I'm getting Bertie an alignment next week, after his first autocross. I'm wondering what to ask for.

Camber is going to be "as much as possible" (negative). What about toe and caster? I've read opinions which seem to be all over for toe and caster, so I'm considering just asking for middle of the factory specs.

I'm getting the alignment at a specialist shop, so they should be able to cope with anything I ask for. (They're called "Custom Alignment" after all.)

 

Zero toe all the way around is what I prefer. You do NOT want any OEM setting that will toe-in the car at all. Ever.

 

Some people like a little toe-out for autocross, but unless the car is only used for autocross,
it's hard to argue against 0 toe-in front and back for street, track, and
autocross.
Do you have adj. control arms and camber plates?
If so, then -1.0 to -1.5 rear camber sounds good, and -1.5 to -3.0 front camber
depending on how much street vs autocross use the car gets.
A higher caster angle will give a little more negative camber boost when turning, as
well as more "return to center" feel to the steering.

 

Caster isn't adjustable so you're stuck there. You'll have very limited camber adjustment in the front of the car and not much better in the rear. Toe is really the only thing you can mess with and I would recommend setting it to 0 all the way around as the best compromise between street/auto-x/tire wear.

 

When setting camber-

If you can adjust front camber, set to the most negative it will allow.

For rear camber set to about -1.2 degrees so that the difference between front and rear is less than about 1 degree. The more negative the rear camber is relative to the front the more understeer you may get depending on how you drive. You don't want any more understeer on a MINI.

Read this about toe settings-
http://www.ozebiz.com.au/racetech/theory/align.html

Toe in- for street cars, gives better straight line stability
Toe out- for responsive and quicker turning

OEM toe settings are for slight toe in for the fronts and more toe in for the rears.

 

My H-Stock setup (for street tires) is as much front negative camber as I could get after pulling the pins. 0 front toe, and just a little toe out (1/16") across each 16" wheel on the rear. I also took out almost all of the rear negative camber. I've been pretty happy with those settings along with a 25mm hollow rear bar and the sport suspension.

Some guys like toe out on the front to make the car turn in more quickly....the downside is that it will want to dart on the street. Removing some negative camber and toe in from the rear really helped the car rotate better (even after adding the larger rear bar).

 

Not in Stock classes.

 

I also checked the OEM specs (in the Bentley manual). They have:

Front Camber 0 - -1 degree
Front Toe 0 - 24' (0-2.8mm)
Front Caster 15'

Rear Camber -1 20' - -2 10'
Rear Toe 12' - 36' (1.4 - 4.2mm)

I'm a little wary of going to zero toe, I'd like a little stability for driving on the street. So I might ask for the smallest they can do while still being toe in.

---
I forgot to send this last night, they wanted specs in fractions of inches, I hope I got the numbers right. We settled on 1/32" for front toe as the smallest they measure. I tried for min spec for the rear. 1.3 degrees rear camber, and my calculation for min rear camber was 1/16". I hope I didn't screw up my calculations.

 

The OEM Specs are for stability not performance.

Minimal front and rear toe is fine, 1/32" is essentially zero toe. There is nothing wrong with zero toe for street use, I drove a family sedan with zero toe on front and rear for years and tire wear and handling was fine.

I think you meant "mini rear toe was 1/16".

 

You shouldn't have any stability issues with zero toe. Rear camber is measured in degrees.

 

I'm a bit disappointed, they only managed to find -0.7 degrees of camber (and I did remove the pins). Though the shop seemed to be more concerned with the sides being equal than absolutely the most possible. I'd have taken uneven. Also they said they couldn't get down to the rear camber I asked for without affecting the rear toe.The final numbers are:

Front camber: -0.7
toe: 1/32"
Caster: 3.3/3.4

Rear Camber: -1.5
toe: 1/16"

Before the numbers were:
Front camber: -0.3/-0.7
toe: 3/32"-1/32"
Caster: 3.4/3.5

Rear Camber: -1.4/-1.6
toe: 1/16"-5/32"

What are people seeing for front camber?

 

I think you are OK. Every car is a little different.

Front camber is about -0.5 degrees for most MINIs and if you get a little more negative that's fine.

I think you have "toe in" for both front and rear.

Rear camber at -1.5 degrees is OK since there is a limit without having adjustable lower control arms.

 

For comparison I got Tristan an alignment today. Again, they could only manage -0.7 degrees front camber. I also asked for zero toe all around to see what I think, and -1.3degrees camber at the back. This time they managed all that.

The before numbers were:

Front camber -0.4/-0.5
Toe 1/16"
Caster 3.7/3.8

Rear Camber -1.2
Toe 1/32 - 1/8"

 

I went with a smidge of toe out in the back and 0 up front. I was under a degree out back on the 2011 and about the same 0.7 up front.

Now in STF I have a lowly 2.8 ans 2.9 up front and 2.25 in back.