What are your track/AutoX alignment settings?

Brent Dalton said:

What tires are you running? A street tire will need less camber than a r compound.

Click to expand...

ah, good point. I'm running Pilot SS.
My goal is to upgrade to 18" lightweight wheels and R compound slicks this fall.
On average, how much more camber is needed for R's? I'll need some starting point when that happens.

:cheers:

NightmareMoon said:

Toe out may make the car darty on the highway, 0 toe is probably fine for autox. Camber seems fine, but I'd try to be on the upper end of your range. How are you planning on getting the front camber, slots or plates?

Click to expand...

Sorry for the late reply, life happens haha anyways, maybe I'll keep toe out of the equation then, probably not worth dealing with it while DD, as I just AutoX for a hobby not crazy competitive. Also, I will be getting the camber up front from plates.

Norm Peterson said:

Why not consider developing two sets of front settings? With camber plates, it's pretty easy to swap between street and track/autocross settings once you've established where they are.

On most cars, going from a milder street camber to a more negative track/autocross camber also drags the toe slightly outward.


Norm

Click to expand...

This sounds like it could be a good option! This is my first real sports car, and my first car that I am trying to do most of my own work on. What is involved in switching between set ups? I am having a local forum member install the plates as he is also selling me the plates. The way you put it, seems pretty easy to switch set ups? Again sorry for the late replies.

mnmike59 said:

ah, good point. I'm running Pilot SS.
My goal is to upgrade to 18" lightweight wheels and R compound slicks this fall.
On average, how much more camber is needed for R's? I'll need some starting point when that happens.

:cheers:

Click to expand...

I'd say -2.5 is a good starting point for a street tire. I like a little toe out in the front, but others like it zero'd. I use hoosier R7's. They like camber. I'm at about -3.5.

Subd

For reference I was using -2.7 front camber and wasn't using all of the outside shoulder of the front tires. I've bumped it down to -2.0 and will see how it likes that at mid Ohio end of the month. 300tw btw.

AceOne said:

I'm running 18x11 up front and 18x12s in rear using the ride tech triple setup. It is sitting with -2.6 in front and -1.8 on the rear in this photo. I am running the 16mm camber bolt in the bottom as -2.3 was basically the limit without the camber bolt. I got up to -3.0 but don't feel its necessary for my setup on 200 tread wear tires. Tire temps are good at -2.6 and -2.7. It is also running mostly BMR Swaybars and IRS bushings, toe links, and vertical links.

Click to expand...

I notice here you get a little tire poke in front and rear. Never had any rubbing with that? Just curious as my rears poke about 1/8" to 1/4"

chris_keller said:

I notice here you get a little tire poke in front and rear. Never had any rubbing with that? Just curious as my rears poke about 1/8" to 1/4"

Click to expand...

generally you will not get rubbing with a little "poke" because the camber gain is good on these cars and there is not a ton of travel. But keep in mind it all depends on wheel/tire size offset and overall diameter.

Sock said:

generally you will not get rubbing with a little "poke" because the camber gain is good on these cars and there is not a ton of travel. But keep in mind it all depends on wheel/tire size offset and overall diameter.

Click to expand...

Good info, thanks!

I get about an eight in or so poke. I'm only lowered 3/4" on Steedas dual rate track springs and 285/35 tires on Project6gr 19x10 +35mm offset.

Nothing crazy about the setup, just curious because there is a touch of poke in the rear. Front I'm good to go though.

Spartan_Stang said:

Also, I will be getting the camber up front from plates.

What is involved in switching between set ups? I am having a local forum member install the plates as he is also selling me the plates. The way you put it, seems pretty easy to switch set ups? Again sorry for the late replies.

Click to expand...

Didn't see this until today . . . assuming that you already have them installed and were able to watch the installation, you should be able to adjust them by loosening the 3 or 4 attachment bolts and sliding the plate that the strut is bolted to in or out. It may help if you jack that corner of the car a little to take some of the load off. And that's where you'll want to have a good way of determining that you've hit your settings - either marks on the plates themselves or some sort of gage block approach that you can use to positively stop the strut shaft/shaft nut in exact, repeatable positions.


Norm

Update: After a few track days and a lot of autocross, I learned that with the front suspension design (double ball-joint) the car has enough caster. Might check for build variations, but generally it has plenty. As a result, camber gain is pretty good as well so we don't need to run as much static camber.

In my case, I moved down from -2.5 to -2.1. I also went from .25" total toe in, to .25" total toe out and then came down to 1/16" total toe out. At this setting turn in is still pretty crisp without the straight-line instability. I've kept the rear at -2.0 camber and .25" total toe in. Back stays planted at this setting. Just need more tire under the front end. This is my street setting too; DD commute 83 miles round trip with about 55/45 highway/street.

Tire wear is amazing with these MPSS tires and the grip is beyond belief for a 300TW tire. Breakaway is progressive and they tell you when they are about to lose it. But I have to run 28 cold and deflate if they approach 34 - between these two seems to be the sweet spot.

Good info in here!

Surprised at the lack of camber by a lot of you in here. My car chewed up tires with 2.3 degrees of camber but I'm doing autocross...

jdub.csu said:

Surprised at the lack of camber by a lot of you in here. My car chewed up tires with 2.3 degrees of camber but I'm doing autocross...

Click to expand...

When you marshal at AutoX you can see how much other cars' front tires roll over. It can look pretty extreme. You can't see this by marshaling at a racetrack, because the marshal stations are at the insides of the turns.

Last year the local racetrack (not AutoX) chewed up the outside shoulders of my front tires with stock alignment. Then they repaved the track, and it shed its reputation for shredding tires.

This year I returned with camber plates and the fronts set to -2.2°. Tire temps proved that was too much for the smoother track. And I had a bit of a push.

I guess the lesson is that camber plates, a floor jack, a wrench, and a temp gauge allows you to fine-tune the camber at the track. I estimated that 1mm movement at the tower hole was worth 0.1° of camber change, but I am not positive of that without crunching some more math.

As I understand it, we want a certain amount of both static and dynamic camber in order to keep the front tires evenly planted in dive and roll. Some static caster causes dynamic camber changes. When the static setting is added to the dynamic outcome, we may have more or less camber than needed for optimum front traction/grip.

With the old Fox and new edge chassis, we had terrible dynamic camber so we were forced to run as much static camber and caster as necessary to "crutch" the design.

This S550 design to some extent copies the Bimmer design. Gone is the Futura suspension and its variations. There is enough caster to provide adequate dynamic camber gain when the static camber is not overdone. If it is, the result is sub-optimal grip up front. With my MPSS the change in grip characteristics was immediate. I even get better mileage which was an unexpected benefit.

This Saturday will be my last A/X of the season. I don't expect miracles since regardless of camber, etc. settings, I still need driver mods. But the little changes have added a bunch of confidence. Now, I just can't over-cook it

I guess we will see how I do with tires this year with 2.6 camber up front 1.8 rear and all the suspension items that were changed this year... (lots less flex in the suspension) and where I'll end up. Still going to keep 1/16 toe front and 1/8 rear as that seemed to work pretty good.