Camber Compensator

Spit (Mk1, Mk2 and Mk3)

GT6 Mk1, Vitesse and Herald

This Unit is reported to also fit the Bond Equippe models that were built using the Herald Chassis.

                            



GOOD NEWS

There is a US based company who has agreed to manufacture camber compensators using the Curry Enterprises design specifications. 
Details can be found on their web site:
https://apex2apexmotorsports.com/








On the early Spitfires the road spring was attached firmly to the differential using 6 studs and nuts.  During hard cornering, body roll would cause the inside rear wheel  to be pulled up and lose adhesion to with the road surface.   When this happened the swing axle would have a tendency to tuck under resulting in what is called "wheel tuck".  This would produce a severe positive camber position of the inside wheel so if the direction is changed rapidly (as in slalom or right-left turn combinations) you have immediate and gross oversteer.

Triumph modified the rear suspension with the introduction of the MkIV model using a different way of attaching the road spring.  Instead of a fixed mount, there was now a metal box with a pivot pin that allowed the spring to rock when the body rolled in turns. 

This decreased roll stiffness  and allowed the inside of the car to stay on the surface and not tuck under.To compensate for the reduction in roll stiffness, the diameter of the front anti sway bar was increased. 

CC Center Mount.JPG (70358 bytes)
Above is a photo of the center bracket mounted to the differential.  Note the photo shows the differential upside down for clarity.

The Bracket is attached to the lower part of the differential using the bottom three bolts without modification.

A simple explanation of what happens when you corner with the stock spring:  The light loaded wheel (inside of the corner) has reduced weight and this allows the spring to push the wheel down into a positive camber position. After you go through that corner and the body rolls back to the level position, the wheel that was affected stays in a gross positive camber position.  Therefore, if that wheel then becomes the loaded wheel in the next turn, you will have excessive oversteer resulting in the  tendency for the rear of the car come around.  The camber compensator greatly reduces this "wheel-tuck" tendency.  It is a rather simple operation, but very effective.  In fact it is more effective than the swing spring modification on the later Spitfires, because it accomplishes the task without having to reduce roll stiffness.  An additional benefit is: At $225 (US) it is less expensive to add a camber compensator than to upgrade to a swing spring. The competition department headed by R. W. (Kas) Kastner recognized very early in Spitfire production the importance of eliminating the wheel tuck problem in competition.  So a camber compensator was designed to counteract this problem.  The accessory (competition part number V 170) consists of three mounting brackets a leaf spring and attaching hardware.  The center bracket is mounted to the bottom 3 differential bolts.  The easily installed kit is, according to Kas Kastner, "One of the best suspension modifications you can have on a Triumph Spitfire". 
Above is a photo of the right hand rear vertical link with Radius arm and Camber compensator attached.  Above is an illustration of how the camber compensator appears when installed on a Spitfire.

 

Below are PDF files which document a historic race car  which now has one of these camber compensators.

Article 1.pdf,
Article 2.pdf
Article 3.pdf
   
 Here are some photos of the installation