RENEGADE ROCK

I have been taking measurements from my 2002 ZO6's suspension in order to decide if I will use stock C5 Corvette geometry and A-arms for a kit car I'm building. To my surprise the upper A-arms are inclined (angled down towards the wheel) more than the lower ones to give the car positive camber gain in bump and negative gain in droop. This goes against everything I have learned about non parallel unequal length a-arms and seems counter productive to the overall performance of the car. I have also seen a few instances where the rear upper a-arms of C5 race cars have been replaced with custom tubular a-arms. Could this be in order to change the amount of camber gain or roll center location? Does anyone with experience in suspension design have any information on the actual camber change of the C5 Corvette?

SpeedyZ

It is not as bad as you first think. Most cars have the control arms above the knuckle with the ball joint in the arm. Look closely where the ball joints are located in the C5. The are very high in the knuckle with the arms below the knuckle. So draw a line between the pivot points and you will see the pivot angles are not as bad as they look. This design allows more room for larger higher offset wheels to clear the suspension arms and still have good steering geometry. Another thing is the high caster angle they use, that will decrease (increase negitive) camber a lot in turns which is really where you need it the most.

I think the replacements of the rear arms are probably more for wheel clearance and strength than anything else. Wish I had a set to allow more wheel clearance on my 19x13 wheels!