Chamber Problems...

[kris]

A friend recently dropped his G20 with Intrax springs and kyb's. Theres only one problem. When he did this his wheels have a slight chamber now and when he took it to get it aligined they said there is no stock adjustment for chamber on our cars. He ordered some bolts that adjust the rear out a degree but as for the fronts we have't found anything. Does anybody know where we can get chamber kits for the G20 in the front?

[Kenny-G]

I don't think the camber kit is avialible for front, but yes, there is a way you can adjust camber.

If you know the suspension set up for our car, you know that there is a upper control arm connected to the what Nissan calls "third link" ( it is the big piece which cover up the strut, on top of the spindle ) Now you can ( or have your technician ) enlarge the bolt hole on the top of the third link, reconnect it to the upper control arm, push the third link IN for more - camber, pull it out for more +camber, and then tight it up.
One thing you probably need to do....after you enlarge the bolt hole, before you slide the bolt back between the upper control arm and the third link, you may want to put a large washer between the two bolt holes. After you get the adjustment, weld the washer on the third link.
I was able to get extra -0.3 degree camber by doing that.

[qab5b]

The other option is to buy camber correction mounts. Usually these are adjustable, and you can adjust it so that you have more negative camber (top of the wheel in) or positive camber (top of the wheel out, and positive camber is bad for performance). They mount on top of the shocks/struts. I dont know the availabilty of these for the G20/Primera, but they are very easy to find for other makes of cars, so I ASSume that there are some for the G20. I think that Stillen might have some for the G20.
Sometimes car companies have fixed camber correction plates. These are also called "crash mounts". Dont know if Nissan makes these. They are used to fix minor camber problems, usually occuring after the car has been wrecked and then fixed, or slightly bent/torqued unibody from pot hole damage and the like.

If your friend wants the maximum performance from his new suspension, then more negative camber is good. Negative camber helps combat tire rolling in severe cornering. When the side of the car is loaded and the car has 0 camber (whel straight up and down at rest), the tire flexes at the side wall, and the contact patch gets smaller, as the tire tries to go one way and the car /wheel the other. This causes the contact patch to get light on the inside, and heavier on the outside, making the overall contact patch smaller. Negative camber helps to reduce this becuase when a car with a good amount of negative camber (maybe -2 degrees or so), as the tire rolls over the contact patch is getting LARGER not smaller, because at rest, the tire's contact patch is favoring the inside of the tire, and under cornering, the contact patch flattens out to be more even across the tread of the tire. The only real drawback to lots of negative camber is that tire wear is accelerated on the iside of the tread.

[G-Forces]

Unless you already know this pease pay close attention! Top mounted camber plates will NOT, I repeat NOT work with the front suspenion of the G20. Try and find a picture of the front suspenion and you will soon see why. Camber plates work on strut type suspension, for one, which the G20 does not have.

[qab5b]

Sorry, I had a brain fart there for a while.
Also eccentric bolts are sometimes used when, like Kenny-G said, the bolt hole is enlarged and you adjust the the length of the link by changing its mounting point. It is a cleaner install and a stronger overall connection and is easy to adjust: just loosen the locking nut, and rotate the bolt (old 911's rear trailing arms and spring plates adjust in this manner).

[Kenny-G]

let me know if anyone find a eccentric bolt for G, the "hack" work I did was pretty......ugly, but it works.

[qab5b]

Check out industrial catalogs. They have EVERYTHING you can think of! Just do a web search for metric hardware and see what comes up. Sometimes these places require you to buy in bulk, but if you buy 50, you can sell the other 48 (2 per car, so 24 "kits") to others (getting your money back at least).
How big was the hole that you drilled? I can measure the diameter of the eccentric bolts on the old 911's, and see if it can fit. Be warned that anything related to a porsche (be it a bolt, or even a simple nut) is over priced. I think the adjustment was only a 1/4" though for each of the eccentrics (there are actually two).

[uclandru]

I have that exact same setup (intrax, KYB) and have the same camber problem, Kris94G20 did your friend find a solution? I found a kit on stillen.com but im not sure if its for the front..gonna call the 800 no. tommorow..lemme kno what your friend finally did to correct the prob

[G-Forces]

Originally posted by uclandru
I found a kit on stillen.com but im not sure if its for the front..

Ruuuun! Run for the hills!!

[uclandru]

yep...stillen makes only a rear camber kit , I guess the alignment i got this morning will have to do..along with a backup set of tires for my front wheels........doh!

[FlossinPrimera]

Well I agree that it does accelerate tire wear. But you can do this to save some money, when you start getting your tires worn down to the wear beads, have the tires dismounted then remounted on the wheel opposite of the car. This moves the left inside, to the right outside (and vice versa) which will give you more usable wear out of your tire. This can be easily accomplished by any tire shop. Just don't forget to get your wheels balanced. Wal-mart Tire and Lube Express can do this for very cheap 24$ to dismount and re-mount all 4 tires and 6$ each to balance them which comes to a tidy sum of 48$ plus tax. Which is a far cry from having to buy new tires which cost any where from 100$ up each.

[uclandru]

Flossin'....thanks man..thats a really good tip! I'll get that done in the very near future....