Myths About Camber

We all have that one friend who loves excessive camber, flaunting his car on Instagram, and well... overall just making a fool of himself, but, are they on to something? The myths of camber come out from the depths of the internet in this episode of wheel school.

Browse our wheel selection:

We have suspension too:

Upload pictures of your car to our gallery:

Check out more videos like this!

[rorycaracciolo]

Number 1 myth about camber: -500 degrees looks cool.

[datasian]

Alex should seriously think about joining a professional musical industry. My ears have never felt so blessed by his godly ability to produce such an amazing sound. If he focuses on his musical talent, I'm 1000% sure that he'll make it far.

[Reserved_Rogue]

Every time i see a car with excessive camber, it makes it look like someone squished the car. It looks dumb IMO, however I think a little camber looks fine.

[dadunckerD]

I've seen more camber bois in the US than Japan

[joseaguirre]

Stance is the gateway to flying cars....lol

[EARDRUMASSASSIN]

I got a little camber in the front . Rear has solid axle .
You are absolutely correct on the toe in and out ruining tires . The alignment is key ! Bad alignment means sawed tires lol

[GamerNRetro]

I run 12 degrees of camber on my e69 M3 because track day bro. Precision engineered.... to break.

[EJI]

I think this is a pretty interesting topic. I myself am the owner of SMP Automotive and deal with a ton of different cars and styles every single day. One of my personal cars is a bagged IS300 on Wed Kranze Bazreias. The wheels are 18x10.5 +22 and 18x11.5 +16 all fitting under stock body. It was definitely a quite a bit of work to get the car with close to matching camber front to rear, building to wheels to suit the desired camber angles, to clear the bigger Supra TT brake calipers, and to buy the correct suspension parts so everything works in unison.

My car drives like a dream, even with the excessive camber (-8/-10 at ride height), but only because I took the time to do everything right the first go around. Before the suspension rebuild, I knew the car had an issue with bump steer (when I was static) so I made sure to buy RCA spacers to correct this problem. I also used JZX100 front upper control arms, which is great for easy camber, until you realize the AirLift bag bellows are so large that they rub the spindle and inside of the control arm. So to combat this issue, I had to purchase Serial9 strut offset hats (basically camber plates) to move the air strut into a position that it does rub against anything. In the rear, I used TC Sportline upper control arms and to be able to set the toe in spec with excessive camber, Megan racing toe arms to get the alignment right.

The car sat on jack stands for about about two weeks while I assembled, refreshed, and measure from hub to fender lip using the wheels (before rebuild) and spacers so that I could determine the size of the new lips I wanted to buy. The tires last for a relatively good amount of time seeing that this car is my daily driver besides my Evo 9. I put roughly 10k miles on the Lexus a year with this setup and its been treating me fine so far.

The biggest thing I want people to take from this is a proper setup takes a bit of time, research, and thinking power for it to work in your favor. Some of the cars you see like T-Demand have tons of hours, thought, and thousands of dollars worth of suspension components so that the cars can achieve aggressive ride heights, wheel fitment, and drive quality. Take your time, do it right the first time, and enjoy your slanty wheel machine!

Check out my Lexus and give me a follow on IG @Ace_OnBase and find me on Facebook at Malik Mebane or SMP Automotive!

[wellingtonbruh]

*Extreme camber* and *functional* don't go together. All I hear is my oil pan scrapping and exhaust system being destroyed on a small bump.

[fauxltystower]

Wanna see if your camber setup is ideal for your driving situation? Get a pyrometer (an infrared thermometer that can pick a spot less than 20 mm will do) and measure across the surface of the tread in three parts: inner edge, middle, outer edge. If the temperatures are within roughly 1* C (around 2* F) of each other then you're set. If one tire is excessively hotter or colder than its counterpart, then there's a load imbalance with the circuit/track that was just run (think NETCAR/Roundy-Round) relative to the alignment, or excessive toe applied to a wheel that's now dragging the tire along.

