Neg Camber upper arms vs stock question

[cutluse231]

With all the cool stuff out there for better suspension geometry, like taller spindles, taller upper& lower ball joints, heck even those spindle extenders, all of wich give you better Negative camber.

I know the upper control arm , has to be, or is shorter in length to benifit the upgrade.

By how much shorter are they?

Seen various manufactures offer them, but they all seem to inclued a off-set control arm shaft.

Is that the only difference, or is the tubular design styles offered still yet shorter?

I have a older article where a G-body was upgraded to B-body spindles, they kept the factory upper arm and used a offset shaft with the factory alignment spacers, seemed to work well.

However it put the arms stamped edges closer to the headers, a little trimming was done on the arms.

I've seen on a couple other forums that guys were using a roundy round upper arm from one side of a metric chassis set up, flipping it over to be used on the other side, and they stated it was inexpensive, and the manufacture would weld them up to any length desired.

Could that be done , and not use a offset shaft, and still have the benefits?

 

[charlief1]

http://www.turbobuick.com/forums/ge...mber-caster-can-i-get-stock-control-arms.html

http://www.turbobuick.com/forums/ge...6-where-buy-positive-camber-control-arms.html

 

[Turbo6inKY]

There's more to the camber than just the static setting.

The stock arms have a positive camber curve, which means that as the suspension compresses, the camber goes positive. The arms go downward from the chassis pivot point to the balljoint. As the suspension compresses, the balljoint moves outward as the pickup point moves upward.

You can create static negative camber with shims, but the tire will still roll positive when you compress the suspension in a turn.

A taller spindle, which can be had by using taller ball joints or an actual spindle that's taller, changes the camber curve by raising the upper control arm pickup point closer to level. When you've done that, as you compress the suspension, the balljoint moves inward, creating more negative camber, which really helps cut down the understeer.

It also allows you to set less static camber. Instead of -1, you can easily get by with -0.75 or -0.50 and save your tires.

You don't need a shorter arm unless your chassis is bent.