Installed Camber Bolts - March 29, 2008

The camber bolts I ordered arrived last week, and I installed them today. These bolts should give the car some more front grip and keep it from rolling over on the outer edges of the front tires in hard cornering.

This was the first upgrade I've purchased with earnings from the website, so thanks to everyone that's been visiting and supporting the build.

I jacked up the car and removed the left front wheel to install the first bolt. The camber bolts will be replacing the top spindle bolts on the front suspension. Front camber is increased by leaning the top of the spindle in towards the car.
Then, I removed the top spindle bolt.
My camera's battery died at this point, so I finished up the left front bolt and started taking pictures again on the right front after the battery was recharged. To pick up from the left front, the new camber bolt can be inserted (do not tighten it yet) once the old spindle bolt is removed. The large tab on the washer should point towards the car (as in the picture) for more negative camber. Pointing the tab towards the outside of the car would provide more positive camber. This is because there's another tab on the back of the washer that moves the bolt around based on the orientation in which the washer is installed.
Once the camber bolt was loosely installed, I loosened the bottom spindle bolt to be able to move the spindle around. Then, I turned the camber bolt with a wrench while watching the orientation of the spindle. I stopped turning the bolt when the top of the spindle had moved the furthest possible amount towards the car. This provides maximum negative camber.
Finally, I tightened the camber bolt and lower spindle bolt to finish up the installation. In the last picture, you can see some of the camber. It's slightly exaggerated since the wheels are turned, but the bolts provided a substantial camber gain.

I was looking for as much camber as I could possibly get, so I set the bolts to their maximum negative camber setting. For a precise setting, it's necessary to get the car professionally aligned. Ideally, I would like to have 4-4.5 degrees of camber in the front of the car, which is about what I've seen on other successful 240s. I'm planning on getting an infrared temperature gauge to be able to measure inside vs. outside tire temperature and tune the camber accordingly.

I did a rough measurement of the camber after installing the bolts. I put a piece of flat cardboard against the wheel and another piece against the ground and measured the angle between the two. I measured the right front camber to be -2.9 degrees and the left front camber to be -3.5 degrees. These are just approximate, but it makes sense that the left front has more camber. The left front sits slightly lower than the right front since there's more weight at that corner of the car, and the suspension gains camber when it's lower. The ground was probably not perfectly flat either, which would affect the camber measurement.

I felt a pretty substantial difference after installing the camber bolts. I ran the car on the next day, and it felt like it had nore front grip. Also, just looking at the tires after runs, I could see that that sidewalls weren't asked scuffed up since the tire wasn't rolling over on the outside edge as much.

The bad thing about the added camber is that it seems to have reduced the amount of braking power I have. It seemed to be a lot easier to lock up the brakes going into turns in the autocross event. This is expected since when going in a straigt line and braking, only the inside edge of the front tires is in contact with the ground. Therefore, with negative camber, there's less grip available for braking. Still, the improved cornering performance should compensate for the reduced braking performance.