Alignment Basics: Keeping it straight

Would you like to correct your camber to eliminate excessive tire wear or dial in more negative camber for better cornering? Steeda Autosport's adjustable caster camber plates give you the ability to create the perfect caster camber settings whether you are drag racing, road racing, or for your street driving needs. Adjusting the caster and camber on these plates is as simple as loosening a couple of nuts and sliding the plate over. So just what is camber and how does it effect driving and tire wear? What is caster, and can I have too much with a Mustang? These alignment settings affect tire wear and tracking, in this guide we explore these setting for your driving style.

Camber: The tilt of the tire relative to vertical. If the top of the tire leans inward (towards the engine) the car has Negative-Camber. If it leans outward, that is Positive-Camber.

- Negative-Camber gives the car more cornering grip and improves steering response.
- A car without enough negative-camber will understeer and wear the tread off of the outside-corner of the front tire.
- Too much Negative-Camber will wear the tread off of the inside corner of the tire
Camber should be adjusted to suit the use of the car

Type of Driving Camber*

Drag racing-no street use -.2° to -.5°

General street use -.7° to -1.1°

Aggressive street handling -1.2° to -1.5°

Road race / Autocross -1.8° to -2.5°

Specifications are for Ford Mustang only

Observe tire wear (street) or tire temperature (race) and adjust camber as necessary:
- More Negative-Camber (-2.0º) gives better cornering grip and more wear on the inside edge of the tire.
- Less Negative-Camber (-0.5º) gives less cornering grip and more wear on the outside edge of the tire.

Caster: is the how far the contact patch of the tire follows behind the imaginary line where the steering axis of the wheel intersects the ground. (Think of the front wheel of a shopping cart, where the wheel follows behind the steering axis.)

More Caster gives you straighter highway tracking with less "wander" and better self centering steering feel. It also makes the tires lean into the corner when turned, in effect producing more negative camber when the wheels are turned. This allows you to use less aggressive Negative-Camber settings, thereby improving the tire contact patch for better braking and reduced tire wear when the wheels are straight.

It is theoretically possible to have too much Caster, but to do so in a Mustang would require extensive sheet metal modifications. So for our purposes, we recommend the Maximum Positive Caster that can be achieved with our Caster/Camber plates. To get the most caster, push the top of the struts as far towards the rear of the car as possible when setting the alignment.

Note that the amount of Caster that can be attained varies with the year of the vehicle.

Year of car	1986-89	1990-93	1994 & up
Factory Specification (Caster is not adjustable without C/C plates)	1.27°	1.75°	3.6°
Typical Maximum Caster with Steeda C/C Plates	3.1°	3.4°	5.0° to 6.0°

Toe Settings. Toe-in or Toe-out describes the alignment of the front wheels relative to each other the same way you would describe your feet. Toe-in means they are closer together at the front than the rear.
We recommend factory Ford toe settings for all situations except track-only racing, where toe may be adjusted by the crew chief as needed. Factory toe settings are given in degrees. When setting the alignment with a tape measure (the way we do it at the racetrack) set toe to 3/32" total Toe-in.

See the full range of Steeda Caster Camber Plates: Click Here