So who else is interested in going for more front camber?
Assuming it's even possible and not limited by suspension parts.

The Grassrootsmotorsports article was pretty clear about the benefits of more front negative camber up to -3.0 degrees given their suspension setup.

I've been running about -2.4 degrees front and -1.5 to -1.6 degrees in the rear. I think I can get more negative, I'm in the middle setting using RDR front adjustable camber plates and Bilstein PSS9 coilovers (standard version).

Now I'm thinking about going more negative up to -3.0 in the front and less negative in the rear down to about-1.2 degrees since more negative in the rear increases understeer.

Also been running front toe at 1/16" out and ready to change it to 1/8" out with rear changing from zero toe to 1/16" toe in.

I still have to use my MINI for daily commuting so I hope I can live with these changes. Fixing to make the new alignment this friday. My current settings are street friendly.

So far my tire wear on the track, at autocross and on the street has been fine and tire temps are more or less OK. Temps vary with the course for a given event.

Any others have experience with this much front toe out and negative camber?????

Let me know what you think.

 

I have been running about -2.8 in the front with a little less then 1/16 toe out in the front and -1.8 in the rear with zero toe.

I have K-Mac adjustible camber/caster plates and with a little grinding on the strut tab for the endlink I can push mine over to -3.2, but haven't tried it when I autocross. I set mine back to -1.8 for daily driving (62 miles to work daily) so I don't know how that much camber would be on the street.

 

to the best of my knowlege Toe in on the rear will increase understeer . I would stick with 1/8th up front and 1/16 out in the rear or zero. But a mini with a short wheel base would probably be very twitchy with toe out on the rear, my CRX was like that....but loose it fast :P

 

Anyone have pics of the higher degree cambers (2.4+)...just want to get an idea of how tilted that really is

 

i'd be interested in seeing more than 2.5 degrees... ive been running -2.0 Front and -1.2 in the back and i am already rubbing the springs on the inside with my track tires (need a big spacer to avoid it)

 

JMHO, but -3 up front may or may not work with a specific suspension setup, tires, track layout and surface, etc. In some cases, it CAN work even better than the -2.2-2.5 we normally run but only in specific circumstances.

For autocross, unless it's a really, really wide open course, we found that more than about -2.5 actually hurts your times, no matter what the course looks like (too much wheelspin on fast transitions and corner exits/squirts). On the track, though, depending on what track you're talking about, it can work even better than the -2.2-2.5 we normally run.

So, YMMV. It's fun to try, though.

 

It doesn't really look very negative.

OK, I tried but was unsuccessful at getting -3.0 degrees.

I told the alignment shop I wanted -3 in the front if possible.
They tried and it wasn't possible due to hitting the front strut on one side.

So I had to settle for-
Front Camber -2.5 degrees
Front toe 1/8" out
Rear Camber -1.3 degrees
Rear toe 1/16" in

Feels great on the street, not much different than when I had less toe out and zero toe in the rear.

It's been two years since my last alignment and one of the toe settings was a little off but close to original.

Overall I would say that my initial impression is that handling for street use is very good and stable, no problems with twitchiness or squirrely handling. Relatively smooth on normal roads.

-2.5 degrees is probably fine for most performance driving in terms of making decent use of your competition tires, I just wanted to give -3 a try based on the Grassrootsmotorsports article.

I'll be trying things out at autocross in about 3 weeks.

 

what suspension do you have? Would the linear springs of coilovers offer up more room for adjustments?

 

The Grassrootsmotorsports article stated traction became a problem with more than 2 degrees negative camber when accelerating out of a corner, so I'm not sure I understand why anyone would want 3+ degrees...

My JCW with factory LSD is always handicapped by lack of traction in 1st gear, so It seems like the problem would be worse for the cars with even more power. The only car I can see benefiting from this set-up would be an autocross only Cooper S with no engine modifications.

 

I have Bilstein PSS9 coilovers (standard progressive springs).

Yes the linear springs would allow for more negative front camber approaching -3.0 or closer to it.

