[irmb]

anyone making these yet?

I'm really starting to wonder if I bought the right car. I'm not finding anyone who regularly races their camaros. And finding very few resources on tuning camaro's for the track.

Tell me I'm wrong!

[JaxChris]

Camber plates are coming. The car is still new. The 5th gen didn't start to have good collection of suspension options until late 2011 when the 2012 were already selling.

As for how to set your car... how aggressive you want to get? People here will help if you ask.

[irmb]

Originally Posted by JaxChris

Camber plates are coming. The car is still new. The 5th gen didn't start to have good collection of suspension options until late 2011 when the 2012 were already selling.

As for how to set your car... how aggressive you want to get? People here will help if you ask.

thanks for the vote of confidence. I'm just noticing there's a lot more shops that tune mustangs - a lot more people with tuned mustangs and a lot more aftermarket parts available for mustanges - than for camaros.

I bought my camaro specifically to learn how to race cars.

I just bought square stance wheels and tires- now focusing on suspension.

it would be much easier if I knew people who had done this before and could tell me what they did.

I'm taking my car to places like laguna seca as often as I can. My car has 6,000 miles and the stock tires are toast.

Would like to do a mild tune to keep it daily driverable - or alternately -easily reversable. This is why I'm looking for camber plates.

[JaxChris]

You should know, the 6th gen Camaro has very aggressive front caster and that can present a challenge in developing front camber plates for the factory strut towers.

Having around 7.5 degrees of front caster put the wheel hubs ahead of the strut tower. If you camber that out you are also toe-ing out the front wheels as well.

If you lower the car slightly and combine that with the factory adjustment range, I think you might actually get it where you want without the need for plates while you are still learning the limits of your car. Once you've learned to take your car to that edge, then get the camber plates to increase the difficulty level.

[Ryephile]

Originally Posted by irmb

...I bought my camaro specifically to learn how to race cars.

...

I'm taking my car to places like laguna seca as often as I can. My car has 6,000 miles and the stock tires are toast.

Would like to do a mild tune to keep it daily driverable - or alternately -easily reversable. This is why I'm looking for camber plates.

Do you mean to say you're progressing your way to an SCCA or NASA racing license, or you're enjoying track days/HPDE's? It is an important distinction.

6k miles on a regularly tracked set of tires is actually very good. Something like a Hoosier R7 will only last roughly 500 miles (about 6 days), depending on the particular car and driving style.

More importantly, are your tires wearing evenly? That is going to be the main indication whether your alignment warrants different camber. Also just for the record, what are you hot tire pressures?

Originally Posted by JaxChris

...Having around 7.5 degrees of front caster put the wheel hubs ahead of the strut tower. If you camber that out you are also toe-ing out the front wheels as well.....

7.5° front caster is quite a lot. That will give significant dynamic camber. Whether that's enough for high-speed corners versus low-speed corners will come down to tire wear and temperature variation across the tread.

Given the struts use the flange mount style strut, wouldn't eccentric bolts and/or slotted lower mount holes offer adequate camber adjustment?

[irmb]

Originally Posted by Ryephile

Do you mean to say you're progressing your way to an SCCA or NASA racing license, or you're enjoying track days/HPDE's? It is an important distinction.

6k miles on a regularly tracked set of tires is actually very good. Something like a Hoosier R7 will only last roughly 500 miles (about 6 days), depending on the particular car and driving style.

More importantly, are your tires wearing evenly? That is going to be the main indication whether your alignment warrants different camber. Also just for the record, what are you hot tire pressures?



7.5° front caster is quite a lot. That will give significant dynamic camber. Whether that's enough for high-speed corners versus low-speed corners will come down to tire wear and temperature variation across the tread.

Given the struts use the flange mount style strut, wouldn't eccentric bolts and/or slotted lower mount holes offer adequate camber adjustment?

Yes - goal is to get my license.

Tires are not currently wearing even - wearing on the outsides. hot pressures are in the 35 psi range. I've been airing down to 29 and that's working well.

I've taken my car to several local tuners (I live near sears point raceway - so I have lots of good local resources) and they recomended camber plates as a first option - as they're easier to work with.

the guy at sears point (american v8 supercars - check them out) showed me slotted lower mounts that he had made for another car. He could make some for mine - but that would make it hard to me to DIY in the future.

[JaxChris]

Originally Posted by Ryephile

Given the struts use the flange mount style strut, wouldn't eccentric bolts and/or slotted lower mount holes offer adequate camber adjustment?

