Caster, why so much confusion?

I'm getting an alignment today and researched a bit.
I'm shooting for 2.5 degree caster.
But there are folks here that swear by getting as much as you can?
Why would you want 5 or 6 degrees?
That sounds awful.

Maxing out the caster on the LCA gets you some clearance, but I think the best steering response is still coming from factory specs on caster.

 

@nd4spdbh you have good thoughts on this topic.

 

I have been doing alignments for 35 years, here is the scoop. The more caster you can get the more stable the car is going down the road and faster steering wheel returns after turning a corner. ME/BE/ BMW/ NEW VETTES ALL HAVE 8 TO 10 to 12 DEGREES POSITVE CASTER. Hope this helps. No reason to have that much caster on your truck !!!

 

Its more for clearance from the cab when running bigger tires since the geometry of these trucks is dogshit. Another plus is it handles way better going down the freeway.

 

What do you have your tacoma set at?
I could feel the difference of one degrees just tinkering with my SPC.
While higher caster felt stable and tracked like it was on rails, one degree less felt better as a driver.

 

I recently aligned my truck after putting a leveling kit on it. [1 inch front only] my caster is set for 3.25 right and 3 left. I put more caster in the rf front to comp for the road crown. So on a perfect FLAT road it may tend to drift off to the left very slightly.

 

AT tires?
Toe .05
Camber 0.0
Caster 4.5 or 4.6

 

Was that high caster number just for fitting tires or do you prefer the way it drives?

 

On these trucks, especially lifted, you have a trade off. lower caster means the truck will want to wander, but you get lighter steering feel and less pull due to road crown / side wind. Higher caster, the truck will drive with less wander, but will pull harder due to road crown or cross wind. I have played with caster from the low 2's to mid 4's and have found a happy medium around the 3.3+- .3* mark, 0 to .2* positive camber, and a lil bit of toe in (like 3/16ths of an inch of track width diff between front n back of a 265/75R16 tire)

 

I got SPC uppers so I can put caster wherever I want pretty much but I like the heavier feel of the wheel and it’s wanting to go back to wheels straight in a corner at speed given these trucks have a fair amount of understeer your less likely to over correct and crash with the heavier feel of the steering wheel imo.

 

Thanks for the replies.
It's good to know some of the reasons why.
I think I'll ask for 3 degrees at today's alignment.
I've got SPC uppers too, set at position E.

 

What size tires you running? did you set to E to get cab mount clearance? Might be hard get around 3deg with the close to zero camber with the E setting. Id recommend D if you are running 265/75R16 sized tires.

 

My grandpas, sons, kid always told me to run high caster. So I always run high caster I guess I never really thought about it

 

Higher caster has benefits as mentioned, but you only want to go so far. There are negatives that limit how far you want to go. First think of caster in terms of a wheel barrow. When you put the weight in the front it is real light, easy to pick up, but tends to go where ever it wants. As you move the weight back, it is easier to steer, but you start to feel the weight. This is the same thing on your truck. As you rotate the axis, the steering weight increase. This put a lot of extra stress on your ball joints, steering components, etc. It also changes the position of your tire in the wheel well and the sweep as you turn. It can create a rubbing situation. You can only get so much adjustment out of the LCA, but if you go with an adjustable UCA like the SPC, you can get additional caster. This comes at the cost of moving the UCA ball joint closer to cab which means you are more likely to rub on the body mount and rear plastic. I would stick with 2.5-3.5 if I could. Anything more than that, you are asking for trouble.

 

I'm running 265/75/16

The truck feels better to drive at e than it did at D setting. I started with d, and switched to E just to test it out as well as prepare for bigger tires later.
Still tracks great.
The LCA are still in the original spots.
I'll leave a 6 pack of good beer on the passenger seat along with my alignment request numbers.
I've got the camber set as close to zero as I can, and it's the middle of the spc slot.

 

SPC’s installed. What a difference. Tracks road better. Higher caster really helps freeway driving. So glad I did the upgrade.

 

Let the guy set it to factory spec. There is a reason it is set there as was mentioned above. And, it probably won't be the same side to side due to manufacturing and stack up tolerances. Caster is not some wiz bang cool thing to F with.

 

Biggest thing is take a quick tape measure measurement of toe in before driving much. You can destroy tires QUICK with the wrong toe, and i can go from a 1/4in of toe out to 1/4in of toe in with like 2 turns on either side of the FINE thread tie rods.

 

It's on my list of wiz bang things.
Lots of people f with it.
My truck is at the alignment shop now, with a 3 degree request.
Not far outside of factory specs.

 

Factory on camber. Zero sounds good