Camber Plates - Track/Street adjustment

[dc5s]

Hi all,

Can anyone advise whether camber settings can be changed at the track by adjusting camber plates, and then return to street settings at the conclusion of the day?

I realize there are implications for toe settings, but I am wondering if the toe goes out or in when adding more camber?

If toe goes out while camber is added, it seems reasonable to be change settings at track days.

Any advice would be great. Thanks all.

[bigjae1976]

You add toe out as you add camber.

I had the GC plates on the stock suspension. It REALLY easy to set the toe if you mark the tie rods. IIRC, its only like a 1/8 turn each side to go from -2.5 to -1.8 while keeping the toe at 0.

The E9X M3 has a T50 bolt which you loosen...way easier than the E46 and most other cars.

[z3papa]

Yes you can change camber at the track by unweighting the car, loosening the two nuts at the shock tower on each side and pushing them in. Personally, I had my last setup where the race alignment was setup with my plates all the way in (-3.5) and smidge of toe out, and just rolled with the change in toe (inward some) when I had the plates out (-2.4) on the street. I had exceptionally even tire wear.

[jphughan]

I thought the E9x added toe-IN with more negative camber. I know the direction of this relationship changes based on some geometry aspect of the suspension, and therefore different cars work differently.

OP how many tracks days are you doing per year? I set my camber to -2.5 with 1/16" total toe-in and left it there full-time. I still corded/chunked front PSS tires on the outside edge after 4-5 track days, then I got Yoko AD08Rs and was all good, but I never saw any wear to suggest that I needed to dial the camber back for the street, and I did about 9K miles per year overall with 8-10 track days in that period.

[Z K]

Originally Posted by jphughan

I thought the E9x added toe-IN with more negative camber. I know the direction of this relationship changes based on some geometry aspect of the suspension, and therefore different cars work differently.

OP how many tracks days are you doing per year? I set my camber to -2.5 with 1/16" total toe-in and left it there full-time. I still corded/chunked front PSS tires on the outside edge after 4-5 track days, then I got Yoko AD08Rs and was all good, but I never saw any wear to suggest that I needed to dial the camber back for the street, and I did about 9K miles per year overall with 8-10 track days in that period.

The tires you run are very important. The PSS has soft sidewalls and a tread pattern that only puts high grip rubber on the outside to reduce treadwear for normal driving. I shredded a set of them after a few track days. Like you, I got AD08R and they are working great.

I am just using the stock camber adjustment which puts me at -1.4 degrees. I can definitely see the advantage of having more negative camber but I'm trying to avoid the added NVH from camber plates for my normal driving.

[jphughan]

Originally Posted by Z K

The tires you run are very important. The PSS has soft sidewalls and a tread pattern that only puts high grip rubber on the outside to reduce treadwear for normal driving. I shredded a set of them after a few track days. Like you, I got AD08R and they are working great.

I am just using the stock camber adjustment which puts me at -1.4 degrees. I can definitely see the advantage of having more negative camber but I'm trying to avoid the added NVH from camber plates for my normal driving.

I used the Vorshlag plates and had absolutely no change in NVH, or even ride height. The key is to make sure they get installed properly. The nut at the center of the top mount has to be buzzed with an air impact gun, not an electric one and definitely not hand-tightened (though the three surrounding adjustment nuts should only be hand-tightened). If you don't do that, you'll get noise, but if you do, your camber plates will be completely transparent except that if you have EDC, the plastic strut covers that the EDC wires run into before plugging into the stud may not seal quite as tightly since the stud will be more tilted with the additional camber, but that is a purely cosmetic issue and barely even that.

[dbyrd]

That's what he said - BigJae that is.

I adjust my camber from -1.6 to -3.1 at the track. When negative camber is added, it increases the toe out. I've run without adjusting the toe and it causes a minimal amount of additional wear on the inner tire. To get the toe back to zero, then tie-rods are tightened 2/3 of a turn. A good shop can measure and mark your camber plates and tie-rods during a performance alignment.

[bigjae1976]

Originally Posted by dbyrd

That's what he said - BigJae that is.

I adjust my camber from -1.6 to -3.1 at the track. When negative camber is added, it increases the toe out. I've run without adjusting the toe and it causes a minimal amount of additional wear on the inner tire. To get the toe back to zero, then tie-rods are tightened 2/3 of a turn. A good shop can measure and mark your camber plates and tie-rods during a performance alignment.

Hey man...you're using my line!

Forgot to mention...I would recommend marking which way to turn the tie rods. I marked mine with an arrow between the marks.

[rzm3]

Personally, I am not a fan of messing with alignment at the track because it is very hard to precisely go between two settings. But, here is how a friend of mine does it:

Align car to street specs with moderate negative camber + toe in (factory specs allow for up to 0.3 deg of total toe in). At the track, by adding negative camber, toe should outward adjust due to geometry... hopefully to a neutral toe (more or less) which would be perfect for the race track.

[Sleeper519]

The problem I've found is that changing the camber from street to track say -1.5 to -3.0, the toe does change...A LOT. On the shop rack, each side was moving toe ~1/3" out ...each side. That's a lot more tie rod turns than 1/4 turn to correct. I didn't want to just guess on my own, and my shop guy told me i would most likely screw it all up (and I think he was right ). Point being, as precise as we all are about are equipment and tracking, don't think you should just go willy nilly and wing it without good measurements. I've settled for static camber of -2.6 and 1/16" toe in and been pretty satisfied with performance and tire longevity.

One thing I've thought about doing is using the string-method to true up the toe after camber change at the track. Not very hard at all but does take a little time though while your scrambling around in the morning trying to get all your other shit together pre-session, but would give some peace of mind on alignment.