Silverton

Why does GM give the C6 Z06 such high (negative) camber? I believe the factory "nominal" setting is -1.2 front, -1.0 rear.

Solofast

Negative camber = grip,

Grip = Low lap times a the "Ring"

Low lap times at the "Ring" = Bragging rights

Bragging rights = sales!!!!

Any questions?

So you eat up the insides of your tires, so what's your point?????

rfn026

-1.0 is nothing with today's tires.

The guys in NASCAR are messing around with -9.0, and the ALMS Porsche guys are usually at about -7.0 degrees. I run -3.5 on the rear of my C4 and it's great.

Both Michelin and Goodyear are going crazy as people are exceeding the design limits of the tires, but damn the cars are fast.

Talk to the tire reps about what's a good number for their tires. They're going to give you a conservative number. They folks up front are running even more negative camber.

Today's tires love negative camber. Do it.

Richard Newton

Wheel and Tire Performance Handbook

Autocross Performance Handbook

steve J06

consider yourself lucky, i have base C6 and am maxed out around 0.9-1.0* in the rear. it's still not enough and this is mostly street use. tires are still wearing too fast on the outside half.

davidfarmer

German sports cars come with twice that much camber....and it shows in the magazine reviews. This is probably the first car that GM actually seems to have considered magazine performance over tire wear.

I have our Z06 at -2.2front and -1.5 rear......great grip and tires wear great at the track.

gonzalezfj

Unless you spend a lot of time at the track, wear on the outside edge is usually due to incorrect toe. Check your toe setting.

Frank Gonzalez

Silverton

I was wondering if the high negative rear camber for the street compensates for the very high rear sway bar stiffness (the chart published by Pfadt Racing shows the rear Z06 sway bar stiffness as very near T1 stiffness).

davidfarmer

no, the springs, shocks and bars are optimized to work together, and the alignment is a good comprimise between tire wear and grip. I'm personally very glad GM went with a pretty agressive alignment on such a good track car.

Silverton

Perhaps it wasn't obvious, but the point of interest here is chassis balance: understeer vs. oversteer. The large (negative) rear camber increases understeer, while the large rear sway bar increases oversteer. It had always seemed odd to me that GM used such a large rear sway bar on this car, while the front sway bar is identical to the Z51!

steve J06

Yeah that was my other thought too. it's going in for a check tomorrow.