illMATTic

Some of you may have seen my other threads about alignment problems. I originally had a belltech 4" on the front that did not ride well at all. So I took it off and replaced it with a DJM kit. It drove OK for a while but not like it should. BOTH were aligned to factory spec.

Today I took it back to NTB for a re-alignment under warranty. The tech said he set it up like a car since it was lowered. All I can say is WOW, what a differance it made. It rides and handles like a "sports car".

He said if it was aligned to factory spec it would run true but feel like a lowered truck. This way it will feel like it was built this way.

Hope this helps some of you out.

custom 68

iTrader: (8)

do you have a print out of what these "car" specs are?
thanks
Dave

illMATTic

no scanner at the house but it does look like he gave it a couple more * of caster over OEM spec. Camber and Toe are within spec.

Shoot he could have told me whatever he wanted. It rides nice.

oldred95

I would imagine he just rolled some more positive caster into it. The more positive the caster the more the truck wants to go straight down the road. It makes it slightly harder to turn but gives it a much better return to straight ahead feel. Basically your sports cars are setup with fairly high positive caster. Caster isn't considered a tire wearing angle. It mostly deals with the feel or feed back in the steering. Near zero caster makes the steering light and weird feeling. Think a unicycle vs a raked out chopper. A unicycle is very hard to keep in a straight line, is squirely but turns very easily. A chopper with a really long rake goes in a straight line great but sucks in tight corners. Make sense?

budhayes3

iTrader: (19)

If you bring the Camber in a little negative it will help cornering also...I set my alignment up to SilvySS specs, with -.5 Camber in the front. You can go even more negative and probably still not get tire inner edge wear, but I'm not sure how much.

I couldn't get my Caster as positive as I wanted to after I installed my lowering keys, it's around +4.0 and +3.9 IIRC. Someday I'll get some camber bolts and try again.

oldred95

I've noticed both in physical appearance and in the specs that around 04 on up tends to lean towards a slightly negative camber, especially on the 07+ new bodies. You can actually see this by looking down the side of the truck too. I would imagine this is to held counteract under steer by putting more of the weight on the inside edge of the tire therefore making corning better because the tire isn't trying to roll over the top of itself?

CJ Hungus

Hmmm interesting

oldred95

I thought this thread was worth revisiting. I have since aligned both of my trucks and I will start with the 99 first. I was able to get IIRC -0.5 and -0.5 camber and 4.7 and 5.0 caster out of it. I was shooting for about -0.8 camber left and right and 6.0 caster but even as it sits its far better then stock specs. It handles much better on those wide sweeping highway curves at 65 mph and in a cross wind the extra caster really helps take some of the effort out of keeping it going straight and those big wind gusts don't effect it quite so much.

On my 95 its a C1500 2wd but with a body lift and 32 x 11.50s (don't shoot me for this) and I was able to get -0.5 and -0.7 camber and 4.5 and 4.3 caster out of it. This was with the front eccentrics all the way out and the rears all the way in. Again I was shooting for about -0.8 to -1.0 camber left and right and 6+ caster but obviously that isn't happening. I'm wondering if there are any sort of cam bolt kits available with more offset to help get a little bit more out of it? It drives far better then it did before but I would still like a little more out of it.

My overall feeling when it comes to alignments is positive camber is kind of pointless. I guess its purpose in life is for trucks that carry weight over the frontend, for instance, say a snow plow. You would want it a little positive so that when you have weight on it, it doesn't go too far negative and eat the tires up. For most though, trucks never get used like that and a little negative camber can be added for better handling without eating your tires off. Kind of the same story with caster. I would just assume the truck drive itself as much as possible without me having to man handle it down the road.

budhayes3

iTrader: (19)

Good one to bring back oldred, some good info in here There are Camber bolts available that I've read of in this section, I just don't have any info on them. I like your specs, about what I want out of mine...was trying to get 6.0 caster but 4.0 was as much as I could get with the eccentrics maxed out like you mentioned

oldred95

Does anyone know about these camber bolt kits and how much more adjustment they provide?