Align That Wheels!!!

Aside from fitting various aftermarket gears to improve your car's handling, a carefully planned wheel alignment can make lots of difference. The main thing is either your car equipped with stock suspension setup or aftermarket suspension systems, the improvement applies equally and the changes does not cost much to implement.

So what are the wheel alignment adjustments and how will it benefits you?

TOE

Toe is the difference in distance between the leading and trailing edge of the wheels at the one end of the car. Toe-in occurs when the leading edge of the wheels are closer together than the trailing edge (the wheels are pointing slightly inwards), zero toe is where the wheels are parallel to each other, and toe-out occurs when the leading edge of the wheels are further apart than the trailing edge (the wheels are pointing slightly outwards). Toe readings are taken across the front and rear axle lines. Toe is measured in millimeters.

Toe-out reduces lateral stability and increases tyre wear on the outside thread. Front-end toe-out will improve turn-in response while rear-end toe-out resulting an oversteer motion. Vice versa, rear toe-in reduces oversteer, in addition improving lateral stability and causing inner thread tyre wear. Toe-in on the front-end reduces turn-in response.

CAMBER

Camber is the angle of a wheel from vertical when viewed from front or rear. Negative camber occurs when the top of the wheel is closer to each other than the bottom. Zero camber is where the wheel is standing vertically and positive camber occurs when the top of the wheel is further away than the bottom.

Negative camber reduces longitudinal grip. In addition, if the car isn't driven hard enough, tyres with negative camber setup will suffer severe wear on the inner side. This setup helps a lot during cornering where wheel alignment changes due to chassis,suspension component and bush deflection. These changes causes the outside wheel moving away from its usual upright position towards positive camber. Negative camber the right way will deliver maximum available cornering grip.

Camber is generally not factory adjustable. Only cars constructed to wide range tolerance that come with camber adjustment.

End of Part 1....

On Next Updates,

CASTOR, STATIC VS DYNAMICS, CONFIGURATION TO SUIT VARIOUS CARS, AND HOW MUCH ADJUSTMENT DO YOU NEED?

Stay tuned...