Daytona Rear Wheel Camber Setting

The manual calls for the front wheels to be set at + 0.5 to +1.10 deg camber.

The rears are to be set at -2.15 to -2.30 deg camber.

Mine were set by Grand Turismo East in Atlanta about 6 months ago. I always thought the rears looked like excessive negative camber for how most of us drive our cars. That is, most of us do not push the car real hard around the curve. Most of us carry some speed through the curve and then once through, or almost through, push down on the accelerator. This causes the car to squat down and put more friction on the inside surface of the rear tires causing more wear on the inside of the tires which already have a lot of negative camber compounding the situation. I just recently put on Borranis with the correct Michelin XWX tires. Too early to judge wear but it looks like the inside rears are wearing faster.

Does the -2.15 to -2.30 rear camber setting seem excessive. I poster this on the Daytona Registry site to see what other people were running (if they know). But there are some real good suspension people on this site (JRV, David F , Bob Mc, ect.) so I thought I'd ask here as well.

Any comments appreciated, but please keep it simple so I can understand it.

Thanks,

Drew Altemara

Drew, I'll take a shot at it. First question is: does the suspension gain more neg camber when you accellerate and cause it to squat? Here is what I would do. Get or borrow a tire pyrometer. Drive the car slightly harder than normal. Stop quickly and take the tire temps as fast as you can. Measure across the tire ,, inside, middle, outside. If you have radial tires, you want to have 15 degree's across the tire with the inside hotter than the outside and the middle the average of the other two temps. If you have bias tires you might want to get the temps even across the tire. Sounds like you may have to much camber, but the temps will show you the way. If you reduce the camber to gain a better temp across the tire, be careful when you test the car and look out changes in the handling (oversteer.)Your camber may have been a "fix" by Ferrari to gain rear traction, but if the tire is not being used all across its width, some gains will be made by correcting the camber. Car suspensions are tuned for how the car is driven. Race settings are not good for the street and street settings won't work on the track. Need to be honest as to how you want to drive the car and set it up for that. Also, if you do the tire temps, the center temp will show you if your tire pressure is close. Tire center hotter that inner/outer = pressure too high. center temp lower= low pressure. but, start with the inner and outer temps for your camber.

I just reread Bill Harts post on his 550 with soft rear springs and too much rear squat and camber. Ferrari is doing something here. Not sure what, but may be correcting a basic oversteer problem for legal reasons, so these cars don't bite someone. Anyone remember the Chevy Corvair deal?
BILL, did you change out the rear springs, if so, what changed and did it help? Drew might be interested in what you found out!

Well, to tell you my experiences, the Daytonas always looked like they had excessive rear camber when looking at them from behind, but when driving them fast and hard they felt fine...especially in a striagt line and even in corners they don't push to bad. The engine is quite a bit heavier than the trans and I believe this is why Ferrari set them up this way.

Bob,

this is my theory also (that the factory built in stability at the cost of tires) because the Fr to R wieght bias on the 8" rims wasn't all that great. Many Daytona owners have gone with the Comp 9" Wheels on the rear to improve the handling when pushing the cars hard in corners, but these wheels are very hard to find these days.

and none of the cars with wire wheels were pushed hard because wires flex, giving quite a different (and scary) feel doing high speed cornering.

JRV, so if a person wanted to get better tire milege for "normal" (?) street driving, have you ever reduced the rear neg camber?

I have Borrani wires with the correct Michelin XWX's. I do not push the car hard through the corners but will floor it once through the turn. For my style of driving I'm thinking of standing the rears up a bit more to get better tire wear at the expense of handling. I like the tire pyrometer idea. Nothing like data to show you the way.

Drew

Bob,

actually no, I always left most of the camber in, because you can't Drive Daytonas like "normal street driving"! Once the engine warms up the cars just beg to be driven like hell.

The only thing that guys do is put 9's on the rear and run a little wider tire.

I may do a little bit of experimenting this weekend if I can snag a tire pyrometer. Last night I measured the camber at -2deg, 20'. I did this by using a large carpenters square and measuring the difference from the verticle portion to the square of the top and bottom of the 15" rims. There is a Porsche site that converts the difference for a 15" rim into camber degrees.

So without messing anything else up. I should be able to remove the same thickness shims from the bottom of the two A-arm anchor bolts on both sides or alternately add the same thickness shims to the top two A-arm anchor bolts and then remeasure camber. If the shims are the same I should not be effecting anything else (toe-in, caster) right? I'd like to see what just under -1 deg looks like, feels like and does to the tire temperture.

Stop me before I do anything wrong guys.

Drew

Drew, I smiled when you Posted the "large carpenters square" to measure camber. Did that years ago before I could afford the "new bubble level camber gauges". It works well! Sounds like you are going to do this. You just might find out what will work better for you and your tires. Caster and toe should be ok with the shim packs as described. JRV would know this for sure.
JRV 9" rear rims and wider tires? Sounds like a cure for oversteer. Does the 550 handle in the same way? Seems like we have two different cars with the same problem/solution. WIRE WHEELS Broke 26 spokes at Sears Point many years back. Wheel collasped at speed. Not a fun ride.$$$$