800 or more so $400 worth of front tyres pre maturely... More so main concern is 'scalloping' occurring and having that god awful noise from the tyres... Will this happen based on wear on the inside?
Tell you what buddy, you go rock 4* of camber and no toe then get back to me. If I'm right, you owe me a coke.
This sort of went off topic... But would like to know what causes scalloping of the tyre? Would it be the camber of the wheel?
Scalloping of the tyres, aka "tread punching" is usually a combination of defective suspension components and/or tyre construction. Its less than usual in car tyres and mighty rare in higher quality sports tyres. Inner or outer edge wear is a result of excessive toe and/or camber. Sorry Anti, your camber suggestion is flawed. Start buying coke as the more camber you dial, no matter how good the associated alignment, the greater the edge wear depending on being +ive or -ive camber. Cambering the wheel simply imposes more weight on the tyre edge and that edge will wear more as a smaller area is supporting higher static and dynamic loads. The greater the width of the tyre, the greater the transfer to one side of loads for a fixed change in angle... and you cant get around it no matter what you have read. Camber enough and and edge will simply leave the ground and wont wear at all........... Furthermore, the more worn the particular edge becomes, the greater the difference in rolling radius across the width of the tyre which accelerates wear still further. The answer here is to regularly spin the tyres on their rims and then swap sides. This swaps the wear edges but retains tyre rotation direction which is important and evens out tyre wear BEFORE excessive edge wear results and reduced rolling radius changes occur which further accelerates tyre wear......get all that....phwew!!!!. Also, if you -ive camber the wheel, the wheel will track inwards and requires some toe OUT to compensate. This will help strange tracking issues, especially under brakes associated with high camber but the tyre wear issue remains. My advice for EVERYONE save for race only car owners is to align the car to STOCK settings if you want to get best handling and mileage combination out of your setup. The minute you bend up funky settings youll just increase wear with little or NO measureable improvement in actual lateral grip at anything less than "go to jail" speeds. E