A possible choice is to go linear springs in the front and a little stiffer.
375 pound straight rate 2 1/2 " diameter springs. Standard PSS9 springs/tender in the rear.

 

The article mentioned-
At -3.0 degrees camber, track lap times dropped another 3/10ths of a second while "increased wheelspin on corner exit" and increased chatter from ABS were noted.

No real trouble reported with -2.0 camber.

Everything is a tradeoff but lower lap times can be worth the negatives.

They didn't try -2.5 degrees and it's possible that a MINI tuned in that range could be just as good or better.

I have quaife differential so wheel spin is not generally a problem for me on corner exit given some sticky tires.

For those that want to know, I'm posting some numbers with both toe measurements in inches and in degrees.

Stock alignment for 2002-2006 MC or MCS
Front camber -0.9 to -0.1 degrees
Front toe 0.11 to 0.19 degrees or 1/8 to 3/16" toe in.
Rear camber -1.0 to -2.0 degrees
Rear toe 0.13 to 0.27 degrees or 1/8 to 1/4" toe in.

Possible autocross alignment range
Front camber -2.0 to -3.0
Front toe 1/16" (-0.06 degrees) out to 1/8" (-0.12 degrees) out
Rear camber -1.0 to -1.6 (can be about 1 degree less negative than front)
Rear toe zero (zero degrees) to 1/16" (0.06 degrees) in

In theory the more toe out in front the quicker the steering response and turn in. the more toe in for the rear the more straight line stability (good for track). The more the toe settings stray from stock, the more risk of wearing tires faster for street use.

 

Thanks for responding with your personal experience Minihune

 

This is not exactly on topic but is related and anyone's input would be MUCH appreciated.

I have an '03 MC whose left rear title develops serious cupping on the side half after a few thousand miles. A full alignment was done by the dealer and everything is within specs (I checked) but my guess is that based on the symptoms, the caster is off - combined with the natural camber angle, the suspension is forcing the tire into an unnatural position. Is anyone else having this wear issue as I was told that caster is not adjustable and that was one of the reasons for changing this aspect of the rear suspension design for the new MINI's but a local tire shop heard a rumor that a fix is indeed possible. Oddly enough, the right rear does not have the same problem.

Aside from going through that tire way too often, the "thump-thump-thump" from the left rear is driving me crazy.

Thanks Guys!

 

Caster on a rear wheel? By definition, caster only applies to a steered wheel,
I thought.

If you're sure toe-in (which is adjustable on the rear) is ok,
then would check for an unbalanced wheel, or worn shock, or
worn suspension bushings in the rear control arms or less likely, the
rear trailing arm bushing.

 

I'll be bumping up my camber in-front for the next alignment, which may or may not be before next spring (if I end up replacing shocks). Right now at -2.2 which results in increased wear on the inside - guess I daily drive too much!

Worse comes to worse, I could start switching tires from side to side so they wear evenly. Would be more $$ to get them changed from wheel to wheel tho.

 

Thanks Cristo - some of those items were checked out but I didn't consider worn suspension bushings - I'll let you know when I get a chance to get under there.

 

I've been driving on the street and at autocross a bunch of runs- had a test and tune day.

The handling is better I think both for autocross and for daily driving.
I do have coilovers so I can adjust dampening for shocks to help with ride harshness.

Steering response is improved with 1/8" toe out. It's quick but not overly so, not twitchy or squirrely. Wear on tires might be a bit more, I haven't had that many miles driven but tires look OK.

At autocross the competition or street tires seem to be OK for wear, on the street the regular tires are fine.

Cornering is predictable and there isn't an increase in understeer with the added toe in setting for the rear. I did go a little less negative on camber in the rear which might counter balance 1/16" more toe in for the rear.

The MINI feels well balanced and stable at any speed. Overall I'm pretty happy with the alignment overall and I've tried to get max negative front camber so this will be the limit for me unless I go with a straight front spring.

However, going more negative in the front to an extreme may have some other costs as mentioned in the Grassrootsmotorsports article. Same can be said about going extreme for rear camber which I sometimes see around town.

