GR86 Camber Bolts

KobayashiMaru86

KobayashiMaru86

Totally Hooked
Joined
Apr 14, 2022
Messages
2,512
Reaction score
3,403
Location
Swansea, Wales
Seems everyone is buying the 16mm ones as nowhere has them in stock. Fensport sold their last pair this morning. Was tempted to get some and get my local motorsport garage who mates use for their Ring trips and for their drift cars to do a fast road setup to see how it is for now.
 
Why not get the 14 mm instead? Put 14mm camber bolt in the lower hole, and move the OEM from the lower to the upper = Maximum camber

That's what I was going to do but ordered Coilovers instead.
 
FWIW I managed about -1 on the driver side, -1.25 on the passenger with the upper 16mm bolts

The lower 14mm bolts got me significantly more. (got mine from Brands Hatch Performance). I think up to -2.5, settled back on -1.75.
 
I'm not after a massive amount. -1 maybe fine. I forgot it was 16mm top 14mm bottom. Do you need both or is it either?
 
Just fitted a set of whiteline 14mm camber bolt to my car (camber bolt bottom, stock 14mm bolt from the bottom moved to the top)

The gain in camber can definitely be seen visually (see picture), car is going in for alignment later this week; aiming to get as close to 2 deg as possible. A quick shakedown drive definitely shows a more positive front end once loaded up laterally, an afternoon well spent fitting these I'd say!

20230501_173440.webp
 
Doridori said:
Just fitted a set of whiteline 14mm camber bolt to my car (camber bolt bottom, stock 14mm bolt from the bottom moved to the top)

The gain in camber can definitely be seen visually (see picture), car is going in for alignment later this week; aiming to get as close to 2 deg as possible. A quick shakedown drive definitely shows a more positive front end once loaded up laterally, an afternoon well spent fitting these I'd say!
Click to expand...
Is that stock wheels without spacers?
 
hsb said:
Is that stock wheels without spacers?
Click to expand...
Correct, stock wheel without spacers. Does look a bit silly at the moment! With the added camber I think it can benefit from some spacers for sure; top of the wheel does look a bit too sunk in; I reckon 15-20mm will bring them almost flush with the wheelarch.

20230501_191059.webp
 
I've been following this and the alignment thread with interest and I think I have the gist of the benefits but could someone sum it up for me?

My GR86 for me has felt epic on the road, really confidence inspiring at even high speeds.
But taking it on track it was hugely understeering, far more so than expected and quite undesirable for me. Can of course be corrected with throttle application.

So would adding camber remove or reduce the understeer?

Is it a case of road or track handling?
 
PVGR said:
I've been following this and the alignment thread with interest and I think I have the gist of the benefits but could someone sum it up for me?

My GR86 for me has felt epic on the road, really confidence inspiring at even high speeds.
But taking it on track it was hugely understeering, far more so than expected and quite undesirable for me. Can of course be corrected with throttle application.

So would adding camber remove or reduce the understeer?

Is it a case of road or track handling?
Click to expand...
I think increasing the static front camber should help significantly with the heavy understeering you felt on a track, where you are pulling much higher levels of lateral load.

With the stock near zero deg camber up front, the front outer tyre will be folding over onto it's sidewall under high lateral loads. With some negative camber, the tyre will be closer to perpendicular to the ground, thus maximising contact patch when cornering.

Downside is increased inner shoulder wear during everyday driving and potentially reduced initial turn in response. However at the levels of camber achievable with camber bolts that we are talking about here (2 deg max?) I don't think it will be an issue at all!
 
  • Like
Reactions: ZN8
This is why at least for now that -1 will be ideal for road use. I've ordered bolts. Shame it took so long to get round to finding some as I'm back in work next week. Week after I'm off again so booked it for these and an alignment before I head to Scotland
 
KobayashiMaru86 said:
This is why at least for now that -1 will be ideal for road use. I've ordered bolts. Shame it took so long to get round to finding some as I'm back in work next week. Week after I'm off again so booked it for these and an alignment before I head to Scotland
Click to expand...
I am going to a trackday soon, with only -1 degree front. Let see how it goes.

It was actually OK on a autosolo already, don't feel the terminal understeer with an alignment and front camber.
 
PVGR said:
I've been following this and the alignment thread with interest and I think I have the gist of the benefits but could someone sum it up for me?

My GR86 for me has felt epic on the road, really confidence inspiring at even high speeds.
But taking it on track it was hugely understeering, far more so than expected and quite undesirable for me. Can of course be corrected with throttle application.

So would adding camber remove or reduce the understeer?

Is it a case of road or track handling?
Click to expand...
You will very likely feel the front camber changes even on road driving. A small camber of below 2 will not affect the tyre wear much and but will massively reduce outer shoulder wear when driving hard compared to no camber.


Below for full track setup:

The front suspension layout does not increase camber when loaded up, but the rear does. Which decides that when you wanted a balanced car when laterally loaded up, it's perferable to have more front camber than rear. As went in actual corner, the rear camber will increase (from -1.5 to -2, for example) yet the front will more or less stay the same as the static values. Most street tyres will like camber up to -3 but you will start losing overall grip when it's too far, racing slick will want even more.

