Is a little negative camber normal?

[Robocop2310]

Hi guys,

I was washing my car today and noticed that my wheels had some negative camber on both the front and rear more so the rear, that is the bottom end is slightly sticking out a little. I checked and the wheel is attached tightly to the hub etc so this must be a camber arm thing. A few of my friends also have this on their cars so just wondering if this is normal?

Below is a photo of this from some sources on the web to illustrate my point. 

 

 

[GTSBoy]

The top car is running >2° camber at the rear, which is not so good for straight line traction, but great for corners.

The middle car is running f**kING HEAPS (TM) of camber at the rear, which is almost certainly to achieve the fitment of seriously wide rubber, at the complete expense of common sense and straight line traction.

The bottom car looks pretty normal.

For a street car you want approx -1° to -1.5° on the rear and approx -1.5° to -2° on the front.  Any more starts to eat into tyre life unless you only drive it fast at night through the hills.  If you want to know how much camber you have, measure it yourself (straight edge, bubble level, ruler, calculator, basic trig), or get a wheel alignment and a report.

[Robocop2310]

4 hours ago, GTSBoy said:

The top car is running >2° camber at the rear, which is not so good for straight line traction, but great for corners.

The middle car is running f**kING HEAPS (TM) of camber at the rear, which is almost certainly to achieve the fitment of seriously wide rubber, at the complete expense of common sense and straight line traction.

The bottom car looks pretty normal.

For a street car you want approx -1° to -1.5° on the rear and approx -1.5° to -2° on the front.  Any more starts to eat into tyre life unless you only drive it fast at night through the hills.  If you want to know how much camber you have, measure it yourself (straight edge, bubble level, ruler, calculator, basic trig), or get a wheel alignment and a report.

Hi mate, appreciate the response. I got a wheel alignment done today and it turned out that I have -1.5 at the front and around -2.2 camber on the rears which is pretty much spot on to what you said. 

I hate "Stance Nation" camber with a passion so I guess mine isn't too bad as is as I do have big 19" wheels and big tires that stick out a little. So I guess this is OK. I only dive occasionally and like taking corners with more grip was just wondering if my camber is "normal" as don't want it to look out of wack. 

Ps. Why do Stance people like outrageous negative camber so much? I think it's hideous. 

[Robocop2310]

This is how my rear currently looks. Never really noticed the camber on the rear but R33 GTR's with larger wheels tend to have -2.2+ camber on the rear. 

Anyone know how much camber this GTR is running?

 

[PLYNX]

Oh don’t get me started on front and fear camber on R33s !

I got very tired of seeing my tyres chewed out on the inside because of what wheel alignment places said I must run for my car when all I wanted was the car to run flat on the road and wear the tires evenly.

Eventually ( after going to two noteable alignment places who told me it couldn’t be done ) I found a place that adjusted the camber to run flat on the road.

I run 255 on the front and 265 on the rear so and get full use out of the tyres even with the rear squatting down under load.

Next one was trying to get the rear subframe alighted centrally to the body so the tyres don’t stick out of the guards by 10 or so millimeters on one side !

[sneakey pete]

There's probably some sort of deep seated problem if you have a 10mm track misalignment...

 

Run 2.5 front 1.5 rear on mine, seems decent on the the track but not at the expense of being silly for the road. Could probably add another half to both though

 

To answer the title of the post though, generally speaking skylines are lowered, and doing so will generally give an increase of negative camber

[Robocop2310]

8 hours ago, PLYNX said:

Oh don’t get me started on front and fear camber on R33s !

I got very tired of seeing my tyres chewed out on the inside because of what wheel alignment places said I must run for my car when all I wanted was the car to run flat on the road and wear the tires evenly.

Eventually ( after going to two noteable alignment places who told me it couldn’t be done ) I found a place that adjusted the camber to run flat on the road.

I run 255 on the front and 265 on the rear so and get full use out of the tyres even with the rear squatting down under load.

