[EricSMG]

Originally Posted by Mr. Wolfe

Sorry, but I mis-read your topic line. That's what I get for reading it too fast. This isn't really what I was hoping for.

Mr. Wolfe

You sick bastage!!! Love that about that you.

[zimmt]

I finally tried this. I ended up with the most negative camber possible, and I chose toe-in of -0.6 degrees (0.3 left, 0.3 right; stock is -1.6). I expected a slight difference, as with RE RTABs I recently installed. And I did indeed notice a difference, immediately, and not slight at all. Four things in particular: Greater steering resistance, greater/better steering feel, quicker turn in, and less understeer. Then I tried it with my square track tire set up (265s all round). Wow. The same, but more. Particularly memorable was taking a 270 degree clover-leaf on-ramp at 5 or 6/10ths. As soon as I turned the wheel, the front end hooked into the turn and pulled the rest of the car after it. Worked well on track too. Despite the quicker turn in and less understeer, it didn't turn into an oversteering monster. (Though by now I've learned to back off when the rears start to overheat.) The only disadvantage from my perspective was that - at least with such wide semi-slicks, it tramlined rather strongly on roads worn down by truck tires. I have driven in rain, when one might fear it would be overly nervous. Not enough though to have a clear opinion, except that it clearly did not become wildly nervous. I’ve also driven it at high Autobahn speeds, and extensively at highway cruising speeds. And while I never felt unsafe at even the highest speeds, I would say that there is one draw back. Especially in poorly surfaced roads, it does require a bit more attention from the driver, because it can veer off in one direction or the other more quickly and strongly than before on non-flat roads. One needs to be a bit more careful when opening a bottle of water, for instance.

All in all, although some results are not yet in, what I've seen so far is good enough that I won’t go back. Not till winter, anyway. More likely, I might try further camber and toe experiments after adding camber plates.

One note about the combination with the Rogue RTABs: The RE RTABS had a couple smaller, but still noticeable effects, before doing the camber and toe adjustment. Once I start accelerating, the rear seems to swing out more, reducing understeer, and it does seem I can accelerate more strongly and/or sooner coming out of a tight turn. I did worry a bit that in the wet, I might not like how much more dramatically the rear steps out, but I’ve driven in the rain since and seem to have forgotten about this, so I guess it’s not so bad or I got used to it. On the other hand, turn in seemed to be slower. Perhaps it turned in less when decelerating, and then tightened the line when I accelerated. (Or perhaps turn it would be slower than with stock RTABs even if I were accelerating when initiating the turn? Not sure.)

However, combined with this camber adjustment, I get the benefits of the RTABS and quicker turn-in too.

Finally, a question for suspension/geometry experts:

First, is there any downside to removing the pins that one removes to do this camber adjustment? I can imagine that (a) the strut brace will not hold its new position forever, and the increase in (negative) camber will slowly be lost, until the strut brace is reset, and (b) the front will flex more, presumably allowing more roll. Indeed, that alone could account for less understeer, though perhaps not in our cars where more roll might mean greater camber changes and more understeer, but perhaps that effect would be countered by the increased (negative) camber. Does anyone know if either of these hypotheses could be problems, or if there could be any other disadvantages?