What do you recommend for camber on 20s I'm running 245/35 front and 285/30 rear and drive somewhat aggressive in cornering but more interested in longevity with tires if you remember my post im at 0 camber front and 1 1/6 negative rear .
Thanks you seem very educated on this.
lol... all I can say is that I know enough to know what I know and what I don't know.
While I don't have a direct answer to your question, I do know how you can get it. What you need to do is to get your alignment checked at a reputable shop. I highly recommend paying for Lifetime Alignment, if you plan on keep the car for a while and/or you intend on doing suspension
mods and Hi-Perf driving. If you've already got an alignment sheet, look on it to examine the prescribed allowable ranges, like this one of mine done just last week, after we installed the Riaction coilovers:
Mine are listed for 18s, yours will be for 20s. Mine says front camber should be -1.0 max. I pushed it by only 1.0deg more -ve, which is not really all that much. As I mentioned previously, depending on how it goes at the next track event, I might go another 0.5deg, which would be even more of a track alignment. How much you should push it is rather complicated, because it depends on many factors:
1. How much the camber changes on the outside wheels wtih lateral G. When you dive hard into a corner, the outside suspensions (especially the front) get compressed hard. At the same time, the entire chassis rolls to the outside. Both of these actions reduce the effective negative camber angles on the outside wheels. With stock suspension (soft springs/dampers, lots of suspension travel, and tall CG), the outside wheels' camber reduces significantly. Conversely, with coilovers and ride height (CG) lowering, outside wheels' camber changes are drastically reduced, thus requiring less static negative camber to compensate for suspension geometry shifts at maximum lateral G. So... for those of us with coilovers, this means (A) that we don't need as much negative camber and (B) whatever -ve camber we do dial in maintains its effect more stably than with stock suspension.
2. Shape of the contact patch. The wider the wheel/tire, the more the pressure distribution varies from inside to outside, whenever you dial in more negative camber. Too much negative camber, you're basically wasting the outside contact patch.
3. The tire aspect ratio. This is somewhat related to (2) above. The lower the profile, the stiffer the sidewall, the less compliance there is in the tire to help the contact patch maintain even pressure distribution. This needs to be balanced with the benefit of reduced tire squirm sharpening handling, of course.
4. There are more, but this post is already turning into a dissertation.
The other major factor to consider is Front and Rear camber relative to each other. The more differential between the two, the more pronounced the cornering characteristics will change. Bear in mind the standard ranges seen below are meant for street alignment optimized for safety - not outright performance. It goes from the least understeer on one end (-1.0 F and -0.9 R) to the most understeer on the other end (0.0 F and -1.9 R). If you ever pay attention to other cars (not trucks) on the road, vast majority of them are set with visibly more rear camber than front. This is good for safety but really sucks when you start increasing your cornering speed, as the front end will push and scrub off speed, limiting the car's performance potential and "fun" factor.
HOWEVER... unless you plan on tracking the car, it is best to keep within - or at least stay close to - the spread prescribed on your alignment sheet. That means in my case here, front camber should be no more than -0.1deg over the rear, for a street-only setup. Currently, I have pushed the limit to -0.6deg differential. That is what I feel comfortable at this point, until I'm able to qualify the car's cornering attitude.
Without seeing your alignment sheet, I would hazard a guess that your current camber settings are a good starting point. You can do the parking lot skidpad test to get an idea of your car's cornering attitude near the limits. Unless your car is an understeer fest (I doubt it is), you might stay right where you are. Even when carving some mean twisties and gnarly canyons, your car is probably unlikely to underperform to a point of making the driving experience subpar.
