Recommended camber settings?

[myBailey07]

Question for the e92 track guys about camber. I have searched and read many of the posts out there about camber, but it’s hard to get a clear, consistent answer, so please help a fellow out as I was getting real confused.

I am an intermediate track driver (know what I am doing, but nothing spectacular) using my car for daily use as well as one track weekend a month and do not want to mess with the suspension much. I currently run staggered on OEM ZCP 19" wheels with 255/275 Advan AD08R’s. Stock ZCP suspension with street alignment. (will look at 18” square later on)

I have some trouble, specifically recently at COTA, getting the car to turn in some corners and I also chew the outside edge of my front tires up like crazy on the track. I assume dialing in some camber will help both with turn in, understeer and more even tire wear and so I went ahead and ordered Vorshlag adjustable camber plates.

What are good settings to give the installer to set for my install and alignment based on my existing setup? Can I use some mid-way setting so that I can use on street, but also get some improvement on track (say -2 front, -1.5 rear) that does not look horrible on street? Or do I have to align every time between street and track?

Any help will be appreciated.

[gan1hck]

I set mine when I arrive at the track... -3

and I set it back when i leave...back to -1.8 or something like that.

[VictorH]

If you don't want to monkey with changing settings then -2.5 in front and -1.5 in the rear is a happy compromise. I've gotten near normal tire life out of my street tires and good enough wear out of my track tires. The with real grippy street tires like the AD-08 or RE-11s they would probably last a bit longer with -3.0 camber in front, but that's too much for the street and probably not worth the effort.

[surlynkid]

I get no unusual wear on rears all the way up to -1.8 or 1.9. No reason not to use that.

I agree with above post of -2.4 in front if you are not willing to change camber and toe at track. I run -1.6 on street and max out the camber plates to -2.9 on the track. I adjust tie rod ends to compensate.

How much camber you need depends on tires and how hard you drive the car. Where at cota are you trying to rotate? What are your cota lap times?

[Sleeper519]

Agree with the above. Changing camber back and forth between street and track is doable with adjustable plates, BUT... when you swing thru a couple of degrees, the Toe also changes (mine changed drastically). So then, you end up having to pre-track adjust the front camber AND the toe (via tie-rod turns), and for me is just too many opportunities to F-up the whole setup (ask me how I know).

As Victor said, I have been happy with static settings of -2.6F and -1.8R with good performance on the track and good tire wear on the street. I set toe to 1/16" IN front and rear. You will get many opinions on this but I find it to be an easy compromise.

[LiM3y]

I've been using -2.5 front (camber plates) and the factory max of -2.0 at rear as a fixed set up. My tires don't seem to have had horrible excess wear at either end on the inside edges.

[gan1hck]

Originally Posted by Sleeper519

Agree with the above. Changing camber back and forth between street and track is doable with adjustable plates, BUT... when you swing thru a couple of degrees, the Toe also changes (mine changed drastically). So then, you end up having to pre-track adjust the front camber AND the toe (via tie-rod turns), and for me is just too many opportunities to F-up the whole setup (ask me how I know).

As Victor said, I have been happy with static settings of -2.6F and -1.8R with good performance on the track and good tire wear on the street. I set toe to 1/16" IN front and rear. You will get many opinions on this but I find it to be an easy compromise.

Me too...I've been running toe out at the track by 0.5 degrees for a year without knowing it...and wondered why my car would oversteer right at transition from brakes to power.

I have my toe set to factory for the negative camber setting, and run too much toe in on the street....not sure of the number.

[M3 Esq]

When I ran camber plates, Turner set it up with -2.4 F and -1.9 R, with 1/32 toe IN F & R as a compromise track/street setup. The turn in was noticeably better, and I didn't see any excess wear on the tires.

Setup and alignment is going to be key here, so make sure to use a reputable shop experienced in BMW track setup.

[1MOREMOD]

I also agree with above. I ran -2.5 front and about -1.8 rear I think. You will require camber plates. This set up will indeed wear your inner edge driving on the street but the amount of outer edge wear you get at the track will offset it and you will use up the edges and have nice new centers most likely.

[myBailey07]

Hi guys,

Thanks for the great responses. This was exactly what I was looking for. Once the camber plates come in I'll set it up for the street/track mid-way points, try it out and adjust from there.

Thanks again...

