(Note: I now have a separate page for the NC camber curves)
In the continued quest to measure various aspects of the Miata suspension behavior, this page presents some data on the camber curve of the front and rear suspension. In other words, starting from a given static ride height and camber, how much does camber increase as the suspension moves up? Thanks to Shaikh for the subject car (a 1991 model) and to Shane and his friend for the shop space for this work.
First, front suspension. We measured many data points throughout the range of suspension motion and obtained a good fit through them. The graph below shows in gray the measured data points as well as a curve through them.
The blue line shows a projected camber curve starting from the given static ride heigth and camber, which default to 13.5" and -1.5 degrees as shown on the right side of the graph. Also on the right side the projected camber values at 1/4" ride height decrements are shown.
The projection assumes that the position of the alignment cam bolts does not substantially change the shape of the curve. If your static camber is significantly different (in other words if your blue curve is quite far from the gray curve) keep in mind there may be some deviation in your particular setup.
You can adjust the starting (static) ride heigth with the up/down arrow keys and the starting camber with the left/right arrow keys (make sure the keyboard input focus is on the applet). This will move the blue plot accordingly.
NOTE: The curves are produced by an embedded Java application
which
allows the interactive height and starting camber modification. If
your browser does not have Java enabled the curves will not show
up. There are links below to a static screenshot of each one in
case
you don't have Java installed. Of course, you won't be able to
interact with those, however.
2023 Update
Unfortunately Java applets aren't really supported in browsers
anymore, so the embedded graphs below won't work. If you have Java
runtime installed on your machine you can run these locally.
Download Miata_NA.zip and unzip it in
some convenient location on your computer. The appletviewer
program should be part of your Java runtime installation. Run the
following command in the directory Miata_NA you unzipped:
appletviewer miata_na_camber.html
This should pop up two windows, one for the front camber curves
and one for the rear. You can interact with the graphs as
described above with the arrow keys.
Here is a link to a static screenshot
of
the above curve.
And here are the graphs for the rear suspension.
Here is a link to a static screenshot
of
the above curve.
Back to my main miata page.
