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Racetrack suspension -3.9 degrees camber!

8.5K views 32 replies 9 participants last post by  Call me Al  
#1 · (Edited)
I’m putting this in Motorsports because these settings are ideal for track use only.

I was only running about -2 degrees camber in front before and it was great but I was wearing the outside of my tires a little bit more than rest and I knew I could get some more but I never thought I would get this much!
Today I took my car to my local race shop and told them to dig into it and grind shims, remove shims and do whatever they could and see what they come up with to get me the most negative camber possible.
Result is -3.8 and -3.9 camber on front Wow didn’t see that coming!
We left the rears at about -2.6 and that’s a good setting.

My local race shop runs up to -4.3 degrees camber depending on the track on their spec E46 race cars that are about 2,600 pounds in about 235 HP it’s not a whole lot different than the 4C. And their best drivers do 1:34 lap times at SCR which is very fast especially considering that lower horsepower. So I know they’re set up right. And yes we talked about the possibility of less braking ability with this larger camber but I don’t brake for that long and I’ve got braking to spare. I’m really hoping to gain higher speeds in the turns especially the ones before the straightaways. I need as much speed as possible going into the straightaways to stave off the high horsepower cars.
I know some of you will say this is too much camber but I’m comfortable with these settings and I trust my local race shop owners advise a lot.
But don’t be concerned about voicing your opinion if you think there is something better or this is not right. I’m working to be less reactionary if anybody that tells me I’m crazy in what I’m doing with my car. And then I just go and do what I think is right or want to do anyway LOL.
Plan is put on my brand new set of tires and go to ORP for one track day and then back to the shop and we will look at the tires and then we’ll know what it needs if anything. That’s the best way to know.

Driving it home from the shop today I could tell it has a lot more bite in turns but can’t nor will I do much on the street. But it does feel incredible and like a go-cart.
But amazingly still quite streetable and not much different. It has a little bit more wandering on rough roads but on smooth roads still very easy to drive.

Getting really pumped for my July 20 event at Laguna Seca, could be something special. Also my dream of pulling a sustained 2Gs on DOT slicks in sweeper turns is now possible again..but probably unlikely..probably :)
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#5 ·
Were those specs the finals or just showing the camber change? If this was the final, note that the toe is very inconsistent left to right and the caster is similarly out. Toe is easy to fix if these are the final settings, but the weird caster is probably a sacrifice due to the camber change. They should at least try to get them closer to equal though.
 
#6 · (Edited)
These are the best pictures I can get to show the tire angle. Because the car is so low it’s hard to get good shots. Also these are only 215 width street tires when I put my 245 slicks on I’ll take some other photos on Sunday at the track.
Just so it’s clear I I am limited in knowledge about about alignment specs. I’m putting all my trust into my local race shop owner. He dials in each of his race cars with camber and specifically for each track they go to. He aligns cars all the time for hard driving and I really think he knows what he’s doing. Also look what he’s done with my car so far! Damn!
I really only thought he would get -2.5 maybe -3 camber. But I did tell him to pull all his tricks out of his bag to get me the most. I know he had to mill down the shims on one side and on the other side I believe it was some trick of moving the washer to the other side of the frame or something. And when you do all your little tricks to get as much camber as possible sometimes you have to give up little thing so maybe that’s why some alignment numbers aren’t even or whatever.
I did test drive it a lot on the street and it really doesn’t feel that much different than before, maybe a little harsher ride and it seems to wander a little bit more on the very uneven roads by my house and on the corners it definitely feels like it digs in a lot more.
On Sunday I will know how it is and I’ve got a new pyrometer with memory and brand new tires. Let’s just see how it goes before we judge the numbers.
And I remember one of the very fastest driver/car combos I came across was a professional racer driving a brand new GT3RS. He said all he did was change the camber to -2.75 on his car and he was amazingly fast. And he also drove his car on the street a lot. My car is lighter and I drive it mostly on the track now so that extra 1° of camber might not be anything to fret about.

It sounds like a lot of camber but remember the harder you drive the more camber you want. So I will say this:
“I don’t always drive hard, but when I do, I prefer a lot of camber."
Stay thirsty my friends
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#7 ·
These are the best pictures I can get to show the tire angle. Because the car is so low it’s hard to get good shots.
I know that problem :) i thinkg because of the round shape of the front its hard to see the camber.
 

