History and Design Of the W-Body Shim

The W_body Concept

Back in Late 1989, I was in the R & D center with Jim Ryshavy and Clint & Bobby Grove of Cosmos industries and were talking about the magna-cam for camber adjustment. Bruce had pulled a W-Body Car on the alignment rack and we started looking at the new design in the front, that GM™ was now producing. They were trying to convince Jim that the strut itself needed to be modified, When "I said that all they had to do is make a shim the changed both the caliper and the wheel bearing at the same time", the other patents that Stempf & Cosmos had for camber correction (patent#) did not interact with the brake caliper and this would! Because the new W-Body stut had the brake calipar mounted on the same mounting plate that the wheel bearing was bolted to.
So all we had to do, was make a shim that had enough flex built in, that it could flex backwards behind the caliper at the same time changing both the angle of the rotor that is mounted on the bearing and the caliper at that time.
I was asked if I minded if Cosmos worked on the new shim and patent, and that I would share in the royalties? I said that would be fine, not knowing I would have to pay 20% of the patent costs in order to get 20% of the royalties of the (45-7010 series) shim. Down the road I was the one that also showed that the rear of GM™s "E" & "K" bodies rear camber adjustment needed and the same type adjuster(46-1600 series).I like Cosmos never shared in the royalties on the 46-1900 series which was the rear on the full size GM™ from 1997 to 2005, that was a result of cosmos not even know and understanding what I had give them with the concept to patent.
Producing the W_Body shim also gave the shops one extra angle in the alignment of front of the W-Body cars. All cars have a toe adjustment, some have camber or caster or both, but very few have KPI, SAI, or MSI. GM™ gave us a template and the ability to slot the top of the strut tower, they said it was to correct camber, which it did through changing "Included Angle" which is the combination of Camber and MSI. Giving us both a MSI (McPherson strut inclination) or Camber adjustment. The Shim that we made for the front of the W-Body gave us a separate Camber angle from the MSI angle change done by the template .
This allowed us to change the personality of the tire (the camber) from the personality the steering (MSI) of that corner of that vehicle.

Understanding the 4 different Angles

Toe

This is the difference between the front and the back of the tires to a straight ahead position

This is the tilting forward or rearward of the upper pivot compared to the lower pivot. Adds and produces cornering and steering wheel return of a vehicle.

Caster

Included Angle

this the total the KPI, SAI, or MSI and the Camber. This is what determines the personality of that corner of that vehicle. the total of these two angles is what compared to the other side of vehicle is what make a pull or a drift. If SAI is to be set a 9 degrees and is 8 degrees than the camber would need to increased by 1 degree or the vehicle will pull the other direction and not want to go straight down the road.

This is the angle that determines the personality of that Vehicle as far as how easy it is to turn, how stable it is in the wind, and on rough roads.

KPI, SAI, MSI

Camber

This is the tilting of the wheel in and out at the top compared to the center of the vehicle. it gives use the personality of the Tire and has a serious effect on the length of tread wear of the tire.

Conclusion of What the shim does

So with the W-body shim we could give the car it's factory designed handling with the factory MSI and caster, and the Shim could give the tire it's designed Camber to give the best handling and tread longevity.

Finding these Shims

The W-Body shim and the rear E & K shim has not been produced for years and are pretty tuff to find and might be spendy for what they are, the rear for the full size C & H body 1997 - 2005 are still o a lot of shelves and easy to find. NorthStar manufacturing might be the best place to find any of them though.