(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Okay sooooo enough of me running my mouth saying this shit and my word having to be taken....

Let's see what a aftermarket performance suspension shop has to say about it.....

You must login or register to view this content.

"On this page we will try to give you more background information on the influence of "camber, caster, toe-in/out on the handeling of your car.
We will start of with a basic explanation first.


CAMBER
Probabely is the most familiar term of the 3.
Camber is the angle of the wheels,relative to the road, looking at the car from the front (or rear).
Try to imagine a vertical line through the middle of the wheel
0 degrees camber is when this imaginary line is in square with the road. (black)
Positive camber occurs when the "middle-lines" are in "V-shape" (red line)
Negative camber occurs when the "middle-lines"are in "A-shape" (green line)



CASTER
Looking to the car from the side;
Imagine/draw an axis-line through the steering-turning-axis of the wheel.
Most of the times through the upper and lower ball-joints or through the
centreline of the McPherson-strut.
Positive caster occurs when the top of this axis-line tilts towards the rear of the
car. (green line), Negative caster is the opposite (red line)
Positive caster provides the selfcentring-force which makes the car go straight without holding the steering wheel.



TOE-IN & TOE-OUT
Looking to the car from the top (or bottom) ;
Imagine lines through the middle of the wheels in riding direction.
TOE-IN occurs when these lines are in "A-shape", lines cross in front of the wheels. (red lines)
TOE-OUT occurs when these lines are in "V-shape"; lines cross behind wheels. (green lines)


By now we hope you're "getting the big picture";





PART 2: What influence do CAMBER, CASTER, and TOE-IN/OUT have on the behaviour of the car?

CAMBER generaly will be around - 0.5 to - 5.5 degrees. (negative)

When cornering the body of the car will start rolling, inducing positive camber. Negative camber will compensate this effect.
Result: more grip and stability while cornering.
Also; negative camber creates a force on the wheels called "camber-thrust". Going straight Left and Right will be in balance and the car goes straight.
Result; better straigth stability with more negative camber.
When cornering the inner wheel will be lifted from a little to sometimes completely. Than the camber-thrust will cause the car to make a sharper turn, pushing the car inwards.
Result; Better cornering
That's why car-designers try to keep about 0.5 degree negative camber while cornering with the suspension being compressed. That means that the negative-camber at ride height will become more negative when suspension compresses, at the same time the bodyroll will eat up negative camber. Hopefully leaving a bit of negative for Cornering-grip and better steering and even heating of the tires as well as even tire-wear.

Question; Is Negative-Camber always a positive thing?
Answer; No
Why; It will cause tire-wear on the inner-side of the tyres going straigth.

Ideal would be that the tires are always perpendicular to the road under all circumstances.
For a salooncar this will be harder than for a race car, because of more wheel-travel, softer suspension, more body-roll.
Also tire wear should be economical with a saloon-/street-car. Racers have more budget for tires.........most of the times.

So a compromise has to be made;
Most of the times this will be between 0.5 and 2.0 degrees negative camber.

On most streetcars camber is rather difficult to adjust.
Except if you use Intrax camber-plates, than camber can be adjusted in a few seconds.

CASTER (or CASTOR)
Generaly will be between +2 and 5.5 degrees, positive.
Only applies to the front-/steering-wheels.
Caster is needed to create straigth-line stability or one could say "directional steering stability"
In order to understand what the effect of caster is we can take the front-wheels of a shopping cart.
These wheels do have positive caster and because of that they will go in the direction where you push the cart.
If you would turn these wheels 180 degrees than they would have negative caster.
Pushing the cart now will be a lot more difficult and at the same time very unpredictable/unstable.

Positive caster will also affect camber when steering;
The outher wheel will get more negative camber as the inner wheel's camber will get less negative.

The more positive caster the more "feed-back" you will feel driving the car, especially with a force feedback wheel.
One could think, "the more positive caster the better" but that's not really the case.
It would make steering harder as the steering force will increase.
Also there's another disadvantage;
While steering; positive caster will cause the inner wheel to rise and the outher wheel will drop.
This again will transfer "corner-weight" from the inner to the outher wheel, causing a loose feeling in the car.

Normally it's not so easy to adjust caster on a car but using Intrax camber-plates also makes the caster adjustable.

TOE-IN / TOE-OUT
Affects 3 majore areas; Tire wear, straight-line stability and corner entry handling.