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#8 ·
On my previous track car (VW scirocco) I increased the front camber to -2, then -2.5 and then -3.5 degrees.
With every camber value I adjusted the TOE IN so the tire wear was uniform across the contact surface.

With the same tires the lap times were very close with -2.5 and -3.5 degrees. The car was slower with -2.
I used federal FZ201 semi slick tires wich are very close to slick in terms of grip.

If you are going with -3.9 @ slick tires It should be ok --> You just need to adjust the TOE accordingly --> More TOE Out if it wears the outer edges or more TOE in if it wears the interior --> Make minor changes ... just 2-3 mins / side at a time.

I would be more concerned about the rear end because to me that is problematic: The engine is heavy and maybe a bit too high, the arms controlling the wheels are quite long and probably they bend a bit, the rear mc-pearson design ... --> Maybe your rear wing helps a lot with this, but on my car I find the rear to be problematic and not the front and I also have -2 degrees 34' rear camber.
 
#10 · (Edited)
Thanks great helpful post. And thank you to everyone for all your helpful posts.
Trust me I had second thoughts about posting what I was testing doing and my alignment sheet. I was worried posting something so different, new and radical would get me some post back telling me that I’m crazy for trying this and that my race shop manager doesn’t know what he’s doing or that the numbers on his alignment sheet were wrong, not perfect or what someone else thought that they should be. But that didn’t happen here, everyone’s gets it that you really have to be there doing it to know everything and to be patient to see how it works out. And especially that courtesy costs nothing. Huge thanks to all!

I thought I would include some other information now that I did not put in before that we could help explain how he got these numbers so low. Big one is my car is low, really low. Still streetable but barely but not because of a rough ride or anything like that just road elevations hit the bottom front of car. As everyone knows you gain static camber just by lowering the car. He also did some tricks with the shims and washers like I spoke about. And I had to buy a couple sets of Jamie‘s suspension blocks intermediate and racing to do what I’m doing plus the milling of them down. Here’s a photo of my spare parts LOL.
And we had discussions about going for the maximum camber and how it would affect toe and other axis. But I really don’t know whole lot about alignment losses when going for lots of camber. So after many discussions I just said I just wanted it to be streetable, drive straight down the road if I go for road trips and handle the best tires wearing reasonably even and to just do what he thought was best. We decided to go ahead and use the maximum camber he came up do the best with the other numbers and we will see how it goes as we can always dial it back.
He thinks with my hard driving, with the slicks and with ORP being a track that loves a lot of camber, that there’s a good chance that the tires will wear very well and the car will handle a lot better, that sounds like a chance worth taking!
And this was never though to be a one-shot alignment that would come out perfect although maybe it will I hope. Sunday I will find out with my pyrometer and with me and him looking at my brand new tires after one day of tracking. Then we will know what it needs if anything.
I’ve got to tell you when he called me on the phone and asked me “how much camber do you want?” I replied “what I don’t know, I thought we were only going to be able to get about -2.5 what did you get?”
When he replied “-3.8 and -3.9”. I was shocked and I actually had him repeat what he said! It seemed like a great miracle and suddenly I saw lap times dropping again so I was very excited. Yes as far as I know no one‘s ever got camber like this on a 4C and from what I know and from my test drives it’s looking very good. Could be another great thing for our lower hp cars to beat up on the high hp cars with! Those long straightaways might not be so scary after all if we can enter them quite a bit faster. Wish me luck!!

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#12 ·
Ha ha your post sounds like a fancy way of talking about me possibly having less braking ability due to less tire surface contact! Just say it!! And yes that first big braking event is going to be a bit scary for me.

Or are you raining on my parade? I already checked and weather is clear. And no moderator has that power that I know of :)

Seriously I don’t know much about that but it seems to me the surface is just slicker and the tires will release sooner. I don’t think I change anything much. But on the other hand I can see that if tire and car suspension has less pressure on them that the tire will not flatten out as well as it would on a dry surface and therefore be unproportionally worse.

I will let you know.... but probably not until the fall as it doesn’t rain much here until then.... unless you want it to.
 
