If you were to use camber plates to get -2.5 degrees of camber at an autocross event and then put back to -1 for the street what should you set your alignment at and what will happen to the alignment after temporarily setting camber to -2.5?

with camber plates that you plan on adjusting back and forth what's the best way to change the camber to a repeatable setting without actually measuring it each time?

 

Hi, some plates are marked! for repeat adjusting!

 

The biggest problem with doing this is the toe-in. Say out have 0 deg toe-in for autocross and the -2.5 deg camber. When you move the camber back out to -1.0, your toe-in will become "toe-out" which will, at the very least will wear your tires out and at the worst the car will be almost undriveable. The only way around it is to change the toe-in also.

FWIW - I know people who run with about -2.0 camber on the street with no problems (tire wear) just so they don't have to mess with all of that readjustment. I got the IE fixed camberplates just to keep things basically stock but with -1.5 deg camber. Works ok as a compromise between street, track and autoX.

 

Like Eddie said above, the toe is the concern. If you spend some time with a guy on the alignment rack, you can probably get pretty close on the toe adjustment at the same time that you adjust the camber.

If you mark the camber plates for the two settings, then you can figure out how many turns (or flats, 1/6 of a turn) to adjust the tie rod ends to set your toe. You may even want different settings for the autocross and street on toe (some guys like toe out for autocross).

Have fun,
Mike

 

As mentioned above, adjusting for negative camber with cause toe in, automatically. My toe is set as close to zero as I can get it for the street, using the string method, (my car is too low for the local alignment rack). I just let the toe in happen when I set more negative camber for autocross. When I first got the Vorschlag camber plates, I adjusted for negative camber without readjusting for toe in. I was driving to work on I-94 in the rain and it was like driving on ice. Very dangerous. Had to stay below 50mph and even then I was all over the place. The Vorschlags have lines on them for repeatability of setups. I do notice more tire wear when toe is beyond zero. Adjusting toe is easy, especially if you can reach the tie rod adjuster without jacking up the car. Look at Youtube for videos on toe adjusting using the string method. Adding aftermarket parts creates new benefits as well as challenges to the mini. If you have the time, the knowledge, and the money, go for it. If you don't have the time, enjoy it as it is. Hope this helps.

 

I ran -2.4 at all times for the life of the original Gollum. No problems on the street or at the autocross course. Tire wear was not a problem.

Cheers,

Charlie

 

My camber plates have marks on the plates so it would be easy to adjust back to a known point. I also have a digital level that makes it easy to measure camber.

I had the same question about the affect on toe when changing camber because I wanted to increase camber for Auto-X and set back for street. As stated when you increase the negative camber the toe goes way in which I did not want for Auto-X. I did not want to reset the toe every time I changed the camber.

So I compromised. I run -2.0 camber on street with very slight toe-out (almost zero). It is toe that tends to wear tires with negative camber because the tire edge scrapes across the ground. With zero toe the tire wear is not bad. The disadvantage is that the tire rides on the edge when going straight and without any toe the car does not have as much straight line stability. It can be a problem/concern for very wet roads. We do not get much rain where I live and I have another car to drive so it is not a big deal to me. So it depends on how you drive your car.

 

I also run -2.5 in the front all the time. It's way more fun than -1 or -1.5

Rotate your tires regularly and you'll have no issues.