The plan is to mount Strange front struts. Strange instructions state that these are for drag racing only. Whatever. Strange recommends 0 degrees camber, 6 degrees caster. I've mounted a lower control arm and my rack and that part all lokks good. My question is because this will be driven on the street, I'm thinking that I should set the strut at -1.5 degrees camber or thereabouts. While I'm setting it up at ride height, I know that I may end up having to tighten or loosen the spring to get it to sit exactly right. If I tighten up the spring to raise ride height, how much will this affect the camber? I dont want to ruin a set of front tires due to piss poor planning. The struts have 10 degrees positive camber built in so I've set the strut at -11.5 degrees. An inch of ride height at the control arm adds 6 degrees of camber if that makes any sense. Any thoughts?
The normal way to set up those struts on a drag race car is to put a 1/4" shim under the bump rubber and then mount them with zero camber. This theory is that pretty much all the useable strut travel will be extension and the bump rubber will handle the small amount of compression travel required. For the street you probably need to set them in the middle of their range, or a little biased towards extra compression travel so that they won't bottom out badly over bumps. Which struts are you using? They have a long travel Super stock unit that has 6.5" of travel (300 Series) that is probably the most suited to street use. That is the one that uses bolt on wheels and has a Camaro style spindle. The spindle mount ones (100 Series) and the medium duty (11x and 12x) units really do not have enough travel for street use and the Anglia spindle is a little small too. I would set them at 0 degrees at ride height and change the spring rate or spring seat height to keep the ride height the same. Six degrees camber change sound excessive for 1" of ride height variation--how long are the lower arms and are they at 90 degrees to the strut axis at ride height. Roo
To add to what the Rooman said,, we start by mounting the top of the strut,, then build the control arms, then mount the rack. Doing it in this order will help to keep the strut moving up and down in the same arc. Also helps eliminate bump steer http://www.datinmanjay.com/vette1.html. In the middle of the page is a picture of how we set them up.
They are the long travel ones. I'll set camber at 0 degrees. If I made the upper mount first how would I insure the wheel is centered in the wheelwell?
We use a jig. You can use a wheel on the strut to get the spindle were you want it front to back and in and out. Chock it in place rotate the strut to the proper angles and mark the location of the top strut mount. Now you can build your mount, tack it in and install the strut, double check everything twice before you weld it in. I have done it this way, but its been a whle. Sorry no pics.
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