#14 ·
Tippy toey and skatey, I can’t top that! Lol
High camber does give you less tread surface so you probably weren’t imaging anything.
The more I think about it the more I drive on the street without driving really hard the more likely it’s going to wear the inside of the front tires.
But I came up with a great test for this on Sunday. I just realized I have a brand new set of Toyo RA1s on track wheels ready to go that I bought two years ago that I planned to use on rain days. Then on the few rain days I got it was not pouring rain and I realized those are excellent days to leave the slicks on and practice corrections. So I never used them and can’t figure out how to use them. Besides my street tires now are the ones on my HRE rims and those will always be tires they can be used in the rain and that I’ll carry in the trailer.
So as destiny unfolds this Sunday will be a perfect time to use those new RA1s.
Sunday’s plan is to put on my brand new Hoosier RA7 slicks and drive like a maniac trying to beat the track record that I came within one second last time. Tracking starts at 3:30 PM with checkered flag at 11:30 PM.
So I’ll have a good four hours to do that.
And as it gets dark of course I’m going to slow down and drive less hard so I’m going to switch tires and put on the RA1s. I’ll be driving slower and more like street driving so I’ll be able to tell how driving the car on the street tires at a slower pace will wear on the tires. It will definitely be faster than I drive on the streets but I think it will be close enough to know how street tires will wear with this type of camber.
So it’s all coming together!
I have some high hopes and a few worries since I haven’t even tracked that car in 3 months! And when I cinch up that harness real tight I know I’m going to be anxious and sometimes I have trouble breathing for a while. So I’m going to actually going to wear the harness tight on the street like that for a few days to fight through that sh#t LOL.
Went for a drive around our local lake here yesterday and OMG I feel extra G forces. My passenger was scared out of his wits and I wasn’t even going fast just some sharp twisties. Highest I’ve done at this ORP track is 1.92 G lateral acceleration in a turn (screenshot inclosed) and I really think I’m going to break 2G Sunday. I know that would be a peak reading but the sustained reading wouldn’t be far behind. Going to have to send the Vbox data to one of my friends see what kind of forces this car does in turns. I think it will be very impressive.
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#17 · (Edited)
I can’t really even push on a fender to make my car move anymore. There’s not much left soft on my car other than my own body! No I take that back my Sparco SPX hybrid racing seats are like La-Z-Boy chairs compared to the stock seats in comfort but still support more.

On the Nitrons there’s two choices for springs I went with the stiffer ones. Track/Race rates are 375lbs front and 456lbs rear. I’m sure I lost quite a bit of my soft comfort on streetability just because of the springs. When I go over a pothole now it is a real loud bang. My car with as low and as stiff as it is I’ve decided I have to now have to really search the road with my eyes when I drive it on uneven country roads. I wish the Nitrons had blow off valve like some coilovers. Just yesterday I was talking to a friend of mine who has a Ferrari and he has 5 way coilovers that do have a blow off feature. Really great on the track if you hit a curb hard and on the street for potholes too.

But like I’ve said I’ve driven the car on all kinds of roads in the last few days and amazingly it’s very good, very little trammeling, drives very straight, hands off wheel runs straight, feels good on corners and streetable still. Real test will be is when I go into a corner at speed and to also see how the tires wear across the surface both on my slicks at hard driving and on my street tires at less hard driving.
I broke down and bought a fancy Longacre 50682 Pyrometer with memory. Figured it would pay for itself in tire wear and help me dial in this beast.
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#19 ·
Hi, yes if I wanted to adjust the car for street driving after track driving I’m sure it would be much better. But my car is so low to the ground that I have to jack it up to get at the front adjustment knobs and also for the rear for some of the adjustment knobs too.
So I guess I’m just too lazy or don’t have enough time and I just drive a car that feels like a race car over bumps on the street. And I mostly track the car anyway.
On the freeway or good roads it’s no problem at all I can drive with one hand and relax and actually is better than when I first got the car when new! And even when the car was stock it wasn’t a real good car for potholes anyway. I’m sure everybody knows that LOL!
It’s just part of the price you pay when you mod a street car to perform really well at the track.
I have the Inokinetic adjustable sway bars set at at medium setting.
 
#25 ·
I’m getting ready for tracking tonight and when I pulled off my wheels I took some photos for you.

My rear sway bar is moving just a little bit as you can see my two photos of one of each end.
My front sway bar is too hard to see with my brake cooling ducting but I took one picture from one side and it looks like it’s not moving at all but not sure.

Perhaps you put too much grease in the zerk fitting? It looks like that to me.
You are only supposed to put a little bit in there and just to keep it from squeaking. In the old days we didn’t have zerk fittings on sway bars and we just sprayed a little oil if it squeaked.

