Setting Camber and Toe

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Arrma RC's
  1. BigRock 4x4
  2. Granite
  3. Infraction
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I picked up a camber gauge yesterday. I was wondering what would be a good general camber setting for bashing. I was thinking -1 for the front and 0 for the rear. Also, what about toe? Does anyone have a preference?

Im looking to set up all my Arrma trucks: Kraton, Typhon, Mega Senton and Mega Granite. Thanks!
 
I picked up a camber gauge yesterday. I was wondering what would be a good general camber setting for bashing. I was thinking -1 for the front and 0 for the rear. Also, what about toe? Does anyone have a preference?

Im looking to set up all my Arrma trucks: Kraton, Typhon, Mega Senton and Mega Granite. Thanks!

If you haven't allready, Read/watch all you can stand about suspension set up and all the adjustments and their effects. It is also not a one size fits all type of thing. The suspension design geometry of different vehicles, driving conditions, driving style, and tire selection all create the need for different set up. It's all about the combination of all the angles in play. What is suitable in one scenario will suck in another. I know you wanted to hear that :)
That said.
I would start with a little toe out,
Camber
-1 front
-2 rear
Caster
I prefer it as - as it will go (upper a arm clear forward)
I prefer my rear camber links in lower outer holes at the tower and wheel.
I don't run sway bars either (which is another part in the equation)
Just experiment, make one change at a time and find what you like.
Forgot to mention ride height and droop.
Changing either of those makes a difference too (you probably would be surprised at the difference in handling that changing droop settings can make)

All this, even just for bashing..
 
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Thank you. That helps. I never even have a thought to caster. That's set where the arms attached to the shock towers as well as the wheel hubs in the rear? How is it set in the front? Spacers behind the pivot balls?
 
The rear has no caster adjustment.
The caster on front is adjusted at the front upper a arm inner pivot (where the little C clips are)
Sliding the arm forward decreases + caster, sliding it back increases + caster. The front camber is adjusted where the pivot balls meet the a arm. This can be done at either the upper or lower pivot ball. (Top of tire leans in = --, top of tire leans out = +)
Caster angle also effects your camber setting. Typically with more + caster you will need less - camber and vice versa.
Caster is actually measured by the difference in camber from when the wheel is turned from 20° one way to 20° the other way.
Put the car on the bench and turn the wheels right to left, you will see the change in the camber.
 
@2fast4u - I’m having a female dog of a time with the front camber. I think the wheel extenders have something to do with it. First, the wheel extenders had a lot of play in them. There was so much play that it could change the camber by as much as 5 degrees. I finally added a shim and that firmed them up
DB6C6175-B652-41F1-BB54-6EF3288CFB04.jpeg


Now when I set -2 camber on the front tires, the pivot balls look like this:

0DA12811-C649-40CB-BCAE-BF968E852138.jpeg
FE0DFE1D-2DD1-46BF-BD43-DFD40D8A3D90.jpeg


Before I go and try to find some washers to use as spacers, does this seem normal to you? I took off the wheel extenders and put the stock tires on and the camber changed significantly. I could run -2 on the stock tires and not have to adjust the top pivot balls nearly as much. Thoughts?
 
I feel your pain. You are trying to make precision measurements and adjustments on a completely imprecisely made vehicle. There is play everywhere.
So, I say
Put the fancy gauge where it will benefit you the most ( In the tool box) :)
I will tell you what I do, (And somebody will probably flame me for it) But,
Find a nice flat area on the garage floor, then sit the car (with battery) down 4 or 5 feet back, wheels straight, and push it just hard enough so it makes it into the area you want. (This will help to settle the suspension and put the wheels closer to where they would be when rolling) Place a speed square on the floor perpendicular to the wheel and slide it in till it just touches the sidewall (nearest the floor if the camber is allready negative) I think you get the idea. Then Eyeball that sucker to see how much gap is between the square and the upper sidewall. With Backflips each mm & a half is about 1° (You can calculate by multiplying tire diameter in mm by 3.14 then divide by 360)Check all four, make adjustments and repeat. You will quickly get a feel for how much adjustment = how much result.
Run it, make changes, find what works for you.
Almost forgot, yes (on the gap at pillow balls) if a lot of correction is required the gap can get pretty wide. In that case I would shorten the lower arm a little.
Ok, My fire suit is on !
 
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I feel your pain. You are trying to make precision measurements and adjustments on a completely imprecisely made vehicle. There is play everywhere.
So, I say
Put the fancy gauge where it will benefit you the most ( In the tool box) :)
I will tell you what I do, (And somebody will probably flame me for it) But,
Find a nice flat area on the garage floor, then sit the car (with battery) down 4 or 5 feet back, wheels straight, and push it just hard enough so it makes it into the area you want. (This will help to settle the suspension and put the wheels closer to where they would be when rolling) Place a speed square on the floor perpendicular to the wheel and slide it in till it just touches the sidewall (nearest the floor if the camber is allready negative) I think you get the idea. Then Eyeball that sucker to see how much gap is between the square and the upper sidewall. With Backflips each mm & a half is about 1° (You can calculate by multiplying tire diameter in mm by 3.14 then divide by 360)Check all four, make adjustments and repeat. You will quickly get a feel for how much adjustment = how much result.
Run it, make changes, find what works for you.
Almost forgot, yes (on the gap at pillow balls) if a lot of correction is required the gap can get pretty wide. In that case I would shorten the lower arm a little.
Ok, My fire suit is on !