 

I've been running similar settings for almost 4 years, though I've taken a bit different approach to the rear camber.

-2.4deg camber in front
-1.7deg camber in rear
zero toe at both ends
4.5deg caster, which is all I can get with the current setup. A little more would probably be good.

I'm using 350lbs/in springs in front, 345lbs/in springs in the rear, both linear rate. 27mm H-Sport front swaybar on the soft setting, 25mm hollow H-Sport rear swaybar on the stiffest setting.

The car isn't too loose in slaloms, is neutral in sweepers, rotates w/ drop throttle but not wildly. Braking seems to be slightly compromised from stock alignment setttings, but it still stops better than most cars. Traction is limited in 1st gear, even with R compounds, but is generally very good in 2nd gear until the tires start loosing grip due to many heatcycles or cold temps. For my car and the courses I run into most of the time I think going to more negative camber wouldn't be beneficial. On a road course, it probably would be.

For me the car is very, very predictable and the back end follows the front well in garages and chicanes unless deliberately provoked. I tend to take the tight inside line on most long sweepers, going for "minimum distance covered", and the car flat out sticks.

Scott
90SM

 

Thanks for the summary and feedback.

Caster is not adjustable for me (some camber plates allow for adjustment)
Left caster 4.6
Right caster 4.2 (used to be 4.4 two years ago)

I had 1/16" toe out and moved more out to 1/8" out. On my Maxima I had zero front toe. It was fine for street and autocross. The 1/8" toe out does feel snappier without ill effect.

Rear toe was zero and I moved to 1/16" toe in. No immediate effect noted.

Front swaybar is stock, rear sway bar is adjustable 2 hole Madness 22mm which I have set to softest after using it for 2 years with stiffest setting.
I can't really feel that much difference but I'm trying to soften things to get a bit less rear wheel lift in corners which I was doing a lot.

My springs are all stock PSS9, haven't changed them and drop is about 1.8" I can barely clear a 215/45-17 tire that is worn.

 

I've stuck with 0 toe due to all the street miles I put on the car (90+ a day, up to 111K now). It saves on tire wear and fuel.

If I were inclined to mess with it at each event, I'd run about 1/8th out up front, but stick with zero in the rear given how the rest of the suspension is set up.

Scott
90SM

 

Again, a variation on the topic...

I am having the same sort of issues that NCDAVE is having, but on both rear wheels. I have only owned my '02 Mini for about 2 months and put about 6000 miles on it and the tire cupping is getting so bad that I can hardly stand to drive it anymore. If I look at the rear wheels they seem to have very large (-) Camber (enough to make it noticeable not just to me but others have commented about it as well). I have 2 questions:
1. Will to large of a neg Camber cause the cupping?
2. Not knowing much about my Mini's past, would lowering the car change the Camber excessively and can it be fixed w/o new control arms.

Thanks for any input!

 

Cupping is likely from worn suspension parts not from camber
see
http://www.procarcare.com/includes/c...dtirewear.html

lowering can affect camber usually more negative in the rear and minimal change in camber for the fronts. Rear lower adjustable control arms will allow for rear camber to be set easily or if you have a 2005 or later MINI you can adjust it a little on your own using adjusters at the bottom of the stock rear lower control arm- but only a little.

 

I run a similar setup in time trials: -2.5* front 1/16" out and _1* read 0" out. This is on M7 coilovers and Helix Camber Plates. With this setup and R-compound tires I have lowered lap times by 5-7%. I ran a 2:01 at CMP with this setup and won SM class. -3* deg is really hard to achieve without hitting the shock towers.


DJDport66

 

I did run with alignment similar to yours earlier then got more aggressive on toe settings and more front neg camber and it's been working OK. A bit better for autocrossing.

Both yours and my settings can be used on the street but yours will wear tires a bit less under normal driving conditions.

 

I keep trying to make myself make the move to get Camber Plates. I have a question . When you put the camber Plates on can you still change the settings on adjustable shocks? I have never seen Camber plates on the Mini so I don't know.
Thanks for the help.