Lowered 08 GT. Just replaced my sway bar end links and while I was in there I removed the upper camber bolts (rusted badly) and replaced all 4 with the fine threaded ones. Obviously, I have a little negative camber on both wheels now. Actually tracks better. Other than maybe inner edge tire wear, I should be OK, right??

 

Without an alignment, your guess is as good as anyone else's.

When I did my suspension, Steeda recommended -1.5 camber. I had the alignment shop adjust to the suggested settings and the car handles great. The alignment shop "strongly warned" me that my tires will wear out quickly. My car is not my daily driver, so I have only put 5-7,000 miles on it and I do not see any noticeable wear on the inside edge of my tires.

If your car is daily driven, you could definitely see tire wear much more quickly, especially if an alignment has not been performed to know where you camber settings are now.

 

0.75 degrees negative camber is good for a DD that doesn't see any autocrossing or track days. The tire wear should be good. You can push 1.25 deg neg is OK if you drive aggressively on twisty 2 lanes and an occasional autocross.

You really need to measure it to know where you are.

 

I run -1.5 on my daily driver/track day car and haven't noticed any excessive inner tire wear. I do rotate the tires, which involves taking them off the rim, since they are unidirectional so that's probably why they are wearing evenly.

 

The trackday part keeps the wear more even. For max lateral traction you would need more like 2.5 degrees negative or more depending on the tire. That much camber will make tire life short on the street. That's why some drivers use their adjustable camber plates to dial the negative back a degree or more after an autocross or trackday. Caster doesn't change and toe stays pretty stable from 2.5 to 1.0 from my measurements.

 

I keep it at -1.5 out of pure laziness. Same reason I run the same brake pads and tires on and off the track. It's a compromise, but I'm not looking into setting any lap records, just a way to relieve stress. Just about the only thing I do at the track is adjust the tire pressure and even that is going away since I switched to nitrogen so the tire pressure stays constant. I literally just put on my helmet, race, then go home. Lap times are decent for such a heavy car on staggered street tires. Once I replace the shocks and go to a square setup with a watts link and brembos I'm calling it a day, I still need the car for daily use after all.

 

There are a few ways that you can measure camber and toe by yourself in your driveway (if it's reasonably close to being flat/level). The easiest way would have you buying a digital angle finder, and the typical 0.1° increments will be entirely sufficient for most purposes. Use the outer edges of the wheel, not the tire, and have all four tires up to whatever inflation pressures that you typically run.

I have no experience with the crash-bolt approach to camber correction, so I don't know whether toe varies more when using them than when camber correction is done at the upper strut mount area. It (toe) would still be worth measuring, and this can be done on a DIY basis as well (if you're patient enough). FWIW, incorrect toe is generally harder on tires than incorrect camber.


Norm