DIY adjustable camber ball joints mod

[sambb]

Thanks Sean. The driveshaft has to have sliding lateral play built into it somewhere. Between full droop and full compression the distance from the gearbox to the hub has to change. I just hope that since I'm running at stock ride height that there are enough degrees of freedom available to me. Because I'm moving outward there won't be a situation where I'm ever compressing the driveshaft between the hub and gearbox more than standard, but I'm a little worried about whether or not there will be issues at full extension. What I'm doing is the opposite of camber adjustment at the strut top. Moving the strut in at the top tilts/pushes the hub further in against the driveshaft. I haven't heard of anyone on here striking problems with driveshaft compression and that's on some pretty low/neg cambered cars, so if it was ok in that direction I hope I have the same amount of room in the other. I will try to find out what the max camber adjustment is, but I'll be running it no more than 1.75 degrees if that's possible so I'm not doing anything outlandish. She'll be right.
I'm not worried about the ball joints being strong in the control arm. Even when they are in the fully out position the centre bolt sits much further inside the control arm than the standard one did which would spread the loads nicely. There was nothing special about the way the stock ball joint fit into the control arm. The dimples were just guides that assisted in getting the bolt holes lined up and were not structural to the control arm or the ball joint mounting in any way. The stockers just slid into a void and were tightened down and so are these ones. The control arm is swiss chees as it is - all its strength comes from the shape of its pressed ridges and curves. One extra hole drilled for the centre bolt isn't going to compromise anything.

as it stands the issues are
- will the stub fit the hub (that's make or break)
- what effect will it have on castor

but if anyone has a diagram of how the driveshaft - CV -hub connection is fitted then I'd love to see it.

[seangti]

-1.75 degrees of camber is not enough to make a noticeable difference to cornering performance. It's not enough to balance tyre wear either, you'll still wear the outside of the tyre a lot. I'm running -3.5 on my left, -2.5 on the right (as I run right handed circuits), and it's my shoulders that show more signs of wear.

I initially went more conservative at around -2.2 deg each side, but still had high shoulder wear so leaned em in more. I've now maxed out the left side... unless I cut the strut tops and go all engineering on them.

[sambb]

Good to know. To be honest I'm a bit torn on how much i'll need. If I was going on a circuit I'd be shooting for 2+ but with the open diff and going uphills, I think i'll compromise forward traction if I get up into 2 degrees territory. That might not be the case since I do run 50 profile semi's but I'm just not sure. A lot of the guys overseas road reg class guys don't go over 2 degrees so I was just going to follow suit. Just not sure really. As a rule if you add steering axis inclination (which happens automatically with our strut - you can't adjust the hub separately to the steering axis) then you need to add castor with it. So if what I've done takes away some castor then I won't go nuts with the camber but if I get more castor then I'll feel a bit better about adding more camber with it.

[vwthunder]

Did i miss something, do you not have camber strut tops, isn't that easier than playing around and drilling into your control arms and putting more stress on other components ?

Looks like you are building a race car

[sambb]

No I have standard tops. I looked into tops and the money was outlandish when I could basically achieve the exact same thing at the base instead. I could do the work myself and it hasn't cost me more than 180 bucks. Provided the stubs fit the hub it will work. Stuff like this is sold for just about every VW hatch except ours and the fabia mk2 guys have been doing this mod all over the world. It could be an issue but I doubt there'll be any drive shaft problems - so I just figured I'd make some. Like I said earlier I'm not after big camber numbers, just whats going to be effective on the hillclimbs - it still has to get the power down when the car gets straightened up. Plus its camber that increases front track, if it works its gotta be betterer.

[Notso Swift]

Depending on the tyres 2 deg is low for track only but pretty much the limit if you are driving on street (ie to and from events). Hillclimbs being so traction dependent and relatively low speed I think you are in a good position
Most strut tops are stet up for either Camber or Castor, You want as much castor as possible on FWD so it is common enough to do bulk movements of camber from the bottom (balljoint or strut leg) and fine tune from the top hat keeping the castor

[sambb]

I'm on 5/1/2 degrees of castor at the moment. Down the track ill reposition my offset rear LCA bolts that are currently in the "anti-dive" position to the castor position. If doing this mod loses me some castor I can get it back that way. Looking at where the joint sits I think there might be a lot more castor in it too. Where does my 5/1/2 degrees fit against other polos??