For even more front end bite, toe out at the front will make it even sharper, but THIS IS the real tyre killer compared to smallish static camber! Don't recommend it for mainly street driven cars.
 
Really useful thank you all, please keep sharing how things feel and the results. Feels like at least -1 maybe 2 is the way to go.

Now to find some bolts.....
 
Had my car in for an alignment following the fitment of 14mm camber bolts at the front, ended up with the following:

Front
Camber: 2.0 degrees both side
Toe: Asked for 0.1 degree total toe in, got 1.2mm (anyone know how to convert toe in mm to degree?)

Rear
Camber: non adjustable so these are my out of factory values: L 0. 5 deg / R 0.9 deg
Toe: Asked for 0.2 degree total toe in, got 2mm

Whilst I'm not too happy about the asymmetric and rather low camber at the rear (would have preferred something symmetrical around 1.2 deg), I am extremely happy with the result; due to the toe in i think, the car has lost the neurotic tendency to require constant, minute steering inputs just to keep it going straight; it is much more easy going, and FR like to drive. Any loss of turn in agility is minimal, and the improved straight line stability is more than worth it for me.

The increased front camber can be felt mid corner with reasonable lateral loads: front end feels a lot more planted and reaponsive to steering adjustments. Rear end seems a bit more willing to rotate on a mid-corner throttle lift: need to check in the wet but in the dry conditons today at least, it didn't feel excessive.

Still debating whether i should get those rear camber arms to sort out the crap stock settings on mine, but they aren't cheap!!
 
Last edited:
Could be talking bollocks but I think the calculation you need on google is (the 3 here being 3mm), 495 being the wheel circumfrence

asin(3/495) to degrees
 
It was immediately noticeable to me when I added 1 degree of negative on the front and a bit of toe in on the rear.

Felt nicely balanced on track too, no scrubbing of side wall even running fairly low pressures.

IMG_0112.webp
 
Doridori said:
Had my car in for an alignment following the fitment of 14mm camber bolts at the front, ended up with the following:

Front
Camber: 2.0 degrees both side
Toe: Asked for 0.1 degree total toe in, got 1.2mm (anyone know how to convert toe in mm to degree?)

Rear
Camber: non adjustable so these are my out of factory values: L 0. 5 deg / R 0.9 deg
Toe: Asked for 0.2 degree total toe in, got 2mm

Whilst I'm not too happy about the asymmetric and rather low camber at the rear (would have preferred something symmetrical around 1.2 deg), I am extremely happy with the result; due to the toe in i think, the car has lost the neurotic tendency to require constant, minute steering inputs just to keep it going straight; it is much more easy going, and FR like to drive. Any loss of turn in agility is minimal, and the improved straight line stability is more than worth it for me.

The increased front camber can be felt mid corner with reasonable lateral loads: front end feels a lot more planted and reaponsive to steering adjustments. Rear end seems a bit more willing to rotate on a mid-corner throttle lift: need to check in the wet but in the dry conditons today at least, it didn't feel excessive.

Still debating whether i should get those rear camber arms to sort out the crap stock settings on mine, but they aren't cheap!!
Click to expand...
How much mileage have your car got, spring still needed some time to settle lower? The below 1 deg rear seems a bit low, I got 1.2 to 1.4 when I took mine to align at 1000 miles. As ride height decrease, the rear neg camber increases. Maybe car is still sitting a bit high being so new.

I would recommend trying no toe at the front, it doesn't feel darty without any toe in, I would even go toe out if it's not my daily driver.
 
Stardus. said:
How much mileage have your car got, spring still needed some time to settle lower? The below 1 deg rear seems a bit low, I got 1.2 to 1.4 when I took mine to align at 1000 miles. As ride height decrease, the rear neg camber increases. Maybe car is still sitting a bit high being so new.

I would recommend trying no toe at the front, it doesn't feel darty without any toe in, I would even go toe out if it's not my daily driver.
Click to expand...
It's on about 1700 miles at the moment. From some alignment spec sheets I've seen floating around the net, it seems the tolerance for rear camber is between - 0.5 to - 2 deg, so my car is probably still within spec (clearly I'm on the unlucky side though...)

The reason why I wanted a touch of toe in at the front is because my car seems to lose all steering self centering within a few degrees around straight ahead. If you were to say turn the steering wheel 3 degree to the right and then let go of the wheel, the wheel won't return to centre and the car will continue drifting to the right, making the car quite tiring to drive. That's why I wanted to try a touch of front toe to add a bit of straight ahead definition to the steering.

Ideally, I'd like to run a lot more front castor on my car (used to run a Nissan S14a at 8 degree castor, Merc W204 C class at 11 deg). They had a lovely sense of the steering loading up with lateral load, and in comparison the GR86's steering feels intuitive, precise but a bit flat in comparison (hydraulic rack on those cars probably helped also...) Alas, not something we can change on our car unless we add adjuatable top mounts....

I'm much happier with where it is at the moment compared to stock; definitely up for more experimentation in the future though so taking out front toe might be something to try in the future for sure!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top