What is the ideal alignment specs for an R53?
I have megan coilovers with adjustable camber plates and have the car lowered a bit. I installed lower rear control arms to help compensate the neg. camber in the rear but I'm now looking for the best/ideal alignment set up for track days. Not sure if factory specs are quite ideal.

Also who can you trust to do this? Definately not a "Twn Fair Tire" type of shop.

 

If you are going to set-it-and-forget-it (have the same settings for street and track), a good compromise is F) zero toe, -1.5 camber, R) zero toe, -.75 camber. You then can play with swaybar settings and tire pressures to dial in your track handling.

 

well the rear i'd like to set and forget but the front I have adj. camber plates so I could more easily change the fronts back and forth for street & track.

after coming off the track I notice my tires (front and rear) have more wear towards the outside which i would think means I need more neg. camber??????

 

The problem with that is as you change the front camber you also change the front toe. Better to set and forget.

 

Because of the geometry of your front suspension, if you move your camber plates to get negative camber, you will also get toe-in which is not desirable for the track. It's better to find a good compromise setting or get an alignment before and after every track day (sounds tedious). More negative camber can reduce outside wear of your tires, but also look at your tire pressure.

 

OK so whats the benifit of having adj. camber plates?

 

So you can adjust the camber from the "fixed" stock setting. Fixed in quotes because there is a very small amount of adjustment, but not what you would need to track the car.

 

OK so you still recommend F) zero toe, -1.5 camber, R) zero toe, -.75 camber?
What is the factory specs for alignment?
I'd llike to see where I'm at now before I get an alignement, I would think the shop could give me a before and after reading?????

 

That's basically factory in the rear, with a little more negative in the front. It's conservative, but will serve you well on both street and track.

 

FWIW, I have -2.0 front and -1.3 rear with zero toe on both. Over the past few years of track and street, I've experienced fairly good tire wear. I rotate after each event but be prepared at mid-life to dismount and flip your tires to get maximum wear.

 

i just read a thread that said the stock camber was -1.53 rear and -.50 front.
does that sound right?

 

The stock (JCW) settings that I have written down are:
Front Camber: -0.17 to -1.0 degrees.
Rear Camber: -1.6 to -2.6 degrees

 

Does anyone know how much the front toe changes based on camber changes?
Such as; if you go from -2.0 camber to -2.5 camber how much does the toe change?

 

wow, i'm seeing camber settings all over the place on NAM.
most have more neg camber up front than in the rear.
I'm going with -2.0 front and -1.5 to -1.7 rear and see how that works on the track.

 

In front I run -2.0 camber with slight toe out.
In rear I run -1.5 camber with zero toe.
I have JCW suspension with adj. camber plates and 19mm rear sway bar.

I tend to wear the inside edge of tires a little too fast so I plan to reduce the front toe to close to zero.

I have adjustable camber plates but do not change the camber for different events because I am not sure of the toe change. The adjustable camber plates do allow for adjustment to the degree you want plus can adjust for side to side differences in camber from factory.

 

hey thanks, thats the best info I've got so far. I also have adj front camber on my megan coil overs.
I dont know what my camber is set at now since I lowered the car but I will soon find out when I get my alignment. I was wearing the outside edge of tires at the track so I'm guesing it didnt have enough neg camber.

 

Along with the camber, the front toe could be quite off (too much toe-in) which makes the tire scrub across the ground wearing the tire quickly.
I provide the tire/alignment shop my own alignment specs and they do a good job matching what I want instead of setting to factory specs.

 

These are pretty much perfect settings for track/street. I'd agree with the front and rear camber settings 100%--they'll work great on the track, without killing your tires day to day.

I would use 0 toe up front though, and slight toe in (1/16 or so) on the rears--helps with high speed stability. These cars get a little twitch at high speeds.

I currently am set up at -2.4 up front, no toe, -1.6 rear, 1/16 toe in. I may go a little lower on the rear camber, to -1.3 or so, depending on my next day at the track. The -2.0 is what I ran when I had the JCW suspension, and still did some street driving, and it really worked out well with both.

As Quikmini said, I would definitely just set it and leave it. It's too much of a hassle, with several potential pitfalls unless you really know what you're doing, to change it back and forth.

And I'd definitely find a good alignment shop for this, skip the dealer....