Yeah it'd be so much easier if we didn't have the stupid strut in hub socket arrangement. My mates clio w172 has the hubs bolt onto a two bolt strut flange. You just put in an eccentric on the top hole and instantly tilt the hub top in against the strut. You get camber without adjusting the SAI at all. We are forced to move SAI when we do camber (top or bottom) which isn't ideal from a geometry standpoint and cost $$ too.
Notso swift - what do you reckon regarding the forces at play down at the ball joint. The joint is going to sit further out (0.75 dgerees or so extra) which gives the joint more leverage over the outer two bolt positions (which remain unmolested) - but the centre bolt fits deeper into the arm. I'm using high tensiles and the surface area of the audi joints mounting surfaces is bigger than OE so offers up a better compression/sandwhich fit inside the arm. Its going to be strong as hell to my eyes - what do you think?

[Martin]

-1.75 degrees of camber is not enough to make a noticeable difference to cornering performance.

Depends

I ran -1.75 degrees on my Skoda Octavia for a few years of daily street driving
This made a huge difference to turn in performance and it did result in some featuring of the inside edge
I could also brake deep into a corner, turning and braking at the same time, it was incredible
(I have supaloy control arms - much like the Audi TT)

But from a motorsport point of view -1.75 is nothing

It's not enough to balance tyre wear either, you'll still wear the outside of the tyre a lot.

During motorsport (or maybe extremely hard street usage) - yes

For most people, daily motoring, -1.75 deg is way too much negative
My wife's Mazda 3 SP23 had -2 deg negative at the rear,
she wore out the inside edge of the tyres due to excessive negative camber
I've now reduced the rear to -1 deg

I'm running -3.5 on my left, -2.5 on the right (as I run right handed circuits), and it's my shoulders that show more signs of wear.

Extremely hard driving and motorsport usage will do this to a Macpherson struct FWD
Stiffer springs (maybe stiffer sway bar), tyres with a stiffer side wall and higher tyre pressures will all help
But ultimately, under sever conditions, there is no substitute for negative camber
I'm running -5 deg on the front of a Nissan Pulsar (2L NA FWD) for track only usage

[Martin]

No I have standard tops. I looked into tops and the money was outlandish when I could basically achieve the exact same thing at the base instead. I could do the work myself and it hasn't cost me more than 180 bucks. Provided the stubs fit the hub it will work. Stuff like this is sold for just about every VW hatch except ours and the fabia mk2 guys have been doing this mod all over the world. It could be an issue but I doubt there'll be any drive shaft problems - so I just figured I'd make some. Like I said earlier I'm not after big camber numbers, just whats going to be effective on the hillclimbs - it still has to get the power down when the car gets straightened up. Plus its camber that increases front track, if it works its gotta be betterer.

On the drive shafts, all cars are different but many will tolerate ~10mm wider (each side!)
The bigger problem for FWD is don't go low - for two reasons:
-Likely to regularly destroy CV joints
-Moves the center of mass further away from the roll center creating more problems than benefits

What you're doing is increasing static camber - this does help cornering but as you go further it will make the car crown sensitive and give rise to other undesirable handling traits - but it's the cheap and easy way to get some improvement

Dynamic camber is a far better goal - when you have a lot of castor, turning the steering wheel gives you negative camber - this works much better all round (cornering, straight line, braking, etc)
Hence, slotting the top of the strut tower to get as much castor as possible would be the best option - if the car is a track car (rather than a daily)

See the the different setup on my track cars:
Nissan Pulsar has very low castor so I'm running -5 deg camber
Nissan 350z has 8 degrees of castor, because of that I only need -2 deg camber

[sambb]

From what I can gather , by running higher profile sidewalls eg 205/50/15 my forward traction would be less sensitive to excessive camber as opposed to say 40/17's with the same camber. Do you reckon I could get away with more than 2 degrees doing hillclimbs considering the profile of A050's that I run, without hurting power down.