Alignment recommendations

[MrBD1348]

Hey all -
I reached out to BMR to get recommended alignment settings for my set up and got some info back from them. Wanted to run this by you guys and see what settings people are liking for their cars. I’m also open to recommendations on parts to further improve handling. It’s my daily driver but this season will be my first HPDE.

Attached are the settings that BMR sent my way. they recommended Street settings for a daily

my set up currently: 2022 GT non-PP
Ford Performance Track Shocks & Struts
BMR SP083R Springs (handling)
BMR Camber Bolts
BMR Cradle Lockout Level 2
GT350R Sway Bars
SVE SP2 19x10 squared on Nitto 285/35 NT555G2

edit: I’m not TOO bothered about tire wear. If there’s a middle ground between track and street that would be a vast improvement

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[nbjeeptj]

For NT555 G2's the street settings listed will probably work pretty good. As you put more of a track tire on it you will want more camber. As you gain experience on the track you will probably want less toe in on the front possibly even a touch of tow out, but for first day on your tires stick with street settings listed.

 

[NightmareMoon]

The right camber for the NT555G2 is °90, laying on their side on the curb waiting for the trash pickup. yeah, I said it.

For track you probably want up to 3 degrees. For the street, driving in a straight line and never taking any corners hard, you want like 1.5 degrees.

2 degrees isn't much. I'd recommend like 2.4 front (if you can get that with camber bolts and retaining the wheel/tire to strut clearance you need.

Rear camber would be ~0.5 degrees less than the front camber, but not less than factory specs, and not more than about 2 degrees. That gets the car to balance nicely. BMR is saying to keep the rear camber more than the front, which is favorable if you want to keep the car safely understeering IMHO.

 

[tosha]

Rear camber would be ~0.5 degrees less than the street camber

I'm sure as hell he will be confused with this . I assume you meand front camber instead of street?

The right camber for the NT555G2 is °90, laying on their side on the curb waiting for the trash pickup. yeah, I said it.

this is a good one

 

[NightmareMoon]

I'm sure as hell he will be confused with this . I assume you meand front camber instead of street?

Right.. edited.

 

[MrBD1348]

The right camber for the NT555G2 is °90, laying on their side on the curb waiting for the trash pickup. yeah, I said it.

yea know they aren’t the best. But I got them at an amazing price. So I won’t mind burning through them at the track while I’m learning. Then upgrading once I am able to push the car further. I’ve read countless times that people should get a decent tire at first, learn the car and then upgrade and push yourself. Correct me if I’m wrong on that

 

[NightmareMoon]

yea know they aren’t the best. But I got them at an amazing price. So I won’t mind burning through them at the track while I’m learning. Then upgrading once I am able to push the car further. I’ve read countless times that people should get a decent tire at first, learn the car and then upgrade and push yourself. Correct me if I’m wrong on that

next time around, there are better cheap tires. I think the margins on the nittos must be high, all the vendor seem to love selling them.

 

[MrBD1348]

next time around, there are better cheap tires. I think the margins on the nittos must be high, all the vendor seem to love selling them.

I got the 4 tires for $500 so I really am not complaining for a first tire choice. My next set I’ll be spending more on without a doubt

 

[Unas2k5]

I’m thinking about getting the BMR level 2 lockout. Did you install it yourself ? Notice a difference ?

 

[Unas2k5]

Thanks for your input. I don’t know what these measures are that you are sharing or what camber is ? Are these numbers for an alignment ?

 

[Unas2k5]

It’s good to know that. I thought that one just takes their car to a shop and they just align it. Didn’t know there was more than one way to do it. I don’t daily drive my car. I do like to go out and cruise with it and if I run into some races on the street (roll races ) that’s my type of fun. I don’t take it to the track at all. So I guess I need it aligned for street racing. So that would be your option number 1?

 

[nbjeeptj]

yea know they aren’t the best. But I got them at an amazing price. So I won’t mind burning through them at the track while I’m learning. Then upgrading once I am able to push the car further. I’ve read countless times that people should get a decent tire at first, learn the car and then upgrade and push yourself. Correct me if I’m wrong on that

If I had to do it again I would start with low traction tires. When I was around 7ish track days into this thing I hit 3 track days in a row that had rain. The 3 rain events taught me more about driving my car at the limit than the whole 4 to 5 years I have been doing this. Shitty tires will loose traction at a much safer speed and allow you to learn how to deal with that much faster. I heard people telling me this when I was new and I thought they were crazy that I would want all the traction I could get but you don't learn how to be fast by not loosing traction. Another way to speed this traction loss education would be to get on a wet skid pad somewhere, most tracks have one for this purpose.

 

[NightmareMoon]

It’s good to know that. I thought that one just takes their car to a shop and they just align it. Didn’t know there was more than one way to do it. I don’t daily drive my car. I do like to go out and cruise with it and if I run into some races on the street (roll races ) that’s my type of fun. I don’t take it to the track at all. So I guess I need it aligned for street racing. So that would be your option number 1?

The shop aligns it to factory specs which they look up in their database. Generally a random shop will just make sure its w/in a very wide range of tolerance allowed by the factory specs.

If you're just driving around in straight lines, then mostly you only care about the toe (which is now the tires are turned in or out subtly from the direction of travel. No, the tires are not all 'straight' with the road, its common for them to be turned inward ever so slightly, and occasionally they can be turned out.

Then there is camber (tilt) and on the front you have caster angle as well.

In a corner the amount of camber on the front versus the rear will have an effect on how tilted those tires are relative to each other, which will have an effect on how well those tires are holding the road at each corner of the car.

So there's a lot more going on with alignments than just making sure the car tracks straight when the wheel is straight.

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