alignment baseline + camber plates

[derbo]

Originally Posted by bbnks2

I would not waste your time trying to "mark" the camber plate for a "street" and "track" setting. The toe change is DRASTIC. You'll then also need a set of toe plates to measure toe at the track and you'll have to change your tie rods at the track... something I am not sensing you want to do. IF you change your camber without touching the toe you'll be setting yourself up for failure.

Toe has a huge impact on corner entry, handling, and tire wear. IF you ADD CAMBER at the track you'll also be adding TOE IN. Toe in is not desirable up front for performance. You want 0 toe or toe OUT. Especially if you're running more aggressive camber greater than 3*.

In order to be able to change camber at the track you would have to have a lot of toe-out daily driving.... then you would end up with 0 or slightly positive toe when you add the camber at the track. That is the opposite direction you want to be going. You want toe-in for street driving stability and toe-out to aid in agility and turn in at the track.

TLDR; your alignment is fine as is! drive it and have fun at the track. Maybe add a bit more rear camber depending on how the car is handling.

It’s possible to have a dual duty setup depending on if you are willing to compromise a little. I believe adding camber adds toe out not the other way around?

SYT_Shadow did a great alignment setting for dual duty.

[SYT_Shadow]

Of course it can be done, and it has been done already. Every year, around 20k street miles in this 'impossible' alignment.

I have heard plenty of ...people... say it's impossible. But opinions are like assholes, everyone has one!

[bbnks2]

Originally Posted by SYT_Shadow

Of course it can be done, and it has been done already. Every year, around 20k street miles in this 'impossible' alignment.

I have heard plenty of ...people... say it's impossible. But opinions are like assholes, everyone has one!

Where did I say impossible? I said it's a waste of time. You can maybe take out .7* camber... before the toe gets crazy. He said he is doing all track time with the car and just needs to be able to drive there. Pretty pointless to be messing with your alignment. But like you said about opinions...

I may have the toe-in and toe-out backward though I'll concede that.

[SYT_Shadow]

Originally Posted by bbnks2

Where did I say impossible? I said it's a waste of time. You can maybe take out .7* camber... before the toe gets crazy. He said he is doing all track time with the car and just needs to be able to drive there. Pretty pointless to be messing with your alignment. But like you said about opinions...

I may have the toe-in and toe-out backward though I'll concede that.

And there it is: it is not pointless, and it works perfectly. I've driven tens of thousands of street miles going to and from the track swapping just the position of the camber plates.

It absolutely can be done, very easily. I move the camber plates from street to track position and that's it.

I've had alignment shops raise their hands in the air and say it's impossible, but they are wrong, and when they put the car on the rack and follow the sheet I give them, posted above, it turns out that they had camber relationship with toe in bmws messed up and it works exactly as described.

E46, E9X, F8X, they all work exactly the same.

[omgzirra_exe]

Originally Posted by kolosy

sweet -- thanks all. and yeah DRLane i'm treating it as a track only car that i drive to the track, so as long as i'm not going to tear up my tires getting there (road america is probably farthest at ~150 miles away) i'd rather leave it as is.

I drive about 200miles to the track and 200miles back, the camber does suck for the drive since im squared. hitting the line on the highway will just send me flying left or right

but you can mitigate a some of your tire wear concerns if you just go square, and flip.rotate often.

[leftfootbr8king]

After quickjacks, a quick trick string alignment setup is my favorite “tool” purchase. A local friend of mine and I went halfies on it and we both use it far more than we expected we would.

Never pay for an alignment again, learn for yourself how suspension adjustments effect your alignment, and dial in your alignment closer than 99% of shops would ever get.

[leftfootbr8king]

Also, from the pics it looks like you are running close to the least amount of positive caster those plates will allow for.

Might be worth doing some reading on the positive effects of more positive caster.

Unless you don’t like a heavier steering feel (I do) there’s pretty much no downsides to maxing out your caster, with the caveat that a round strut tower opening will limit how much negative camber you can achieve when you max out the positive caster.


I have SPL LCA’s so I can adjust negative camber from the bottom if needed, but I’m at nearly 10 degrees of positive caster (maxed out) with -2.5 degrees of camber while sitting right at the camber centerline on my GC plates.

[kolosy]

Originally Posted by leftfootbr8king

After quickjacks, a quick trick string alignment setup is my favorite “tool” purchase. A local friend of mine and I went halfies on it and we both use it far more than we expected we would.

Never pay for an alignment again, learn for yourself how suspension adjustments effect your alignment, and dial in your alignment closer than 99% of shops would ever get.

what's the string setup you you bought?

re: caster -- probably one too many variables for me right now. interestingly the 3DM folks advised leaving the caster alone as "E9Xs don't like a lot of caster like the older BMWs do" (his words, not mine)

[DRLane]

kolosy your setup looks to allow caster without giving up camber as typically the strut nut hits the edges of the strut tower. Thus there’s only so much gain before losing static camber.

More caster = dynamic negative camber which is a good thing. However, it can be over done and lead to wheel jacking. The inside tire lifts at various steering angles.

Suspensionsecrets.co.uk is a fantastic resource. For now, I’d keep shit as simple as possible.