Next one was trying to get the rear subframe alighted centrally to the body so the tyres don’t stick out of the guards by 10 or so millimeters on one side !

Yeah I'm with you on this one. I brought my car back to the wheel aliment place (Tyre Factory franchise) and this time they were able to get it down to -2.0 whilst still achieving a balanced 0.00 degree head on alignment. They said that because my wheels are so large 19" and wide this type of camber is expected and perfectly normal but I agree with you one would thought if everything is fine then why wouldn't it be straight 100%. 

[Robocop2310]

4 hours ago, sneakey pete said:

There's probably some sort of deep seated problem if you have a 10mm track misalignment...

 

Run 2.5 front 1.5 rear on mine, seems decent on the the track but not at the expense of being silly for the road. Could probably add another half to both though

 

To answer the title of the post though, generally speaking skylines are lowered, and doing so will generally give an increase of negative camber

Hey mate. I asked around and actually rang Nissan to ask. They said with lowered suspension and bigger wheels with wide tires for GTR's anything from -2 to -3 rear front and rear is relatively "normal" and fine to drive. 

It makes me wonder how some of the Stance Nation guys can have up to -7 camber. Looks ridiculous and drives like crap. 

 

[The Bogan]

It's toe that chews tyres more so than camber I've found.

How much camber/toe you need for your application is relative to how sticky your tyres are, suspension, driving conditions, the cars usage and such, tyre pressures are critical as well

My old R33 boat, GTST, and my MX5 liked -°2.5 front and - °2.0 rear, 0 toe everywhere.

My tyres wore nice and even'ish.

RWD vs AWD settings may be different.

My STI had similar camber settings to the boat, but had a little toe out at the front, 1mm total IIRC, that little bit of toe wore my inner fronts much more, that much more that I needed to flip my tyres on the front rims, left to right, front to rear, to get some longevity out of them.

Ended up getting 0 toe everywhere and the tyres wore much better.

My 86 is currently --°2.0 front and -°2.5 rear (I still need to get rear adjustable LCA) and 0 toe everywhere, I would like to drop the rear to -°1.5 once I get the LCA and test and adjust from there, setting the right tyre presure is hurting my brain, so far, 32 psi front and 30 psi rear seems to be working, I think......

The -°2.0 on the front seem to be using the tyre well for driving (read:thrashing) around the street and trips through the Nasho.

Disclaimer: Dont listen to me, I'm rather drunk ATM.

[sneakey pete]

2 hours ago, Robocop2310 said:

Hey mate. I asked around and actually rang Nissan to ask. They said with lowered suspension and bigger wheels with wide tires for GTR's anything from -2 to -3 rear front and rear is relatively "normal" and fine to drive. 

It makes me wonder how some of the Stance Nation guys can have up to -7 camber. Looks ridiculous and drives like crap. 

 

adjustable arms, change the length of them changes the geometry

[MrStabby]

20 hours ago, Robocop2310 said:

Hi mate, appreciate the response. I got a wheel alignment done today and it turned out that I have -1.5 at the front and around -2.2 camber on the rears which is pretty much spot on to what you said.

Due to the geometry of the arms, the lower the car, the more camber you get. Obviously the factory adjustment range suits the factory height but is often too little if the car is lowered much. Your aligner probably pulled the rears as straight as they could, but if you find the rears wear too much on the inside for your liking, you'll probably need to add adjustable bushes or arms to get more adjustment.

[Robocop2310]

Thanks guys. I might get adjustable camber arms next but had a closer look today and it isn't poking out that bad so the negative camber is barely noticeable so might keep it as is for now. As I don't drive the car much at all, my tires don't wear that much but will keep an eye out on how evenly the wear is over time to adjust camber accordingly.

Appreciate all your help guys great stuff.

[KiwiRS4T]

3 deg negative at the front is fine for the track but too much for street use. Steering in a straight line will be affected as will tyre wear.

