Lordred wrote:I still lean to saying no, as to have camber adjustment on a rear solid reqiures some extra work, it can be done, but at the cost of more engineering time, at that point why not use trailing arms or torsion bar?
I was mearly making the case that it is possible.
I'm still leaning towards yes - Let us step back and stop thinking about "adjustment" (even though I brought it up), and just think right from the start about the car leaving the factory.
Example - If a vehicle with dead axle could be made to have an ideal camber of zero degrees, and be completely non-adjustable, we accept this, yes? Okay, then why would you be against an axle being completely non-adjustable with a camber of +/- a degree or two?
Simplify it further - imaginary dead axle is one single piece of billet, machined to a spec where the wheel mounts are parallel to each other, perpendicular to the ground - zero camber, one way or the other. This piece takes (X) amount of engineering time and (Y) amount of production costs. Imagine now that a second axle has its mounting surfaces machined a degree off on either side, opposite to each other, neither parallel to the ground - the axle now has camber, one way or the other, with no significant increase to engineering time or production costs, if at all.
In the real world, a dead axle would not be a single piece like this, but think about what a dead axle is - it is a rigid tube or bar, with spindles/bearing surfaces/ hub-mounting points on each end, and suspension/ shock mounts. Do you want pictures? I have pictures. All of these mounts and etc. are joined to the beam/ tube itself, 99.9% of the time by welding. The axles are designed by the engineers that, once all put together and under the car, to have a a camber of (Z) - It might be positive, it might be negative, it might be neutral, but regardless, THERE IS TECHNICALLY A MEASURABLE CAMBER ON THE WHEELS.
Now, we don't care what-so-ever whether that is adjustable or not after the car is sold to the customer, we are just designing a car (or truck), and performance at brand-new at zero miles is what we give any damns about. This is Automation, not Car Mechanic Simulator 2015. If for some reason the only possible way to change camber on this vehicle is to hire engineers and cut a new axle out of billet with different dimensions, then so be it, I don't care - but tell me, TELL ME, why it should not be possible to design the axle a
liiiittle differently from the factory to have half a damn degree of camber either way.
Tell me why zero degrees is the only possible way a straight, dead axle could and should be designed.FWIW - I love making vans and small cars with a cheap dead axle in the back. In a van, you have a very durable axle with the highest load rating, and it can give you a flat cargo floor which is very important. In small little hatches and coupes, it's cheap, it's functional, it's compact, it's simple to engineer. Etc. Not every car I make is the "best" car, and that's on purpose - I don't always want IRS, sometimes a straight axle is perfectly fine, especially if I have a tenth of a degree or two of camber to play with.