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Originally Posted by GunMetalGrey
Good question, I have no idea, But if I had to guess I would think that changing one thing would generally mean changing something else to keep everything in balance. But I can’t prove that at all.
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OH, there's no question changing some things affects others. Ride height and RC are inextricably linked to one another, for example. That's not what I'm questioning. What I question is whether or not the RC
needs to be corrected after a Camaro is lowered. I'm not aware of such a need, and Chevy obviously doesn't see one. That doesn't mean it wouldn't be a good idea. I'm just saying that we don't know.
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They also said that their tension rods would give me the ability to increase caster, independently of camber, to somewhere between 8.5 And 9.5 which is what they claim a lot of guys tracking the Camaro are at. Apparently without this product the caster is tied to the camber which is why I am now at 7.6 up from my original 6.9 because I’ve increased the camber to -2.5
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Well, let's unpack this a bit. Caster isn't adjustable on a stock Camaro at all. At least some camber plates allow caster adjustability, like the Vorshlag units. But the two are independently adjustable. One can
limit the other: for example at max camber on the plates you probably have to give up some caster, and vice versa. But within those limits you can absolutely set whatever caster and camber you want, independent from one another. I don't know what caster range the Vorshlag plates give you with no other mods: you might be able to get the 8.5-9.5 you want just from those.
Using the stock adjustment, I don't see how setting camber using the factory adjustment could change caster. That doesn't really make sense. On my 1LE, going from the as-delivered -1.4/-0.9 (left/right) camber to -2.7 on both sides using the stock camber adjustment didn't change my caster one single bit. It read 7.6 and 7.3 before and after the camber change. That's what we'd expect.
Also, it's not clear that normal alignment machines can accurately read caster or steering axis inclination because there is no single pivot point defined by a single lower ball joint. Instead, there are two ball joints (one for each link) and a virtual pivot point defined by their instant center. But the problem is that as the steering is turned, that virtual pivot point moves...a lot. We could define static caster using the virtual pivot point. However, an alignment machine infers caster from the change in camber as the steering is cycled through its range, and that would not be accurate for our cars because that pivot point is moving.
This all boils down to: I'd be interested to know the basis for measuring the caster that track drivers are using. I'd also be interested to know why more is better. Typically, the benefit of extreme caster only matter with extreme steering angles, such as autocross use. More than 7.5 or so is starting to get into the extreme range. So what benefit does 8.5-9.5 give on a road course?