I have to say the geometry was an absolute mess before I started. I had a mixture of negative and positive camber between all the tires. It drive fine right out of the box but once I out the HR hubs and wheel extenders on it was all over the place. It is so much better now. Like night and day.

Maybe I'll get some RPM arms and see how that is. I appreciate all the tips. I've learned a lot.
 
Put the fancy gauge where it will benefit you the most ( In the tool box) :)

I like this comment. For me, I just go with a slight camber all around, eyeball a slight toe out in front and a slight toe-in in back if the RC has rear toe adjustments. Front toe adjustment has a huge effect on stability/maneuverability. I don't even bother touching caster myself (I'm not racing). The tires are going to play a huge role in how much camber you need especially.

Suspension tuning is even more of a mystery to me. I'll be damned if I can improve the suspension tuning on anything LOL.
 
My fancy gauge was $13 and is made of plastic. My eyes aren't that great and for me to see negative camber it has to be 5 degrees or more. I need something to help me with that.
 
I like this comment. For me, I just go with a slight camber all around, eyeball a slight toe out in front and a slight toe-in in back if the RC has rear toe adjustments. Front toe adjustment has a huge effect on stability/maneuverability. I don't even bother touching caster myself (I'm not racing). The tires are going to play a huge role in how much camber you need especially.

Suspension tuning is even more of a mystery to me. I'll be damned if I can improve the suspension tuning on anything LOL.

Yes, alignment can make a huge difference in handling. I do always measure the toe but that is still a crap shoot with all the slop and flex in these things.
 
In the buggy class they say more "toe in" in the rear helps it run more straight or getting wild out of corners, would that be correct? And is there a reason why the front is toed out instead of toed in?
 
From what I've gathered toe in on the rear wheels increases 'stability' and helps the car go in a straight line. Toe out on the front wheels increases cornering ability by giving a quickerr turn in.
 
Thank you for the info, I like to play with Suspension tuning and that makes sense and really helps for the next time I have to reset the front after smacking something really hard
 
-1 degrees of camber on all 4 corners is a good place to start. You will rarely use 0 degrees unless only going in a straight line, and the most you would normally use is -2 degrees.

0 degrees toe-in in the front is pretty standard, never toe-in, maybe -1 degrees toe out if you really have problems turning, but this is more of a band-aid than anything else. Toe out will decrease your straight line stability quite a bit.

In the rear, toe-in will help straight line stability as the expense of not turning as well (and slower speed for you speed run guys). -3 degrees is pretty standard for off-road, the higher the traction the less you can run although I don't think you would go less than -2 degrees and maybe up to -4 degrees on really loose outdoors dirt.

When setting camber and toe, you want to make sure you mimic the car properly at rest. I like to drop the car from about a foot (sets the suspension height) and roll it forward a couple of inches (sets the wheels at roll and suspension will naturally rise/drop from the stiction you got from dropping it). Wheels are not round and there's a lot of slop, so you will have to do this several times and just take the average to get it to the camber you are looking for. Make sure you are not pressing the camber gauge hard up against the tire, it should barely touch.
 
Is there any way to set toe in on the kraton/ talion v3 as the Durango was able to do
 
I feel your pain. You are trying to make precision measurements and adjustments on a completely imprecisely made vehicle. There is play everywhere.
So, I say
Put the fancy gauge where it will benefit you the most ( In the tool box) :)
I will tell you what I do, (And somebody will probably flame me for it) But,
Find a nice flat area on the garage floor, then sit the car (with battery) down 4 or 5 feet back, wheels straight, and push it just hard enough so it makes it into the area you want. (This will help to settle the suspension and put the wheels closer to where they would be when rolling) Place a speed square on the floor perpendicular to the wheel and slide it in till it just touches the sidewall (nearest the floor if the camber is allready negative) I think you get the idea. Then Eyeball that sucker to see how much gap is between the square and the upper sidewall. With Backflips each mm & a half is about 1° (You can calculate by multiplying tire diameter in mm by 3.14 then divide by 360)Check all four, make adjustments and repeat. You will quickly get a feel for how much adjustment = how much result.
Run it, make changes, find what works for you.
Almost forgot, yes (on the gap at pillow balls) if a lot of correction is required the gap can get pretty wide. In that case I would shorten the lower arm a little.
Ok, My fire suit is on !
Ok i did something like that with a square any from the top of the sidewall too the square and ive got about 3mm.and its made a hug differents
 
Just my 2 cents worth. I run negative camber on all 4 wheels, i use an advanced engineering technique called eyeballing to get the camber same on all 4 tyres. This slight camber does provide better grip when cornering, but this is only noticeable on asphalt and packed dirt. For the rear, I managed to adjust the caster of the wheel by adding as much of the composite spacers on the bottom hinge pin, toward the front. this affects the caster and reduces the toe in. Front has next to 0 toe, using advanced engineering again.
 
Just my 2 cents worth. I run negative camber on all 4 wheels, i use an advanced engineering technique called eyeballing to get the camber same on all 4 tyres. This slight camber does provide better grip when cornering, but this is only noticeable on asphalt and packed dirt. For the rear, I managed to adjust the caster of the wheel by adding as much of the composite spacers on the bottom hinge pin, toward the front. this affects the caster and reduces the toe in. Front has next to 0 toe, using advanced engineering again.

There is no caster on the rear. Moving those washers front to rear or vice versa on the outer pin only change wheelbase.
 
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