al

OK fellas I did a search and I came up with nothing. I want to know what alighnment you guys are running for cornering. I know on the Z28 I had it setup -.7 camber, 1/32 toe out, and 4.7 on the caster. Now I know that the geometry is way diffrent on the Silverado and it will never handel like the Z28, but I think it will get rid of the pushing problem. The rear swaybar is going to loosen it up as well. Just to let you know what I got I have a 2007 Silverado Classic that is stock ride height. I`m going polly bushings on the front 1 7/16 stock swaybar, and polly on the rear 1 1/8 Hellwig sway bar. Let me know what your running fellas.

budhayes3

iTrader: (19)

After lowering my truck, I was just able to get the alignment to -.5 on the camber, +4.0 on the caster, with 0 toe. I would compare the handling to my 85 Monte SS...truck is a 4x4, lowered about 2.5 in the front, 4 in the rear, with 285/50 20's on JGP wheels. I would have liked to have gotten more positive caster out of it, but was maxed out on the cams. (I believe the SilvySS specs allow for up to -.6* Camber on each side.)

Zick

iTrader: (18)

I tried the SS specs on my old 03' and didn't care for it. Maybe they didn't align it well but it didn't feel as good as my 99' with stock specs.

al

So if its anything like the F-bodies I my not be able to ger the negative camber I want without lowering the thing. I guess I`ll head to the shop in the next few weeks and see what they can get out of her. So could you get any toe out at all or did you want zero toe? I`ll check back on the thread Mon. when I get back into town. Thanks for all the help so far fellas.

Mr. Sandog

I lowered my Avalanche and kept caster stock and zero degrees toe. I asked for one degree negative camber because I like to take turns at high speed, and this is what they did for me.

CHEVY6000VHO

iTrader: (2)

Neg camber on a truck?????? Why??? Fricken buy a car if want to cut corners!
Neg. camber will only wear out the insides of the tires. Even though GM allows up to -.6 camber, that doesn't mean that it is good. 0 camber will be best. any neg camber will prematurely wear out tires.
Caster, well, it can place a little more weight on the rear tires thus taking some weight off of the front tires.
Either way, you will need a cross caster split of -1.0 or lower to keep these trucks driving straight.
I could care less if any of you guys dissagree with me. I do alignments, and I know what those kind of specs will do to a truck.

Jim

Mr. Sandog

Thanks for your opinion. You may not realize this, but I can actually drive my truck any way I please. Believe it or not. I know, shocker, huh?

With the stock alignment and the way I drove the vehicle, I wore the outside of the tires. With the negative camber I had dialed in, the wear became perfect.

BigCountryx

iTrader: (3)

sliderbkt

iTrader: (10)

Why do any of the things we do to these trucks? Because we can!

It is pointless I agree, but what isn't.

budhayes3

iTrader: (19)

You'll probably be able to get more negative camber without lowering it...since I lowered mine with keys, my alignment was greatly affected, and I had to max out the cams to get the alignment where I got it. As far as 0 toe, that was the factory spec so I gave it a shot. With wider tires, you may want to toe it in a bit, as it may make it easier to turn. (when driving down the road, road force will try to force your tires outward...just physics of alignment geometry and driving force)

Well, since most of us are performance truck enthusiasts, we want to mod our trucks as opposed to buying a car. Since you are an alignment specialist, you should know very well that camber has to be quite extreme to smoke the insides of the tires...the biggest cause of tire wear (besides proper inflation), is improper toe adjustments...vehicles being toed either in or out is what usually causes the outer and inner tire wear that we see. GM has historically kept their specs on the conservative side, so if they allow up to -.6 of camber, I wouldn't doubt that we could probably go over a whole -1.0 to possibly -1.5 before tire wear occurs. Most newer vehicles are coming from the factory with .1 to over -3.5* of camber built into them...granted these aren't trucks and the suspension set-ups are totally different, but there is something to take note of there.

About 15 years ago, after we had our first Hunter alignment rack installed at the Toyota dealership I worked at, we had one of our engineers come in, who was a 25 GM veteran engineer, to teach as a few tricks that the Hunter guy won't show us and and that we won't learn in the Toyota training program. He was the one who turned me on to the positive effects of negative camber, both on performance oriented vehicles and your average daily driver. He brought in his own personal car, told me to align it, and said pay no attention to red and green on the screen...he handed me a piece of paper with his personal specs and told me to go at it. When I road tested his car (MR2), it was unbelievable the way it cornered. I saw him again 15k later, and his tires were perfect (and un-rotatable since the rears are a different size than the fronts).

Since then, I have done thousands of 4 wheel alignments, and always try to get a little negative camber into the front, if it's a vehicle that has factory adjustments (not gonna take the time to get shims and bolts and sell it to the customer if it's non adjustable and is in factory specs). Many customers have called back and asked what we did to change the handling characteristics of their vehicle, stating that it must have been wrong from the factory, as the way it performs now is the way it should have always been...you know how rare it is for a customer to call back with positive feedback, they usually only take the time to call when they're unsatisfied or downright pissed. Not once have we experienced a tire wear issue that was a result of our custom adjustments.

I agree with the necessity of the cross caster as a band aid for a design flaw that causes these trucks to pull or drift right...I was worried when I aligned my truck after the drop when I couldn't get that cross caster split (it's just about even at 3.9 and 4.0), but to my surprise, it tracks basically straight. It's very affected by road crown though...when the road is curved left, it goes left, and vise versa. Since I installed my winter tires, it seems to drift to the right ever so slightly now...I guess the wider 20's have some affect on the alignment geometry that doesn't need me need the cross caster band aid.