Hi folks,
Here's the info on a camber compensator from one of the autocross list
members. Looks fairly simple, let me know what you think.
John
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Subject: Herald camber compensator
Date: Tue, 2 Jul 96 15:03 EST
From: Rocky Entriken <0003006623@mcimail.com>
To: matthews <matthews@apple.com>
John--
It's fairly easy to describe [he says, hopefully] so I'll try here:
1. There is a big bolt at the top shock mount. Drill into the head and
tap
the hole to take a smaller bolt of about 1/4 inch diameter.
2. Get a pulley with a guard on it, whose hub is 1/4 inch. knock the
original
hub out because that bolt will become the hub.
3. Get 1/4 inch bolts that have a shoulder on them to be the hub for
the pulley
>> obviously you get two of each, one for each side! <<
4. Screw the smaller bolt into the head of the larger bolt with the
pulley
mounted on the smaller bolt.
5. Run a length of cable (mine is about 1/8 inch) so it wraps around
both
lower shock mounts and through the pulleys. It goes lower mount to
pulley
to pulley to mount.
6. For a competition setup, I set both rear axles on jackstands, then
weight the trunk (maybe I have someone sit in it) to flatten out the
axles as much as possible.
7. Pull the cable tight and secure it with two cable holders on each
side
(to make a redundant setup. Cable holder -- is that the right term.
It's
those U-clamp things held on with nuts on the end of the U-bolt.
Cable
clamp? Is that the term I'm looking for?
That's basically it.
For my daily driver, I have it set looser than for my race car (it
takes
out the softness of the ride the tighter you set it). You still will
have
some looseness when the car is just sitting static on the ground, but
it
keeps the axles from both swinging down simultaneously. The effect is
that
more of a single beam axle and the car rotates over the centerline.
Oh, back to Step 5 -- at the lower shock mount I locate the cable
between
the upright and the shock. The cable goes on first, then the
shock, then the washer, then the nut. Yes, it will chew up the shock
grommet
some, but so what? Once it is in place, you can often just slip the
cable
off the end of the shock mount without undoing it.
Fine tuning tricks:
If it legal (depending on the class you are in), consider cutting away
the body
work just above the axle to provide axcess to the inner/outer axle
connection.
Bolt a little metal loop to the top of the diff to "locate" the cable.
Otherwise, as it loosens and tightens, it sometimes gets caught in
those
bolts atop the diff that locate the spring. The cable runs just behind
the
spring.
To really get trick, cut the cable in the vicinity of the diff and put
a
turnbuckle there. Now it becomes an adjustable camber compensator.
Steve Eckerich (in
Carolina) gave me the ideas for the turnbuckle and the bodywork cutaway
after
he copied the basic cable setup from me. I didn't feel like doing the
turnbuckle thing, but I did adopt the bodywork cutaway just for the
lovely
access to the axles. I went Steve one better again, and created a cover
for
the cutaway to keep all the dirt and trash out of the trunk (where my
fuel
cell now resides).
Let me know how it comes out. I hope maybe you'll bring that Herald to
National sometime. I'd love to see that ugly duckling run sometime.
--Rocky
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