More recently, we learned that the specialists of the Togliatti company Autoproduct, it turns out, have encrypted their name. And How! In fact, this is not a “car product”, as we naively believed, but Automotive Professional Designed Universal Construction & Technologies, that is, “professionally designed universal car structures and technologies.” Without ceasing to be amazed at the resourcefulness of the masters, we recently got acquainted with one of these designs.
The blister pack includes two plates and four bolts. (Special bolts are needed so as not to reduce the overall reliability of the assembly.)
On the reverse side of the rally carton is the 2112th simple instruction with an intelligible drawing. Its volume allows you to quote all points without cuts:
"one. Remove the wheel.
2. Remove the drum brake disc.
3. Remove the pads.
4. Turn off 4 bolts and remove a nave with a casing.
5. Install the spacer.
6. Turn on 4 bolts of fastening of a nave, take the lower bolts from packing.
7. Then reassemble in the reverse order.”
What is all this for? The manufacturer promises an increase in active safety, a decrease in tire wear under lateral loads, a camber angle of -1 degrees and an increase in track gauge of 14 mm (these are some of the consequences), improved handling and stability, ease of installation, and high-strength bolts. Spacers checked for rallies and approved by VAZ specialists.
Although we are not rally drivers, we still take a chance. All items sound very seductive. And we’ll equip the 2115th of one of our editors with spacers. A colleague is no longer so skeptical of tuning: the ice was melted a little by the struts of the same Togliatti brand - Autoproduct, installed on its “tag”. After the publication, he often spoke warmly about tuning details. They decided to carry out the installation in the same sports and technical club (essentially a tuning studio) "Bilkon". There was no need to sort it out.
The work took surprisingly little time - forty minutes passed from entering the box to leaving, and the craftsmen still took the time to knock the dirty ice from the bottom and from the wheel arches of the car and drive melt water into the sewers. Then they removed the two rear wheels, dismantled the hubs, as indicated in the instructions, holding them on the weight, slipped the spacers, oriented the thin side up, and they all assembled.
Listening carefully to our feelings, we agreed that the car became a little more stable. Theoretical calculations confirm that these spacers are by no means a placebo, not water under the guise of a medicine.
When turning, the outer wheel works for compression, and the inner wheel for rebound. Accordingly, the ideal gathering / camber is violated: on the outer wheel that carries most of the load, a positive occurs, and on the inner - negative. As a result, the transmission of lateral forces by the tire, stability and controllability are deteriorated. Negative camber eliminates this effect. You have probably noticed more than once the negative camber on sports cars - for example, BMW racing, acting in the Russian ring. The tire resource in sports is not of great importance, unlike stability, which is why mechanics give the cars a kind of clubfoot. But even in standard "civilian" foreign cars, the negative angle of the camber usually reaches 2 degrees.
A similar effect can be obtained on front-wheel drive Tolyatti machines, which the engineers of Autoproduct embodied, calculating and checking the optimal geometry and dimensions of the parts. It turned out that we need spacers between the beam and the hub with an angle of -1 degree. A larger angle causes the skew of the hub, a smaller one is ineffective. The rear wheel track, extended by 14 mm, does not upset the overall balance, but improves stability. Spacers were tested on the 21106th, the "top ten" with the Opel engine and did not find increased tire wear. The testers spoke positively about the innovation.
