96 2WD - Looking for Longer Upper Control Arms? Camber off

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great white

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its a 2wd drive truck not 4x so no torsion bars to mess with,most likely the knockouts for the upper control arms have to be removed to be able to adjust it

Ah, missed the 2wd but they still have z angle adjustments that effect camber.

97 should have the slots already.

How did your suspension kit get you the 5-6" of lift in your sig line?

That far off Oem could be lots of things....
 

Jesse82nc

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Ah, missed the 2wd but they still have z angle adjustments that effect camber.

97 should have the slots already.

How did your suspension kit get you the 5-6" of lift in your sig line?

That far off Oem could be lots of things....

RC 4" Spindles
Aluminum 1" coil spacers
32" tires

That adds up to about 6.5" over stock height on the fenders.

Adding the ball joint spacers should add another .5" to bring it to about 7". I'll know by Thursday if that fixes anything.

AAL + blocks in the rear.

off topic, but is that a 2500?

Sent from my SCH-S738C using Tapatalk 4 Beta

It's a 96 C1500 Silverado
 

great white

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The spindles are good. They don't really effect the geometry for alignment.

Your spacers may be a bit of a stickler. What they do is essentially the same as cranking on the bolts of a 4x4: it rotates the upper and lower control arms down. This is the "z angle" change.

1" should be small enough to compensate for with the factory camber adjustment though, or maybe not since it's a 2wd front suspension which has typically has smaller adjustment ranges.

The reason you have camber changes in control arm height is due to the SLA (short and long arm) design which is your IFS. Have a look at the rh side of this pic:

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The pic is talking about roll centres and suspension geometry, but it works to illustrate how a SLA design works.

The lh side is old suspension think, the rh side is how all modern ifs/irs are designed. Ie: camber change in response to vehicle roll. Better grip and handling is achieved by designing in a negative camber change while cornering.

It's the same reason you see lowered riders with sever negative camber as 4x4 ifs trucks showing positive camber after a "bar crank".

The suspension is designed to make camber changes are it cycles away from the stock ride height. But we've fooled the suspension into thinking it's in this roll state by lifting it (ie: upward roll because the arms are forced down).

Looking closely at the rh pic, you can see how the camber change is not linear but exponential the more you lift or lower. That's why a small deviation from stock can have a big change out at the tire surface.

The more you alter from stock, the more your front end guy is going to have to "think out of the box".

What basically has to happen is the lower arm has to be pushed out and the upper arm needs to be pulled in. That's what he adjusts with the camber bolts.

As I mentioned, you may not have enough adjustment to compensate for that 1 inch spacer to get in to factory spec. It's been a long time since I've worked a rack but I would personally think there is enough adjustment to deal with that 1" spacer. I'd have to get "hands on" your truck to say for sure. Things like production variance, accidents, modifications, etc change the whole ball game from vehicle to vehicle.

I forgot to ask, is your truck positive or negative camber he can't null out? It should be positive with the arms down. A little negative is not exactly a bad thing, positive not so much.....
 
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Jesse82nc

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Negative 2.3 degrees is what they told me. I can visually see it, the top of the wheel is leaning in slightly towards the vehicle.

From what I was told, but adding the ball joint spacer and moving the ball joint lower under the spacer and control arm, should push the top out far enough to get at least a degree or so out of it?
 

trdracing5

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Man your truck looks nice. You should post a big "before" picture (you have the "after" pic already posted).
I am looking at putting the RC 231N2 lift on my truck. The best price I have found for it so far is $429 shipped.
Was your price for the kit better than that?
 

Jesse82nc

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Man your truck looks nice. You should post a big "before" picture (you have the "after" pic already posted).
I am looking at putting the RC 231N2 lift on my truck. The best price I have found for it so far is $429 shipped.
Was your price for the kit better than that?

I pieced my kit together, I'm running Bilstein shocks, not the N2 ones from RC. Also I am using different blocks and AAL's then what the kit included. I haul an ATV often so I wanted a little more HD to the suspension rather then just lift.

Here's a good before and after photo for you, although it was more stock when I first bought it:

Before:
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After:
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great white

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Negative 2.3 degrees is what they told me. I can visually see it, the top of the wheel is leaning in slightly towards the vehicle.

From what I was told, but adding the ball joint spacer and moving the ball joint lower under the spacer and control arm, should push the top out far enough to get at least a degree or so out of it?

If th spacer goes between the ball joint and the upper arm then it should be moving things in the right direction. It makes the lower arm rotate downwards which adds positive camber.

How much you get out of it in degrees is hard to say. You'll have to install them and find out if the manufacturer doesn't give specs for them.

Good luck.

:)
 

trdracing5

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Love the before and after pics.
Your truck gives me hope for mine.


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