If you are serious about your driving and want the utmost from your car then as well as maybe increasing your engines performance or uprating your brakes you will look to upgrade your suspension to give better handling...seemingly seldom mentioned by anyone other than race enthusiasts and pros is something called camber - which can totally change the charecteristics of how well your car could handle in an instant.

What is Camber I hear you cry...let me explain...

When you drive hard through corners on track or even on the road the cars body and weight shift making the contact patch between tyre and floor vary.

This shows what happens to extremes when you go round a sharp (in this instance) right hand corner...the tyre rolls off the best contact patch on both the outer lip on the passenger side and inner lip on the drivers side. Obviously it doesnt need a scientist to work out that you have lost grip and will have problems trying to put any power down through the corner in this situation.

In this example the tyre on the right is a car setup with negative camber (roughly -4 degrees) as you can see on the right in a straight line the wheel is tipped in slightly - on the left shows what happens as the car goes round a right hand corner once again...this time rather than rolling off the tyres contact surface it rolls onto it...giving the best grip.

Obviously if your a straight line drag racer camber is not for you as potentially you are removing a slight amount of grip from straight line driving but as soon as cornering / handling and in particular track / race driving is concerned speed through the corners is just as important as speed in a straight line.

So how do I get camber? well there are several cheap ways of doing so but generally they involve filling out suspension mounting holes and adjusting the wheel to the desired postion before locking it off - checking, re checking and so on...this also only works if you have clearance to tip the wheel (the distance between the inner wheel and shock may determine this factor for you)

For what I personally needed a set of adjustable Track Control Arms was on the cards...as I could not find anyone selling them for a mark 2 fiesta such is mine...I went to Shepherds (who by now you see I mention quite a lot!) and discussed with them my needs and in the end the following arms were designed and built...

These are part of Shepherds RnD developed arms that as you can see feature a central box section with an adjustable bolt in the middle. This is a left and right handed thread so that you can easily adjust the amount of camber you need from the central nut. As you turn it one way it will push the wheel out and you turn it the other way it will pull the wheel in.

In extreme circumstances or for those that are running a lot of negative camber...driveshaft issues can occur...this is because the more you tip the wheel (add camber) the further in theory you are pulling the driveshaft out of the gearbox.

To overcome this however Shepherds also provide a range of shims and alternative driveshaft options for the mk2 to ensure this does not happen.

To ensure even sharper handling these arms are available complete with rose joints, powerflex bushes or new standard bushes (prices vary accordingly)

These really are a neat bit of kit - aimed at the serious enthusiasts and track day / race enthusiast that demands that needle sharp accuracy and adjustability from their cars. Prices are to be confirmed but if your interested in a set tell them you saw them on FastFords to secure the best possible deal.

Shepherds (01245) 477999