For the drops we have available right now (~1") it is definitely within the range of the vehicles stock adjustment features. The rear 5-link is quite good and the front camber has great range. But again, the front caster is the sticking point and I think camber plates will be only for the air bag crowd that wants to slam the car.

[crankaholic]

Camber plates will make precision alignment easier to achieve... I think a 1" drop removes the possibility of an aggressive track setup - at least from what I understand.

[JaxChris]

Stock height you can only get out to about -1.5 compared to dropping an inch and being able to go past -2.0 which makes me think a drop helps getting a very aggressive track camber.

[crankaholic]

Originally Posted by JaxChris

Stock height you can only get out to about -1.5 compared to dropping an inch and being able to go past -2.0 which makes me think a drop helps getting a very aggressive track camber.

Heh... don't know why I thought lowering would create positive camber I'll blame it on the henny. Do strut type front ends really gain that much camber with an 1" drop?

[Ryephile]

Originally Posted by irmb

Yes - goal is to get my license.

Tires are not currently wearing even - wearing on the outsides. hot pressures are in the 35 psi range. I've been airing down to 29 and that's working well.

I've taken my car to several local tuners (I live near sears point raceway - so I have lots of good local resources) and they recomended camber plates as a first option - as they're easier to work with.

the guy at sears point (american v8 supercars - check them out) showed me slotted lower mounts that he had made for another car. He could make some for mine - but that would make it hard to me to DIY in the future.

Cool, best of luck in your endeavors!

Do you also have a tire pyrometer? That would definitely help figure out the whole story on the tire wear. It's the combination of pressure and camber (assuming the corner and driver are repeatable) that creates the tire wear. Too low a pressure will usually create more shoulder wear, so your tire construction must be playing tricks to get actually better wear at that relatively low hot pressure. Have you tried bookending your data by running laps at higher hot pressures? Try going all the way up to, say, 42 psi hot, and check with the pyrometer and stopwatch. This will help you dial in what direction to go and why.


Ok, so hopefully a good vendor releases camber plates. In the meantime, it's sounding like the car has some adjustment from the factory. If your alignment guy doesn't want to adjust your front camber with the knuckle flange, then IMO you need to find one that has more experience, because it's a fairly common adjustment.

Originally Posted by JaxChris

For the drops we have available right now (~1") it is definitely within the range of the vehicles stock adjustment features. The rear 5-link is quite good and the front camber has great range. But again, the front caster is the sticking point and I think camber plates will be only for the air bag crowd that wants to slam the car.

Looking at the strut mount design, it appears quite typical. Is there some bodywork in the way that would impede an adjustable strut mount plate? I'm not seeing why the caster would be a sticking point.

Originally Posted by crankaholic

Heh... don't know why I thought lowering would create positive camber I'll blame it on the henny. Do strut type front ends really gain that much camber with an 1" drop?

Mac struts have a basically linear camber curve, as long as the control arms are reasonably parallel to the ground. A 1 inch lowering is not going to change the camber more than a tenth of a degree or so.

[BMR Tech]

From what we have seen so far, the front has a large range of adjustability. We have not seen the need to make a plate to exceed the factory adjustment limitations yet, but most of our focus has been on street oriented alignments to correct to near factory specs with a lowered car. If the demand arises for people needing to exceed the already aggressive caster and camber that is available, then we will certainly figure out a viable option

[AdvanSuper]

Originally Posted by irmb

thanks for the vote of confidence. I'm just noticing there's a lot more shops that tune mustangs - a lot more people with tuned mustangs and a lot more aftermarket parts available for mustanges - than for camaros.

Because the S550 came out late 2014/early 2015 and parts have been developed for them. We literally just started getting intakes delivered ~3 months ago along with more exhaust options around that time. That's almost a year+ lead time on the Camaro people were just taking deliveries on beginning I think February/March?

[irmb]

Thanks guys. We ordered some BMR drop springs today - and I have wheels and tires on the way. My builder is hearing DSSV suspension upgrades (this is the spool valve setup that the 2014 Z28 came with) are on the way for the camaro - and he thinks we should go that route - so we're going to hold off on going to crazy until that comes out - or we go a different route like coil overs. Detroit Speed is working on this - but it's not available yet.

So I guess this car is still new and the aftermarket crowd is still catching up. I'll post updates as we progress.