Static camber at -2* is very helpful once you've run through the suspension kinematics, and then take into account how much the lower control arm mounts "roll" when the body shell leans through a corner. Basically, the chassis roll pulls the lower control inward on the outer wheel, and adds overall camber to that side. If you end up rolling enough to "add" 4* of camber to the outside wheel, your -2* static starting point is to get you closer to vertical as the lower control arm compresses to compensate during that roll. Hopefully, you end up around +1* (yep, positive) to work the outside edge of the tire with the aggressive shoulder blocks if it's a correct tire for the application. If it's an all season tire, those will usually dissolve after 8 good runs on asphalt and 3 runs on grooved concrete. That's why running -2* static camber on aggressively driven street cars with so-so camber control makes all season tires last so long.

Of course if you slam the piss out of it and bring the control arms beyond horizontal, that's a whole other kinematics mess you're creating for yourself and everyone that's forced to share the road with you.

[ErwinSchrodinger]

When purchasing an alignment/camber kit, purchase the entire kit. Some kits are purchased as either a one, two, or three piece kits. The more adjustments that can be made the more "dialed in" the suspension components are going to be. I have -3.0 degrees of camber on my Honda Accord Coupe with 275/35/19 tires on Advan RZII 19x10.0 et 35. The tires have already 35, 000 miles on them. The tread wear, for the most, is even. My toe is set exactly to 0 degrees. It's true, camber (not insane camber) doesn't eat tire, it's toe. How do you get 0 degrees of toe on -3.0 degrees? By buying a complete camber kit. For me, it was a 3-piece kit for each side in the rear for the 2017 Accord. DON'T GO CHEAP. EITHER WAY, IF YOU DO, YOU WILL PAY FOR IT BY HAVING TO BUY MORE TIRES, ALIGNMENTS, AND DODGY CAR PARTS.

Matter of fact, when purchasing rims, check to see if a camber kit is available for your car. I was quite surprised to find out that Honda Accords don't have a front camber kit! Camber can also be a life saver in making a tire fit while providing a compliant ride.

I hate to say this, from my own personal experience, I never recommend going to dealership. However, dealerships, at times, have better alignment machinery than a run of the mill tire shop. Don't be cheap. Here in New Orleans there aren't a lot of high performance shops.

[michaelstenhjem]

I think it would cool to see a list of how much camber is stock on some different cars.

[FingerboarderJay]

Alex says that there are more parts needed to properly camber a car besides from camberplates. I think it would be nice to see a video on what parts you deff need to do it properly and how to set it up and adjust it

[ChirsSmedely]

I agree with the "it's your car, do what you want with it" thing 100% as long as it's within safe limits. It's great for people to express themselves in their own ways via their car, even if it's something I don't necessarily like I can feel excited about the fact that it makes the owner happy. I just think that if your tires are so stretched that they'll de-bead just from being looked at wrong, plz stay far away from me because I didn't agree to possibly being hit by your car when it breaks at speed.

[aarondouglass]

Please do a video on measuring for widebody fitment! I don't care if its boring. I can't find that stuff anywhere.

[irkk]

7:26 that black nissan president is life.

[djmixya]

I run -3 up front and -1.6 rear on my Integra and actually drive it on the track. Handles very well with 15x8 wheels and 225/45/15 Toyo R1R's

[andrebaker]

This guy is mad knowledgeable on fitment and car mods. Great presentation

[b.p.stimemachines]

Camber actually became popular in the early 90s with lowrider civics and stuff running like 13 and 14 inch deep dish wheels I don't even believe it was a performance thing back then it was just the dish of the wheel is so deep that it bent the control arms and everything at odd angles and produced the camber look

[KaneDoesEverything]

If you haven't already done it, could you guys make a video explaining how camber kits work, and how to set them up? Like what to do with double wishbone setups, macpherson strut setups, etc, how and why they need to take different parts. Because I had a hard time finding caster plates for my integra until the internet people told me it wouldn't work.
Also if there are any ways to adjust camber for function or auto x and get it dialed for maximum grippage with math and numbers if you can do such a thing.