citationls

I went to a driving course this weekend in loudon, NH and it was awesome. They taught sliding and a little bit of drifting on a wet track and braking control and last second lane changing and all kinds of stuff. At the end we got to drive on an autocross course that they set up. In the end I ended up with more experience and shredded tires. Overall it was great and I'd recommend it to anyone who lives within reasonable driving distance of NH.
Anyway, while at the course I noticed my tires rubbing during sharp turns/drifting. I took some pictures for you guys to show you where its rubbing. It's doing it on both rear tires and I also took pictures of the suspension in case some of it is aftermarket and that's the cause of the problem.

mediocrels1

thats simply a result of the fact that you drive a camaro


just get a sledge, or another hammer-like implement, and clearance the areas where the tires are rubbing. lol.

citationls

firebird actaully . Haha that sounds like a great solution. So this is a normal problem?

ncfastls1

iTrader: (1)

Yes it is. I have the same tires you do in 295/35/18 on 10.5" rims and mine will rub while going fast around corners. It rubs on the same spots in the wheel well. I tried banging it in with a hammer while I was in the shop a few weeks ago and it somewhat helped but a lot of it would not budge at all.

bigj2717

iTrader: (15)

If its rubbing just during turns your lca bushing could be bad

mediocrels1

oh my bad lol. whack the **** outa that sumbitch.



hit it harder. im running 315s on 11in rims with no issues after my inner fenders had a date with my sledge

Arctic2002ss

The panhard bar controls that (I happen to know that happens when it comes loose). Maybe the bushings are worn or should be replaced with urathane?

GRcamaro

iTrader: (4)

i had the same problem with my firebird with the Y2K wheels,i got a pair of H&R 20mm wheel adapters and now i have no issues.

Sam Strano

iTrader: (41)

There are causes and fixes for this.

1. Because you are rubbing on both sides you could simply put spacers on and stop it if you move the wheels out enough. But you need to be careful to make sure you don't go too far and cause the wheels to no longer ride on the axle (makeing the wheels lug-centric and not hub-centric).

2. You can change from a PHB to a Watts linkage which will take away all lateral movement of the body vs. the axle (which is what's causing this rub) assuming your wheels aren't really odd or you run a really weird size tires. When I changed from a PHB to a Watts link I was able to remove 3/8" worth of spacer on EACH rear wheel that I require with a PHB--and it still doesn't rub. Also the PHB had to be set long, making the LR stick out a little to compensate for the arc the body moves in. If it didn't do this the LR would rub horribly on the inside and the RR on the fender/quarter panel. Again, with the Watts link the car was able to be squared up and looks a lot better. And it's a big help in rear stability too.

citationls

Hmm so basically my conclusion is that the correct fix would be a watts linkage. Another option seems to be 20mm wheel adapters. However, the linkage would cost $1000, the spacers would cost $180, and a sledgehammer...well that would be free. $1000 vs. $180 $180 wins. Or even better $1000 vs $0 The sledgehammer option is lookin pretty damn good to me right now. Normally I'm a fan of fixing things the right way but in this case I'll take my chances with doing things the cheap way.
One question: when you hit that area with a sledgehammer does it cause all the undercoating around there to come off?

HAZ-Matt

iTrader: (8)

Are you running the factory 16x8's on that car? What tread width on the tires?

I definitely never tracked my car on those and I guess I never paid attention to how close the inner edge of the wheel was. At any rate, you do have a lot of aftermarket stuff back there from the pictures, looks like an adjustable panhard. You may be able to fix this by adjusting the length a bit. Otherwise small wheel spacers, or I suppose the big gun choice would be a Watts. If you set it up properly you shouldn't have any issue unless the backspacing is odd on your rims +/- a lot of width.

citationls

Ya they are what the manual recommends and the tire says 245 50 idk which one of those is tread width. I'm guessing 50. And ok thanks for letting me know I have aftermarket parts back there otherwise I would have never known . And I'll try adjusting the panhard rod. I might get spacers if the sledgehammer or the panhard adjustment doesn't fix the problem. I don't know if the backspacing is normal or not because I got the car from a guy who bought it from a friend who put lots of stuff into it but the guy who sold it to me didn't know half the stuff that was put in it. So I'm figuring out what parts have been modified as I go.
Thanks for the info