Caster and Camber.

Frnknsteen said
My Barracuda is set at -.9 degrees of Camber, + 4.9 degrees of Caster and about 1/16" of toe-in. We didn't intentionally set it there. I just told the shop to get the Camber somewhere between -.5 and -1 degrees of negative Camber and as much Caster as they could get, and that's where we ended up. I have the K7103 Moog offset bushings in mine and it drives good. Doesn't wander around our country highways and tracks well.

I'm running a 400 4spd, with Firm Feel 20:1 steering gear and 225/60-14's up front. Turning the wheel at a stop takes a little energy, but once you're moving it's not bad, and at road speeds, it has nice feedback.

Those are really good numbers for just having offset bushings! Usually you can't get quite that much + caster with just the offset bushings and stock arms.

Valiantjim said
@A408Cuda I think given your aftermarket control arms that specs like Frnknsteen's should be an easy dial-in. Your power steering will take the gorilla out of it. I've never run wheels bigger then 15" so 72bluNblue's bigger caster numbers might be in order for your 18's but I'd personally start around +5. My experience says experiment. Watch tire wear, I suspect the high aspect ratio modern tires with little sidewall on tall wheels are less forgiving of negative camber that will take the inside tread to cord quickly. Don't be afraid to move the settings around to find your personal sweet spot. I've had dozens of A-bodies with modified suspensions for handling and I don't think any two ended up identical in spec.

It's not so much the rim diameter that makes the difference, it's the width. The wider the tires get the more they tend to track road features like ruts and things. So, adding caster counteracts the tendency of the wide front tires to steer the car with the road imperfections.

As far as the camber goes I've found that up to about -1° of camber there really isn't much change to the wear pattern as long as you're doing some cornering where you drive. Above that and the camber wear starts to show up on the tires. But even then it depends on how much you drive your car. I would venture that most of us "time out" tires before we wear them out because of the amount of miles getting driven. Even the 6 year old KDW2's on my Duster are starting to check, and they have good tread left still. Seems like tires don't last as long as they used to.

A408Cuda said
I'm getting close to tackle this also, I have been wondering how I want to set everything, to top it all off my rear is four link that adjustable so I have to get that straight first. I'm also running 18's 245/35's in the front and 255/35/18 in the back.
Ive got all QA1 control arms with the big BJ's up front and 1.03 T-bars. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I should say I want the car to carve the corners but not be to much effort for normal driving. m running Borgensen box with a 850 psi pump.

With the power steering you shouldn't have any issues with steering effort. I would think +5° to +6° caster would be just fine. More than that starts to effect things other than just steering, as the "jacking" effect of angling the tires so much on turn in can upset the handling.

RustyRatRod said
Long as you have room to get the sumbitch rollin, it's probably ok........but in a tight, I bet it IS heavy. lol

Ha! Yeah it's not as bad as you might think. At one point I had it up as high as +8° of caster, that was really heavy. But that was actually jacking the front corners and noticeable altering the ride height as I was turning. I cranked it back to about +6°, which was great for the steering effort. But a lot of my daily driving follows "truck routes" so a lot of roads have significant rutting from heavy truck traffic and the rut tracking was noticeable at +6° with the 275's up front. So I went back up to +6.5°, which seems to be some kind of tipping point for the suspension. It tracks a lot less but doesn't jack the car as much, so it's a good balance between stability and steering effort. With narrower tires or smoother roads it wouldn't take as much.