Coilover Camber Question

[Kiwi-Corolla]

I finally bit the bullet and bought some secondhand Cusco coilovers, however I have a bit of a problem with the tyres hitting the outside edge/lip of the front guards when going down dips in the road or when going fast around corners. It's not excessively low by any means, but I'm running 17x7's, +38 and 205/40/17 tyres so things are a lot closer now that I've gone down another 25mm.

I've set the front camber to as far as it'll go on the original bolt layout (the four bolts on the furthest threads of the camber plates), which gives me a front camber of 1.30 degrees on the left and 2.10 degrees on the right (according to the alignment machine print-out).

It wasn't until after getting my wheel alignment today that I realised I could gain more negative camber by simply moving the bolts nearest the engine bay out to the next thread which would allow me to slide the camber plate in more. This would bring the wheel further away from the edge of the guard and should hopefully stop it from touching the plastic as the shock compresses down dips etc.

So my question is: If I change the camber a little, will I need to go back and get another wheel alignment?

The height will remain the same, it'll just be the camber that will be slightly changed, only just enough to angle it in away from the edge of the guard.

Quick photo of how it's sitting right now:

[Lloyd]

Have you got a pic of where its rubbing?

Have you rolled the guards already to clear up that issue? If its rubbing on the plastic then the easiest would be to either cut out the bit that its rubbing on or to heat it and press it up. More camber is going to eat tyres fairly quickly.

[iOnic]

^ This. Roll the guards/give em a slight bit of pull.

[crispy'86]

As they have all said if you've rolled the guards, and depending how much you alter the camber you will need to get another alignment.
We played with the settings on my fxgt when i was racing it, similar thing with coilovers and camber plates, i think from memory for every 1 degree of negative camber it alters the toe by as much as 15mm?? Maybe 5mm at most?? I had it written it down somewhere. Doesn't take much to knock the toe about so as much of a pain in the arse that it is, needs to be done.

[Kiwi-Corolla]

Have you got a pic of where its rubbing?

Have you rolled the guards already to clear up that issue? If its rubbing on the plastic then the easiest would be to either cut out the bit that its rubbing on or to heat it and press it up. More camber is going to eat tyres fairly quickly.

No pics unfortunately, but it seems to only be noticeable on one side (the driver's side). You can see a thin black line where the rubber of the tyre has been hitting it. At first I thought the problem was two of the screws that hold the guard liner on as you could see where it had been rubbing against them, so I removed them. Whilst this made the noise less frequent, it still rubs when going over dips in the road.

Only the rear guards have been rolled, not the fronts. The lips on the front guards are very small, barely able to be classed as a lip really. I'm guessing that even with the lips rolled it would still hit the plastic shield just before the edge of the lip, so I might have to cut it like you mentioned.

Short answer is yes you will need to get another alignment.
We played with the settings on my fxgt when i was racing it, similar thing with coilovers and camber plates, i think from memory for every 1 degree of negative camber it alters the toe by as much as 15mm?? Maybe 5mm at most?? I had it written it down somewhere. Doesn't take much to knock the toe about so as much of a pain in the arse that it is, needs to be done

Ok cool. Thanks for the advice. The place I went for my alignment today said they couldn't get my toe back to zero for some reason. So they've set it to 2.5mm on the left and 2.3mm on the right. Before the alignment it was 9.4mm on the left and 9.4mm on the right . Now my steering wheel is slightly off-centre.

[Lloyd]

wtf? How on earth can you not get the toe back to zero??

In all honesty, get the wheel alignment back to near as you can to factory setting, even if that means near enough to zero camber. Sort your clearance issues from there.

Trim the plastic where it hits, or heat it. From the sounds of it it's barely touching. It doesn't take much to make noise.

[Kiwi-Corolla]

wtf? How on earth can you not get the toe back to zero??

In all honesty, get the wheel alignment back to near as you can to factory setting, even if that means near enough to zero camber. Sort your clearance issues from there.

Trim the plastic where it hits, or heat it. From the sounds of it it's barely touching. It doesn't take much to make noise.

I can't remember exactly what they told me but it didn't really seem to make sense. I might go back and tell them to do it again as it obviously hasn't been aligned correctly.

Yeah it's barely touching, just enough to annoy me. If I went for more positive camber wouldn't that make the problem worse since the edge of the tyre would be sitting closer to the outside of the guard?

It was also scrubbing against the inside splash guards (the ones that cover the underside of the car and the sides of the engine/transmission), so removing those completely solved that problem

[Dell'Orto]

No pics unfortunately,

I call BS

Sounds like the guys doing the wheel alignment are purely going by stock settings, and getting confused when it doesn't play ball. Steering wheel off centre is reason enough take it back!

[Mr Revhead]

1.3 is prob around the max you would want. -2 is insane on the front of a fwd road car.
and yeah, sounds like your alignment guys are muppets

[Kiwi-Corolla]

No pics unfortunately,

I call BS

Sounds like the guys doing the wheel alignment are purely going by stock settings, and getting confused when it doesn't play ball. Steering wheel off centre is reason enough take it back!

