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Re: Ackerman Angle

To: "Doug Mallory" <rdmallory@earthling.net>, <larry.p@erols.com>
Subject: Re: Ackerman Angle
From: Bob Palmer <rpalmer@ames.ucsd.edu>
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1999 15:07:58 -0700
Doug, Larry,

I think I know what you meant to say Doug, maybe not, but what I think you 
meant was "positive caster", which you get by adding shims to the rear 
upper A-arm "shock tower" mounting bolt. I might note, as others have 
previously, that the Shop Manual does not condone any adjustment in caster, 
only camber, because they use a double shim that fits over both the front 
and rear A-arm bolts. HOWEVER, many - perhaps even most of us have ignored 
this and adjusted camber and caster separately without ill effects (at 
least any I've heard of). Now, everyone probably has a little different 
recipe for their own favorite setup, but I have been running with -1.75 
degrees of camber and find it works out about right for my mostly street 
driving. I'm actually a little surprised I don't wear the insides of my 
front tires more, but it works for me with 205/50-15 tires on 7.5" wide 
rims. I wouldn't recommend quite this much camber for most people, but 
anywhere in the -1.0 to --1.5 degrees is probably going to work pretty well 
and not cause very uneven wear. Besides, how many people ever actually wear 
out their tires anyway?? Any tire over four or five years old should 
probably be retired regardless of how much tread is left. What most of us 
need are tires with a tire wear index of about 80. ;-)

TTFN,

Bob

At 04:20 PM 8/11/99 -0400, Doug Mallory wrote:
>I put in as much neg. caster as I can get. This is done by adding more
>shims to the back a frame bolt than the front.
>The settings I gave are for track only and your tire wear will suffer if you
>run
>these numbers on the street.
>
>Doug
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Larry Paulick <larry.p@erols.com>
>To: Doug Mallory <rdmallory@earthling.net>
>Cc: tigers@autox.team.net <tigers@autox.team.net>
>Date: Tuesday, August 10, 1999 7:07 PM
>Subject: Re: Ackerman Angle
>
>
> >Thanks Doug.  What other alignment specs do you use.  I will use this
> >for street and autocross.
> >
> >Car is ground up restoration, with new braking system, 5.0L and T-5,
> >etc.  Car out of body shop is 3 weeks, after 3 months of work.
> >Rebuilding everything.
> >
> >Larry
> >

Robert L. Palmer
UCSD, Dept. of AMES
619-822-1037 (o)
760-599-9927 (h)
rpalmer@ucsd.edu
rpalmer@cts.com

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