17 GT350 Recommended Road Course Alignment (Possible without CC Plates?)

I bought mine about a month ago and love the car! Had a boosted 2000 GT with full coil overs (MM), torque arm and Panhard setup etc. I have about 5 years of HPDE events, usually, run with the advanced group and instruct as needed. On my previous car, I ran NT01's and loved them. Mainly because they lasted a long time and never ran Hoosiers or a better tire for comparison.

I wanted to set the stage a bit. I did a bunch of searching before posting this too. In most of the posts the "recommended" (recommended by other members of the forum) camber (front), was over -2 degrees up front. If I had to generalize I would say -2.5 degrees up front. However, it seemed to be all over the place. I know it can depend on various things such as tires and other modifications. Right now as a baseline I wanted to start with what Ford Performance recommends and modify as needed. I can check tire temps at the first event but wanted to see what you guys thought.

Below are the photos from the "Track Tips" brochure that is included in the owner's supplement. Its recommending -1.5 degrees up front (non R) whereas stock is (-1.05 degrees). So here are my questions:

1. Will the stock adjustment front and rear allow the dealer or shop to set the camber to the specs they (Ford Performance) recommends? Meaning no need for CC plates.

2. If yes, have any of you guys run an HPDE event with the stock wheels and tires? Did it wear the outer edges? Did tire wear seem reasonable on track?

3. Did you end up finding -1.5 degrees of camber up front wasn't enough? You ended up installing the CC plates and now run -X.X amount of camber and are finding reasonable / pretty even tire wear with R compound or even the stock tires?

Let me know your thoughts! Looking forward to the feedback!





And one of the car

For alignment on this car, I didn't want to cut corners. I got MM caster camber plates. They're going on this spring and I'm going to punch out what I can. I spend most of my time on autocross though and I'm running on RE71R's, not MPSS's.

nastang87xx said:

For alignment on this car, I didn't want to cut corners. I got MM caster camber plates. They're going on this spring and I'm going to punch out what I can. I spend most of my time on autocross though and I'm running on RE71R's, not MPSS's.

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I had the MM CC plates on my last car. Was really happy with them. The only thing that has me looking at other brands this time around is the ability to have two setups. Daily and track. I was looking at the Vorshlag plates and think they might work great. I haven't looked at the MM version for this car yet though.

https://vorshlag-store.com/collecti...5-up-mustang-camber-caster-plates-oem-perches

Let me know what you land on. I'm not opposed to getting the plates but really wanted to run the car as close to factory specs for the first event to get baseline data, laps times and tire wear. Then start modifying. I got a set of p51 weels (21lbs) and picked up a set of slightly used Pirelli P Zero DH compound slicks in 305/690/19.

I have camber bolts with about -2.5 up front. No issues with wear probably have 10 to 15 track days on my tires. But I run a square set up and had them flipped on the rims.

From what I have been told the toe will stop you from swapping camber between the street and the track. I find my track alignment fine on the street.

firestarter2 said:

I have camber bolts with about -2.5 up front. No issues with wear probably have 10 to 15 days on my tires. But I run a square set up and had them flipped on the rims.

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Thats great! I decided on a square tire setup too. 305/30/19's with 19x11 (front) and 19x11.5 (rear) factory offsets. I didn't want to run a spacer and get extended studs. The downside is I will have to take them to get the tires rotated on the rims but would rather do that.

So are you running the toe they recommend in the brochure with -2.5 up front? Is the rear set to the spec in the brochure too?

ShiftPoint said:

Thats great! I decided on a square tire setup too. 305/30/19's with 19x11 (front) and 19x11.5 (rear) factory offsets. I didn't want to run a spacer and get extended studs. The downside is I will have to take them to get the tires rotated on the rims but would rather do that.

So are you running the toe they recommend in the brochure with -2.5 up front? Is the rear set to the spec in the brochure too?

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Im running spacers. I actually plan on getting the gt350R hubs so I can go up to a 35mm spacer up front. I move front to back after every day. Getting the tires flipped is like 150 or something by me so not cheap.

Factory toe or close to it though there was a thread that the factory toe was wrong.

There are a group of us here is California that races in SuperMiata. 6 of us have a GT350.

it sounds like you are a fast driver, I can assure you factory number is not CLOSE to optimal. that guide is for a track noob that's doing 10+ second of what the car can do.
Front will need between -3 to -4 (depending on track and whether you are on PSS or SC2 and how hard you push the car). rear needs -2 to -2.5

for rear, stock maxed out will get you to -2, so it is close enough.

for front. some of us bough just BMR bolt. you can do 1 per side, which will get you to ~ -2 to -2.5. you can also do 2 per side, it will get you a little hair over -3, BUT doing bolts only have a negative. you will have clearance issue top of the wheel against strut if you do 2 bolts, that you will need a wheel spacer to clear

if you do camber plate, you can get ~ -3.5 without slotting any metal.

[MENTION=31354]bellwilliam[/MENTION] Thanks for the feedback! I really appreciate it. I feel like I'm going to arrive at your recommendation after a few events. Not sure I want to go that aggressive at my first event in April. I think it's going to come down too how hard I push the car just like you mentioned. I see in your signature you have the R. Did you do a few events before tweaking the camber to the specs you mentioned? Also, you mentioned the max stock camber for the rear which is great, thank you! Do you remember the max for the front or did you jump right to the bolts?

