IRS neg camber

[mel hubbard]

Has anyone here ever swapped over the diagonal arms to stop neg camber on lowered IRS buggies?. I know about moving the damper mounts, but don't know anyone to ask who's actually done it before to see if its worth the bother... Also having adj spring plates I'm just trying to find out how much of an issue poss camber would be, should it ever be adjusted higher with this conversion. Dave,, if you looking, don't worry I'm not joining the low life!!,, more thinking about rebuilding and selling the ol girl and I just reckon the lower she goes the faster she will sell. (;

[Tom-Kathleen]

Yes, we swapped the trailing arms on Kathleen's Manxter. It did reduce the negative camber noticeably. It is a pain swapping the shock mounts but straight forward otherwise. There is another way to accomplish the same thing if you are converting a swing axle car to IRS. Raising the diagonal arm pivot mounts when welding them in about 1/2" will reduce the camber. Mendeola Signature Motors is making adjustable outboard pivots for thier coil over conversions that also allow for adjustable camber in the rear after you set ride height. All of this is for us "low life" people. Tom

[mel hubbard]

Thanks Tom, your the first guy I've spoken to who's done the conversion, sounds like its worth doing. Adjustable camber without ride height adjustment sounds good.

[Gary1719]

So Tom did you swap arms on an IRS from one side to another to lower the car. correct! I was wanting to do this but was wondering about the camber. Gary

[mel hubbard]

[QUOTE="gary1719;15889"]So Tom did you swap arms on an IRS from one side to another to lower the car. correct! I was wanting to do this but was wondering about the camber. Gary[/QUOTE] Gary, its more to stop the neg camber that you get with IRS once they have been lowered. I read about it years ago, but never spoken to anyone thats done it before, which is why I asked on here rather than in UK,,,,, I just knew someone on here would have done it before.. I guess it could be tried out before re-locating the damper mounts, just by swapping the arms and seeing how it looks first, but IMO its always nice to here from someone who's done it rather than read about it in a book.

[Gary1719]

Alright go back to june 2006 buggy of the month winner. matthew, he switched his arms side to side. which lowered the rear. i have some emails from him telling me about his buggy. Very nicely done. Gary

[Gary1719]

This is the only way to lower the rear on an IRS unless you use sway away adjusters isnt it.?

[mel hubbard]

[QUOTE="gary1719;15895"]This is the only way to lower the rear on an IRS unless you use sway away adjusters isnt it.?[/QUOTE] Gary, You lower them by moving the spring plates on the splines, I played around with mine so it was slightly higher on the drivers side,,,, so that involved playing around with the inner & outer splines.. That gave me neg camber (but not as bad) like you get when you lower a swing axle vehicle,,,, to overcome this neg camber you swap the arms as Tom explained.. I'm not sure how much the ride height would change (if any) by just swapping over the diagonal arms, but thats not the issue,, I can sort that part easy enough, it was more the camber issue that concerned me.

[Tom-Kathleen]

I don't think the ride height changed at all on our conversion. We were running one torsion bar spline down and Sway-a-way adjustable spring plates about 1/2 a spline down. Tom

[Gary1719]

okay so swapping just fixes the camber u get from lowering when u adjust the splines up or down. Tom how much drop did u get?

[Tom-Kathleen]

Is I remember correctly, a Bug floorpan has about 7" ground clearance. Kathleen's Manxter has 5". She also has 2" taller back tires so that works out to about 3" drop. The front end has CB 2 1/2" drop spindles and an adjustable beam. It is a little lower with 25" tall tires. Tom

[73SpeedBuggy]

Resurrecting an older thread here but... Why is it that you get negative camber on IRS? The whole point of IRS is to avoid the camber change associated with ride height on a swing axle.

[Tom-Kathleen]

You still get negative (and positive) camber on an IRS car, just less of it in both directions because the pivot points are further from the center of the car. Tom