Yeah they showed me the stock settings on the computer and that's what they were trying to match it to. I was going to go to my regular alignment shop who only charge $35 for a 4-wheel alignment, however I wanted to go somewhere who were familiar with coilover set-ups, so I was recommended to go to these guys who charge $75 for the alignment, and to my disappointment they didn't do anything during the alignment that my normal alignment place wouldn't do......

After aligning it the guy took the car around the block (must have gone for a bit of a cruise because he was gone for about 5-minutes). When he came back he chucked it back up on the hoist and was adjusting something under the front of the car. After the job was done I asked him what the problem was and he said the steering wheel wasn't straight so he chucked it back on the hoist. When I started driving home I was surprised to see that the steering wheel still wasn't straight.....Definitely going to take it back I think. I'll sort out the rubbing problem tomorrow though by heating up the guard plastic and pushing it up a bit. That way if worst comes to worst and I have to adjust the camber slightly I won't have to take it back for a third time.

[Mr Revhead]

Adjusting the camber alters other settings. Change one thing, all others change as well

[Kiwi-Corolla]

1.3 is prob around the max you would want. -2 is insane on the front of a fwd road car.
and yeah, sounds like your alignment guys are muppets

Right now the camber settings are:

Front:
Left: -1.30 degrees
Right: -2.10 degrees

Rear:
Left: -1.45 degrees
Right: -2.10 degrees

The rear camber has been set like that for years but according to the alignment sheet the factory rear camber specs are between -0.35 and +0.45. Maybe it's the wheels and 8mm spacers which aid in the additional camber?

[Mr Revhead]

Yuck.
I've found with Corollas they are best at around 1.25ish front and about .5 less than that on the rear

[Kiwi-Corolla]

Adjusting the camber alters other settings. Change one thing, all others change as well

That's good to know. Thanks. I just noticed on the alignment sheet that before the alignment was done the rear toe was 0.8mm both left and right, but after the alignment the rear toe is 2.8mm both left and right....So they've actually added toe instead of reducing it back to zero

[Bling]

What are the factory allowances for toe on the car? I had an alignment done on the weekend and don't recall any settings being 0. Though I forget to ask for a print out so I can't check. Not on a corolla mind you.

[BattleSnayke]

Not sure if you're doing this for cert purposes, but make sure you're still within cert camber allowances as well. I can't remember what they are exactly but it's fairly tight from what I do remember.

[siren676]

0.5º outside of factory range is all thats allowed

[gt4dude]

toe in or toe out??

negative camber gives a toe-in affect, your allignment guy probably added toe-out to compensate for your messing with your camber top hats.

imo

get the rear close to 0 camber and the front up to about -1 max and reset toe accordingly

roll your guards if 38 is too much offset

[Kiwi-Corolla]

I played around with the front camber adjustments this morning in an effort to get the camber back to as close as the factory specs as possible. The first attempt resulted in too much positive camber, which made the sidewalls of the tyres bulge and look flat, and made the car feel like it was floating when cornering (not a nice feeling).

On the second attempt I managed to get it looking a lot better, and according to the alignment machine I had it at 0.10 degrees on the left and 0.45 degrees on the right. I took it back to the shop and they kindly offered to help set my camber evenly, aswell as doing a full realignment. So right now my front camber is 0.15 degrees on the left and 0.10 degrees on the right, well within the factory tolerances. That meant that they could get the toe down to 0.4mm, so a total of 0.8mm toe in, a big difference from the 4.7mm total toe in yesterday. It's quite funny that after playing with the camber this morning my toe in before the alignment was a whopping 21.4mm

The rear camber wasn't able to be adjusted according to the alignment guy. Only caster adjustment on the rear apparently. So the rear camber is currently 1.40 degrees on the left and 2.10 degrees on the right, meaning I have a toe in of 3.9mm on the left and 2.4mm on the right (6.2mm total toe in). While this isn't ideal it will have to do, unless I got camber bolts for the rear to help reduce the toe.

What are the factory allowances for toe on the car? I had an alignment done on the weekend and don't recall any settings being 0. Though I forget to ask for a print out so I can't check. Not on a corolla mind you.

According to the spec sheet the factory allowances for toe are 0.3mm + or - on the front and +1.5mm to -0.8mm on the rear.

Not sure if you're doing this for cert purposes, but make sure you're still within cert camber allowances as well. I can't remember what they are exactly but it's fairly tight from what I do remember.

That's some really good info. I wasn't aware that it was a cert issue. Makes me glad that I've now had the camber adjusted well within the factory specs. Well, the front camber that is. Will still have to sort out the rear camber before the cert.

toe in or toe out??

negative camber gives a toe-in affect, your allignment guy probably added toe-out to compensate for your messing with your camber top hats.

imo

get the rear close to 0 camber and the front up to about -1 max and reset toe accordingly

roll your guards if 38 is too much offset

Toe in. They tried to get as much toe out as possible yesterday but because my front camber had been adjusted so far and they were going on my instructions to leave it that way, they couldn't get any more out of it. The front camber is very close to 0 now and toe is almost bang on

[touge_ae101]

$&#$% factory specs! you can never have too much camber...even at 5deg the handling is awesome.