For minimum tire-wear it would be ideal to have the wheels parralel / 0 degrees while riding.
This can be acomplished to give a bit static toe-out to a frontwheel-drive car, or toe-in to a rearwheel-driver.
A frontwheel-drive car has the tendency to understeer.
Toe-out will induce a bit of oversteer, so it could compensate the frontwheel-driver's understeer.

Excessive toe-in will cause the tire to scrub on the outboards and so will shorten the tire-life.
Too much toe-out will cause the inboard edges to wear out.

Steering response will be improved with toe-out.
Straight line stability will be improved with toe-in.

Sometimes toe-in or toe-out is used for another effect; Tire-temperature.
For racing-tires it's very important to reach a certain temperature in order to deliver maximum performance/gripp.
If the tires stay too cool than toe can be used for the "scrubbing" efect,
The scrubbing also has another positive effect; It will scrub the tires clean providing extra gripp for braking and cornering.

Street cars often are set up with toe-in; For good straight-line stability cornering is sacrefied.
Race cars are often set up with toe-out; Straight-line stability is sacrisfied for good cornering.

If the suspension is independent; Toe-in or -out can also be applied to the rear-wheels. The effect on the rear-wheels is generaly the same as on the front.

Also there's a difference between static and dynamic toe. Especially on a frontwheel-driver you see this happening.
The same goes for a rearwheel-driver with independent suspension left and rear.
What happens is that when torque is applied ; The driven wheels pull themselves forward trying to toe-in.
Now it depents on the construction of the suspension how much the toe-in will increase.
On streetcars this effect is a lot bigger than on race cars as they use softer rubber bushings in the suspension-joints.
These provide more comfort and "kill" more noise but doing so sacrefice precision and stiffness.

CONCLUSION:
All the above is of great importance on the handeling of the car. as well as the level of satisfaction of the driver.
So if possible use factory settings or settings who have proven to be good, as a starting point for a new setup with new springs, shocks, and/or camber-plates on your car.
Investing a vast amount of money in new shocks and not lining the wheels again in a proffesional workshop, could make your suspension-investment absolete!
It could be that you do not feel any improvement of the suspension upgrade. Also your car can easily become unsafe on a straigth, during cornering and/or under braking.
Also we hope you understand more about the lining of a car and at the same time are aware of the importance of it."

Don't get mad at me I ACTUALLY KNOW WHAT I'm talking about :O


Fucking BS that gets sold at GTP is fucked up. Dolhaus wrote the tuning guide for GT6 at GTP. Seriously, guys who don't know shit about tuning are writing tuning guides?? How the fuck does that work? Lmfao They copy off the net adding in misinterpretations to the facts just fucking everything up. They most likely have good source material, its the terrible interpretations that are what's fucking them up.

Dolhaus says.

""""Front toe out will give you a more aggressive initial turn in but will cost you front end grip mid corner"""""

SiNiST3R Says: Yes to more turn in But NO to costing grip Mid corner, front toe will NOT mess with cornering grip at all past turn in, also he must of forgot it adds straight line stability :O and will be less prone to understeer in.

""""""Front toe in means that you will have a less aggressive turn in but increased front end grip during mid corner."""""

SiNiST3R Says: Yes less aggressive turn in BUT again NO it will NOT increase grip mid corner, again he forgets to mention it will add straight line stability and less prone to oversteer.

SiNiST3R Says: while front end toe adjustments won't affect grip in the corner, rear end toe adjustments will. The front benefit from a steering wheel controlling the steering angle, the rear are fixed.

""""""Rear toe in will stabilise the car in a straight line and cause understeer during cornering""""""

SiNiST3R Says: Yes to stabilizing the car on the straight and it will generate some understeer.

Finally got something right, most often they mix fact with bad interpretations, too bad its overshadowed by bad interpretations.

""""""Rear toe out will stabilise the car in a straight line and encourage rotation during cornering."""""

SiNiST3R Says: Did you forget what you just wrote about Rear Toe-in?

Let me remind everybody
" Rear toe in will stabilise the car in a straight line"

How can Rear Toe in and Rear Toe out BOTH stabilize the car on the straight??? Easy, it DOESN'T.

Adding rear toe out will NOT IN ANY FUCKING way stabilize the car on the straight, in fact it will do the exact opposite, BUT yes it will rotate easier around the corner.

I would expect the Guy who wrote the GTP tuning guide to know what he's talking about but he seems to get his tuning info from wikipedia and even that he misinterprets and doesn't understand suspension tuning as well as he leads on....

Although I do not disagree with the effects of toe-in vs toe-out in regard to straight line stability I do disagree with the reasoning as to why it does.