[MENTION=31354]bellwilliam[/MENTION] After watching your video (or maybe thats Emilio?), I completely understand where and why you recommended the camber specs! You are one hell of a driver! Thanks for the recommendations again!

bellwilliam said:

There are a group of us here is California that races in SuperMiata. 6 of us have a GT350.

it sounds like you are a fast driver, I can assure you factory number is not CLOSE to optimal. that guide is for a track noob that's doing 10+ second of what the car can do.
Front will need between -3 to -4 (depending on track and whether you are on PSS or SC2 and how hard you push the car). rear needs -2 to -2.5

for rear, stock maxed out will get you to -2, so it is close enough.

for front. some of us bough just BMR bolt. you can do 1 per side, which will get you to ~ -2 to -2.5. you can also do 2 per side, it will get you a little hair over -3, BUT doing bolts only have a negative. you will have clearance issue top of the wheel against strut if you do 2 bolts, that you will need a wheel spacer to clear

if you do camber plate, you can get ~ -3.5 without slotting any metal.

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I am also lowered which adds some negative camber I forget my exact number on the front but according to the temps its was pretty spot on.

I thought some of the camber plates actually raised the car.

that's my teammate driving - 949racing during Global Time Attack. Came in 4th in a 15 car field with basically a stock R (talking about bringing a knife to a gun fight), as it is a GT350 with R mods.
I did drive a couple of GT350 before this, all of us were cording outside of the tires. pyrometer also showed factory alignment recommendation is pretty far off for aggressive driving.

I am sure you will jump right in. GT350 is one of easiest car to drive on track. It has relatively low torque (down low), so putting the power down is easy compared to other cars. The car felt a lot "slower" than it really is. on the other hand, driving a C6 z06 and C5 z06 was a handful, it took me a many sessions to be comfortable. Make sure you disable all nannies, even "track mode" is pretty invasive.

my point is don't waste money with low camber, you will destroy your front tires in a day. minimum I would do is front bolt, gets you ~ -2 to -2.5. and max out rear to -2

this is my video. This is my first ever track session with the GT350R. You probably know the track, this is the track Randy Pobst ran on with a GT350R.

Thanks! I think im going with the BRM camber bolts up front for now. Should put me close to -2.5 up front. Gonna see how tires wear at the first event. If that isn't good enough upfront will jump into some caster/camber plates over the summer. Then for the rear going to go with [MENTION=31354]bellwilliam[/MENTION]'s recommendation at -2 degrees. I'm going to pick up some of these.

https://lmr.com/item/ST-5554126/mustang-rear-camber-adjustment-kit-steeda-15-17

Have the shop set the camber to stock in the rear, then at the event adjust/max out the rear camber. Those have slots so it shouldn't be too hard to adjust between stock and max. I plan on driving the car to the HPDE events for now. Some are only about 1.5 hours away but my first event is about 3.5 hours away. So being able to put the rear back to stock might save me some tread. At minimum can adjust the rear back to stock once I get home.

[MENTION=31354]bellwilliam[/MENTION] / [MENTION=24742]firestarter2[/MENTION] with the BMR camber bolts is there a way to dial them into the max camber without having to take it to a shop? I have hopes of being able to mark the bolts with paint for stock and max camber but not sure that's going to work.

Thanks again guys! You have been really helpful!

you should leave BMR at max, as it still won't be enough.
if you are on SC2, tire easily lasts 5-10k miles on street, but will last only 2-4 track days if you push it hard. so street miles is least of my concern (unless it is your commuter), setting up tire wear for track > street, imho.

btw. at Big Willow track, front outside tire won't last 1 day. notoriously famous for eating outside tires. you always go home on corded tire (always cords on the outside) if you don't rotate after every session. My point is I know you are trying to preserve tread life, but SC2 (or the 3R) have less tread on the outside. GT350 is on strut (economy car design), it always wear on the outside with any spirited driving. so going aggressive with camber is better (tread life) for any tracked GT350

bellwilliam said:

you should leave BMR at max, as it still won't be enough.
if you are on SC2, tire easily lasts 5-10k miles on street, but will last only 2-4 track days if you push it hard. so street miles is least of my concern (unless it is your commuter), setting up tire wear for track > street, imho.

btw. at Big Willow track, front outside tire won't last 1 day. notoriously famous for eating outside tires. you always go home on corded tire (always cords on the outside) if you don't rotate after every session. My point is I know you are trying to preserve tread life, but SC2 (or the 3R) have less tread on the outside. GT350 is on strut (economy car design), it always wear on the outside with any spirited driving. so going aggressive with camber is better (tread life) for any tracked GT350

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Got it. Mine isn’t and R so it has the Michelin Pilot Super Sports. I work from home and won’t be driving it too much on the street. It will probably take me a few years or more to put 10k miles on the street tires. I have a set of slicks for the track. Driving to the track on the MPSS then changing to slicks.

Thinking just leave the camber at -2.5 front and -2 rear like you mentioned and see what happens with the street tires.

I run at Mid Ohio Road course, Putnam park road course near Indy and a few other tracks. Most of them are very smooth and some have fresh pavement as of the last few years. Mid Ohio is really easy on tires and is equally diverse left to right hand turns. So they wear pretty even if the camber is right at least on my old car.

[MENTION=31354]bellwilliam[/MENTION] In your video and when you run the GT350's do you guys turn off AdvanceTrac in addition to the track mode?

Curious because I was having some fun this weekend and realized even in track mode with traction control off had some dash lights come on when having said fun. Looked in the manual and realized you can turn off AdvanceTrac by holding the traction control switch for 5 seconds. Big difference. It doesn't interfere with spinning or sliding it seems.