[PLYNX]

Just to be clear Id put every adjustable arm, front and back, on mine BEFORE so I could achieve what I wanted and they still told me It wasn't possible on a R33.

I was told this by a wheel aligner with 18 years experience in one place and 23 years experience in wheel alignment in the second place.

The place I go to now got it up on the aligner to one look at it and said no problem !

Haven't had a problem with irregular tyre wear since.

P.S. the very first place forgot to tighten the inner rear upper control arm bolt to the chassis so watch out where you go for you alignment.

[Robocop2310]

On 10/12/2018 at 6:56 AM, PLYNX said:

Just to be clear Id put every adjustable arm, front and back, on mine BEFORE so I could achieve what I wanted and they still told me It wasn't possible on a R33.

I was told this by a wheel aligner with 18 years experience in one place and 23 years experience in wheel alignment in the second place.

The place I go to now got it up on the aligner to one look at it and said no problem !

Haven't had a problem with irregular tyre wear since.

P.S. the very first place forgot to tighten the inner rear upper control arm bolt to the chassis so watch out where you go for you alignment.

Thanks for the great tip mate.

Is the final place you go to a franchise place if so can I get their name? Might give it another go.

[PLYNX]

I've PMed you 

[niZmO_Man]

On 10/12/2018 at 6:56 AM, PLYNX said:

I was told this by a wheel aligner with 18 years experience in one place and 23 years experience in wheel alignment in the second place. 

I found that it doesn't matter how many years of experience you have, if you've only worked on standard runabout cars all your life, you don't know how to set up adjustable arms. I've spends hundreds on "professionals" to set up my car, only for them to fk up my alignments. I did a better job on my driveway with my eyeballs, 0 years experience but did a better job than someone with an alignment machine.

[GTSBoy]

I would also point out that there is a full day's work involved in correctly setting up a fully adjustable rear end on a Nissan.  On and off the alignment machine several times.  Changing the length of the traction arm then checking the effect on bump steer then back onto the alignment machine to fix the upper arm length.  Rinse and repeat.  If you're paying someone to do this for you, you're paying a lot.

I too have done a lot of this stuff myself.  Not so much because I don't trust my aligner, but more so because of the time and cost associated with getting it done there.  A starting measurement on the aligner, followed by going home and measuring the lengths of various arms and some simple trigonometry can tell you how long to set adjustable arms that will be correct to within a couple of points of a degree.  Homemade bump steer gauge to minimise bump problems.  Further twiddling of adjustables and possibly measuring camber with a spirit level or digital level and some more trig, all followed by return trip to the aligners to make sure that toe and camber are right.

[Robocop2310]

On 10/15/2018 at 12:31 PM, GTSBoy said:

I would also point out that there is a full day's work involved in correctly setting up a fully adjustable rear end on a Nissan.  On and off the alignment machine several times.  Changing the length of the traction arm then checking the effect on bump steer then back onto the alignment machine to fix the upper arm length.  Rinse and repeat.  If you're paying someone to do this for you, you're paying a lot.

I too have done a lot of this stuff myself.  Not so much because I don't trust my aligner, but more so because of the time and cost associated with getting it done there.  A starting measurement on the aligner, followed by going home and measuring the lengths of various arms and some simple trigonometry can tell you how long to set adjustable arms that will be correct to within a couple of points of a degree.  Homemade bump steer gauge to minimise bump problems.  Further twiddling of adjustables and possibly measuring camber with a spirit level or digital level and some more trig, all followed by return trip to the aligners to make sure that toe and camber are right.

I took the GTR for a drive today and it drove beautiful and looking from the rear the camber is barely noticeable. I have 19" wheels so and it's lowered so this is probably why. 

I think getting the right wheel alignment is an art. Not easy to get right and then again what is the "right" compromise? 

Thanks for all your information though. Very interesting.