[SenorFunkyPants]

If you want a better turn in you should also have a play around with the front toe-in.
The more the front toes-in, the more the car wants to continue in a straight line, conversely the less toe-in the quicker the car turns in.
The OEM spec for front toe is -10' +- 12' so in theory you could run zero front toe and still be within spec. You would have to try a few settings and go for the least amount of toe-in that makes the car still feel stable in a straight line under accelerating.
A few extra psi in the front tyres can give better turn in feel and also helps to stop the tendency for the front tyres to "fold under" with high lateral load.

[jphughan]

I'm an advanced student (just starting down the path of instructor) and have run CotA a few times. I've got Vorshlag camber plates with no other suspension mods on 220Ms (non-ZCP) and leave my plates in a fixed setting because adjusting camber also affects toe, which is more difficult to adjust (EDIT: Removed mention of additional camber causing toe-in; based on later posts it seems that additional camber causes toe-out, despite what I was told when I had my camber plates installed.) So instead, here are my full-time specs with Vorshlag camber plates on my car that I DD and run ~8 track days per year on:

Front camber: -2.6
Front toe: 1/16" in (total on the axle, not per wheel, though I may go to 0)

Rear camber: -1.6 (see note below)
Rear toe: 1/16" in (total on the axle)

On the rear camber, the OEM range is really wide, like -1.5 to -2, and I actually ended up dialing rear camber back a bit (from -1.8, I believe) because I was cording the insides of my rear tires long before the tread was worn down. Hasn't seemed to affect my handling much if at all, but it's also too early to tell whether it makes a different on tire edge wear because I just chucked my rear PSSes early as part of switching to AD08 R's after cording the outsides of too many front PSSes in way too short a time. Hopefully the stiffer sidewalls on the Yokos help with that, and they may in fact let me add a bit more camber to the rear again, say -1.8.

My setup doesn't look horrible on the street at all. Very keen observers will notice that my front tires have a different stance from stock, but even most car enthusiasts probably wouldn't notice unless I called it out to them, never mind the general population. You definitely do NOT have to realign between street and track events if you keep a full-time setting -- but if you decide you want to adjust camber back and forth, be prepared to be able to adjust toe as well.

Good luck with your new setup, good choice on the Vorshlag camber plates, and if you're doing one track weekend per month, you probably won't remain an intermediate student for very long.

[gan1hck]

Originally Posted by jphughan

I'm an advanced student (just starting down the path of instructor) and have run CotA a few times. I've got Vorshlag camber plates with no other suspension mods on 220Ms (non-ZCP) and leave my plates in a fixed setting because adjusting camber also affects toe, and on this car the relationship goes the opposite of what you want, i.e. adding negative camber creates more toe-in. So instead, here are my full-time specs with Vorshlag camber plates on my car that I DD and run ~8 track days per year on:

Front camber: -2.6
Front toe: 1/16" in (total on the axle, not per wheel, though I may go to 0)

Rear camber: -1.6 (see note below)
Rear toe: 1/16" in (total on the axle)

On the rear camber, the OEM range is really wide, like -1.5 to -2, and I actually ended up dialing rear camber back a bit (from -1.8, I believe) because I was cording the insides of my rear tires long before the tread was worn down. Hasn't seemed to affect my handling much if at all, but it's also too early to tell whether it makes a different on tire edge wear because I just chucked my rear PSSes early as part of switching to AD08 R's after cording the outsides of too many front PSSes in way too short a time. Hopefully the stiffer sidewalls on the Yokos help with that, and they may in fact let me add a bit more camber to the rear again, say -1.8.

My setup doesn't look horrible on the street at all. Very keen observers will notice that my front tires have a different stance from stock, but even most car enthusiasts probably wouldn't notice unless I called it out to them, never mind the general population. You definitely do NOT have to realign between street and track events if you keep a full-time setting -- but if you decide you want to adjust camber back and forth, be prepared to be able to adjust toe as well, which isn't as easy.

Good luck with your new setup, good choice on the Vorshlag camber plates, and if you're doing one track weekend per month, you probably won't remain an intermediate student for very long.

are you sure about that? I'm pretty sure adding negative camber by adjust the camber plates leads causes toe out...or at least that's the case with my e92

[surlynkid]

E9x increased camber toes out the car. Get a set of toe plates and test it yourself. I have to adjust tie rod 1/2 revolution each side when I adjust camber.

[surlynkid]

4 weekends per year to instructor? Did I read that right? I will do 36 track days this year.

[1MOREMOD]

Originally Posted by surlynkid

4 weekends per year to instructor? Did I read that right? I will do 36 track days this year.

Lucky sob.