Clearly the toes on my feet have nothing to do with how an vehicle handles. WTF is 'bend upfront'? This is just plain stupid.

The picture is misleading as force vectors don't actually collide. While travelling in a straight line there is no difference between the two, the opposing forces cancel each other out.

Any stabilizing system works by what it does when said system starts to become unstable. In the case of a RWD vehicle toe in helps maintain a straight line when one side's grip is greater and starts to get ahead of the other by increasing the force in the direction required to correct for the rotation of the vehicle. Toe out also does this but to a lessor degree as the correcting tire is the one having the less grip. Toe out also increases the initial rotation due to that side having more grip also increases the force in the direction of rotation until the lessor grip side can counter it. This of course causes more oscillation in the system.

If that is not clear imagine what happens to the force directions when the vehicle rotates (while driving in a straight line). One tire's force is more in the direction of travel while the other points more in the direction required for correction. Toe-in works better simply because the side further forward probably got there due to temporary increased grip and the toe in counters the tendency to get ahead of the other side.

The same thing occurs with toe in just the opposite direction.

I have no idea where they pulled that bs out of but seems like it came out his ass.




It's right toe-in the opposing forces will collide centering direction, its this canceling out that goes straight stabilizing the rear end and when a difference is introduced it will have to fight the other side to over rotate, stability on the straight but understeer in the corner. When toe out the slightest difference will have the tail wandering. This is unstable on the straight as any imbalance has the tail wandering one way or the other, but more willing to rotate often more than desired, unstable on the straight, and more rotating in the corner, oversteer.

Its also important braking into the corner, as toe in will stabilize and toe out will destabilize while braking.

In all my year I've never, not once, on any car ever introduced rear toe out to stabilize the car on the straight, it just won't happen. The tire with grip is extremely important here.

Toe out if you imbalance the grip either side while going straight, let's ray right side grip loss, then the left side with grip will get more grip and keep rotating in that direction to the left. The tail will wander to the left, transfer weight to the left and keep going left as this gives more grip to the tire pulling the tail out to the left, counter steer and it reverses direction, back n forth.

That is what I mean by wandering.

Toe in, if the grip loss is again on the right the left tire will want to go right, but this only returns weight and grip on the right side tire apposing the directional kick from the grip loss reestablishing right side grip and then centering as the grip levels off keeps the tail in check.

The picture tells the story albeit oversimplifies what's going on however simplifying an extremely complex situation is not a bad thing IMO. Toe in, the car wants to go straight, toe out, the tail wonders.

No, physics do not work that way, not in this universe any way. The forces do not collide! Isaac and Albert would be rolling over in their graves! Besides that the forces that propel the car forward are in the opposite direction to the movement of the car which puts toe out forces on a converging path. How's that for common sense?

It is also not the cancelling out of opposing forces that causes the stabilization. If that were the case then any amount of toe-in or toe-out would work as long as both sides were the same to cancel each other out. Cancelled out forces (balanced) simply make it so there is no force.

The stabilization comes from the corrective nature the forces have when outside forces unbalance the system, not because they 'collide'. When the vehicle is not pointed in its direction of movement the forces applied by the driving wheels are no longer balanced, part of the total force is corrective. This corrective force is there with or without toe-in. But with toe-in it is increased faster in relation to the rotation of the car providing quicker correction.

This can all be shown mathematically with simple trigonometry but first requires a correct understanding of forces to begin with. Once that is understood mathematical proof of this simple concept is usually not required.

All your other points are moot as we are not in disagreement to the advantages of toe-in, only in the reasons why straight line stabilization is improved.

Edit: You changed some of your post while I had this up. The wandering you talk about is not caused by the toe-in nor the toe-out, only the time to respond is affected. Also the picture is extremely misleading and shows a complete misrepresentation of basic physics. And physics is my thing so it offends me.

It was my understanding that in a toe in set up the left side is trying to go right and the right side trying to go left, but because the 2 are equal they cancel each other out and straight is the direction of movement. I can see it the same as with toe out BUT with toe out the w wheels trying to go in opposite directions, so any imbalance will allow the tire with more grip to go the direction it wants to go. With toe out the tires are trying to go away from each other.

Toe in any imbalance only serves to correct itself as the tires are trying to go towords each other when one slips the other will go in the direction of the slipping tyre and doing so returns lost grip to the tire slipping and returning to balance and going straight.

Double post (having posting and editing post issues)

I am open to expanding my understanding of the physics involved, SO if I got something to learn, by all means, teach

Moved

Double post error