Camber Bolts

[soc]

Spent all day saturday under 2 cars.... I never thought changing the brake pads on a Polo could be such a pain in the ass. I now understand why VW have such a good reputation for building solid cars. Getting the caliper off was a real pain in the ass - they was very little room for manouver And to top it all off the old pads had at least 40% life left in them. I only changed the damn things cause VW in deansgrange were adament that they needed to be changed at the last service 3 weeks ago.... just goes to show that those big dealerships really do rip you off when doing a basic service

Anyway on the plus side I decided while I was down and dirty (excuse the lame pun) that I'd have another go at changing the camber bolts. Took a whole lot of swearing but I did manage to undo the existing hub bolts and I fitted the adjustable camber bolts from Camskill and all I can say is WOW - the difference is astonishing simply because the car feels soooo different. I haven't got 4-wheel alignment done yet so I'm not sure of the exact camber on the front but I followed the instructions and set it to the max allowed (which is supposed to be 1.5 degree negative camber.

Pros
-----
1. Turn in is much sharper - nearly caught me out a few times where I put down the power mid turn and nearly mounted the footpath as car whipped into turn (oops)

2. Car tracks in a dead straight line even when not holding steering wheel. I drove on M50 for about a km with no hands on steering wheel and car just kept on a straight line - the car won't drift to left (with camber on road) anymore (very sweet feeling)

3. Grip in dry is astonishing - I'm not sure about wet yet. I took a spin on some of my usual favourite bends around Stepaside and was amazed at how much faster I was able to drive each bend.

4. Car is ultra responsive - changes direction so quick now - takes some getting used to so that I don't over turn all over the place.

Cons
------
1. Steering feels much lighter - and as a result there is not as much direct feel from the front wheels. But I'm slowly getting used to this. Only problem is that I'm afraid in the wet you might not feel the wheels slipping until it's too late. But I'm gonna get the positive castor bushes fitted which are supposed to make the steering heavier.

2. Car is defintely much more responsive to the point that the steering wheel twitches in your hands. Not a vibration as such but more of a slight twitch - almost feels like you're constantly making small corrections to steering. But despite this the car still tracks straight and true - was quite funny driving on M50 with no hands and watching steering wheel twitch but still car goes straight.


Anyway upshot is that I think the handling is much improved, car is ultra responsive, very grippy (but needs strut brace) but you'll have to put up with / get used to the twitchiness and lighter steering.

Btw, if anyone is thinking of getting these and wants to see what it actually feels like just give me a shout


Cheers
Shane

[CJ]

Btw, if anyone is thinking of getting these and wants to see what it actually feels like just give me a shout

I'd be very interested to see the results Shane, its also an excuse to pick up that ATF Let us know when you get the + castor bolts on, I'd be interested to see if it sorts out the light steering.

Ciaran

[soc]

Btw, if anyone is thinking of getting these and wants to see what it actually feels like just give me a shout

I'd be very interested to see the results Shane, its also an excuse to pick up that ATF Let us know when you get the + castor bolts on, I'd be interested to see if it sorts out the light steering.

Ciaran

yea, I've been feeling a bit guilty about that -

I was just out about the city centre there and in this light drizzle with the greasy roads the car is quite a handful. Any sort of road surface imperfection will make the car squirm when you gas it.... like bad torque steer. I think I might have too much negative camber set (I think it's around -1.5 at the moment) so I should probably go get a proper 4 wheel alignment done to get it set to -1 to see if that solves the problem.

Anyone know if fitting the castor bushes and a strut brace would alter this again?? Will I need wheel alignment again?? Maybe I should wait...... but wet driving is kinda scary.

[CJ]

Anyone know if fitting the castor bushes and a strut brace would alter this again?? Will I need wheel alignment again??

Most likely yes....

Ciaran

[Dave]

seeing that we're on the topic, my car feels a bit sloppy lately, more than likely something to do with the size of the wheel but i'm thinking of getting the suspension sorted, what should i change to get it right, bushes etc....

[CJ]

what should i change to get it right, bushes etc....

Front Strut brace, front\rear ARB bushes, front bottom arm rear and front bushes, front\rear droplinks, castor\camber bolts and then get it all properly aligned. A note on the front bottom arm front bushes (bit of a moutful!), I had them changed a while ago and I noticed much better control on turn in. The ones in place where quite badly worn and its something that people tend not to look at replacing. All the above available from Camkill by the way.

Ciaran

[Dave]

cheers Ciaran, always a great source of info, i may go price all that stuff now.

[soc]

I took off the adjustable camber bolts this morning before work. 8am I was out in rain swapping out the adjustable bolts for the standard bolts. Why did I do this you might ask....... they were just too much hard work. The car was fairly twitchy in the dry, our irish "reverse potholes" (you know those lumpy sections of road where road repairs were done by simply dumping loads of tarmac into a hole and leaving it to set ) would cause the front end to twitch around which made normal driving hard work. And although the cornering was absolutely superb the car became a pain in the ass in the wet - the front would litterally slide around the place if one wheel hit a raised manhole cover or undulation in the road.

In addition every single bump was magnified 10 times and fired up the steering column.

My opinion now is that these would be a brilliant addition if I was using the FTO for track use but I think they aren't really suited to road use. Maybe less negative camber would give a better comprimise (I was set at -1.5 degrees) but to be honest I couldn't be bothered spending any more time and money on playing around with it - the FTO's handling is already superb when lowered and not too harsh for everyday driving.

[soc]

A note on the front bottom arm front bushes (bit of a moutful!), I had them changed a while ago and I noticed much better control on turn in. The ones in place where quite badly worn and its something that people tend not to look at replacing. All the above available from Camkill by the way.

Ciaran

Did you change them for standard ones or the positive castor ones?

[CJ]

Did you change them for standard ones or the positive castor ones?

Mitsi Standards.

[soc]

Did you change them for standard ones or the positive castor ones?

Mitsi Standards.

I'm afraid to have Paul fit the positive castor bushes in case I don't like them caus then I'd have to pay him to take them off..... at least I could change the camber bolts myself. Oh what to do........