[surlynkid]

Originally Posted by 1MOREMOD

Lucky sob.

Been busy.

[jphughan]

Originally Posted by gan1hck

are you sure about that? I'm pretty sure adding negative camber by adjust the camber plates leads causes toe out...or at least that's the case with my e92

Originally Posted by surlynkid

E9x increased camber toes out the car. Get a set of toe plates and test it yourself. I have to adjust tie rod 1/2 revolution each side when I adjust camber.

Hmm, interesting. When I first got the camber plates I asked the shop doing the install and alignment to check the minimum and maximum camber just so I knew the range, and the shop said that when they maxed it out they got -2.8 and I think 1/4" toe-in, so they dialed it back a bit (which I would have wanted anyway). But I haven't confirmed this myself, so I've updated my post above. I still don't see myself adjusting my plates for street and track even if adding negative camber increases toe-out. It's just one more step away from having a car you can drive to the track, run around in, and drive home, which I really enjoy.

Originally Posted by surlynkid

4 weekends per year to instructor? Did I read that right? I will do 36 track days this year.

It's been a few years now, and I've found myself doing more weekends recently -- plus I'm not an instructor yet; I've just started down that path. I run primarily with The Driver's Edge out here and as I understand it so far, they have instructor clinics, evaluation periods, etc, so it will be a while. I've just gotten to the point where a few instructors have told me that my skills are at an appropriate level, and people who know me in other capacities know that I'm a good mentor/teacher, partly because I'm patient with people and good at finding lots of different ways to explain things to get through to different people, so I thought about it and decided it was something I wanted to pursue.

Would love to do 36 track days per year though, wow! But even if it weren't for the cost concern, the wife might have something to say about that if I was gone all weekend that frequently. Ah well. But if you're interested, at your next event ask what you should be doing to work towards becoming an instructor.

[gan1hck]

Originally Posted by jphughan

Hmm, interesting. When I first got the camber plates I asked the shop doing the install and alignment to check the minimum and maximum camber just so I knew the range, and the shop said that when they maxed it out they got -2.8 and I think 1/4" toe-in, so they dialed it back a bit (which I would have wanted anyway). But I haven't confirmed this myself, so I've updated my post above. I still don't see myself adjusting my plates for street and track even if adding negative camber increases toe-out. It's just one more step away from having a car you can drive to the track, run around in, and drive home, which I really enjoy.



I'm not an instructor yet; I've just started down that path. I run primarily with The Driver's Edge out here and as I understand it so far, they have instructor clinics, evaluation periods, etc, so it will be a while. I've just gotten to the point where a few instructors have told me that my skills are at an appropriate level, and people who know me in other capacities know that I'm a good mentor/teacher, partly because I'm patient with people and good at finding lots of different ways to explain things to get through to different people, so I thought about it and decided it was something I wanted to pursue.

Would love to do 36 track days per year though, wow! But even if it weren't for the cost concern, the wife might have something to say about that if I was gone all weekend that frequently. Ah well. But if you're interested, at your next event ask what you should be doing to work towards becoming an instructor.

just look at the geometry of the front strut and you'll know that I'm correct.

The front struts are raked to the rear of the car...ie not vertical but leaning backwards.

When you adjust camber more negative, this toes the wheels out.

Imagine that the rake is to the point where the strut is almost horizontal...then the camber plates would just adjust toe....and pushing the struts in would toe out.

[Sleeper519]

found this great conversion table for camber/toe in degrees vs. minutes, so that we all are on the same page.

[surlynkid]

Originally Posted by jphughan

Would love to do 36 track days per year though, wow! But even if it weren't for the cost concern, the wife might have something to say about that if I was gone all weekend that frequently. Ah well. But if you're interested, at your next event ask what you should be doing to work towards becoming an instructor.

Easy solution. Wife is track rat as well and is there all the weekends. Now she turns 1:59's at TWS.

I don't do well in the right seat. I'd get sick. Most I could do would be classroom, but I can teach the physics and engineering behind it all day long. I'll just drive.

[lutfy]

Am running Sleeper's setting spot on. -2.5 f, toe in, -1.8 back toed in (obviously

For street use, VERY pleased with Pilot AS3. They are marginally slower than my R Compound on most tracks (tried to collect data) and wear like IRON. Inside tire wear very little vs my PSS burning up in 6K miles. 14K miles and 50% inside tire wear. So worry not street use.

Sleeper the BPM tune and filter may explain the added power on your end? I have lost sleep since this Sept

Lutfy