I would suggest taking off your brackets cleaning the swaybar bushing and everything and then just put a tad bit of grease in there and see what happens. But look at the rest of your suspension too maybe something is loose?
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#28 · (Edited)
Pyrometer readings and some thoughts from my one day of hard tracking on Hoosier R7 slicks.
Look pretty good not more than about 20 degrees between them.
Three were taken hot hot right off the track and one was after a cool down lap. We were driving in a counterclockwise direction that day.

Tires wore extremely well both front and rear. The only improvement we thought is that I would put a little more air in my front tires because the centers of the fronts had just a little bit more rubber in the center, but just a little. I was running them 26 PSI hot square.

Car ran great. So nice to drive after almost three months of waiting. Took a while to get back into the consistency but it came. I’ll post a video later in a different thread there was some pretty good stuff to see including some night time tracking which was amazing. But it was hot like 86°F you could feel the power loss. With all the heat, big alignment changes in my car and how long it’s been since I’ve driven my 4C it was a bit challenging for me and I was quite squirrley and tail happy. But I was still was able to do a 1:52.9 laptime which is smoking fast but not as fast as my 1:49.5 I did in late March at 40° weather.

By going from -2 to -3.8 front camber made the car oversteer more than it used to and a little too much for what I want. But there is several ways to adjust that. Since that front camber was not too much amazingly, we could loosen up the rear sway bar but then it would be at the softest setting. Or we could work with my Nitron R3 coil overs. But I decided to just dial the front camber back to -3.5 and increase the rear camber from -2.6 to -2.75.
We’re also going to even up the caster. Last alignment we didn’t have the proper washers and we had to waterjet some up but we didn’t have enough time to get that done before my tracking.
Did not notice any reduced braking that I was a bit worried about. And the car seemed to really dig in more than it did. I think I got a little more G force going. I’ll have to look at the data from the Vbox to see how high it went but it could be close to 2G in peaks. Here’s a screenshot have a 2.15G in a high speed sweeper but at this screenshot I’m braking hard too. Never got that high before this camber. Here is another at 1.74 G pure lateral.
Next tracking is Friday and Saturday at Canada’s Area 27. Never been there but I’ve been invited from a friend I made it to Porsche Sport Driving School who is a member. He’s a really good driver so we’re going to have a blast. Also I hear that track is pretty tight so my 4C should be very fast.
Hopefully 4C will be all dialed in.
So overall amazingly -3.8 camber is not too much for this car driving hard at the track just like my shop owner told me. But there’s lots of driving styles and personal preferences and opinions so I do understand that some people might want less. And I might even end up dialing it a little bit less than the -3.5. But it does dig in like crazy!
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#29 · (Edited)
Final alignment done. Dialed it back to -3.5 camber and had all the parts to finish all other angles. The rear cannot be easily adjusted for more camber so we left it.

This will be the setup for Area 27 this weekend and Laguna Seca and Thunderhill next Friday and weekend.
Pretty pumped for these big tracks that are new to me.
This is what I worked so hard for.
C’mon little Alfa....I want Porsche people to be crying at the sky!
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#31 ·
Had a full day at ORP with my final set up.
Really digging the extra negative camber (pun intended).
Now I can take comers so much harder! Really feel those extra Gs! Before the car would bleed across the track, now it digs and stays.
Tires wearing better than ever too.

It was over 90° so very hot so my times were not as fast as I thought they might be. But still managed a CW 153:37 Vbox (1:53.56 Harry’s) and broke my record from last year by about four seconds.
This car really suffers from heatstroke and I can really feel it.
1 track down 2 more to go. Next is Laguna Seca on Friday.
Life on the road. Stayed in Walmart parking lot last night. My rig fits right in with all the long haul truckers there! Here is a classic WalMart parking lot car LOL!
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#32 ·
Looking forward to hearing how you do at Laguna Seca, Thunder Hill and Sonoma. You should have a good setup for Thunder Hill and Sonoma especially. I never got a chance to run Thunder Hill but my son-in-law ran it a lot so will be interesting to see how your times compare to other cars there. I ran the old layout of Laguna Seca before the infield was added and Sonoma (my favorite track).
 
#33 ·
No Sonoma this trip. Just one day at Laguna Seca two at Thunderhill. But I hear such good things about Sonoma.

The weather at Laguna Seca is so nice only 77.
But this weekend at Thunderhill is supposed to be like 107 down from 111!!!
But weather report now says only 102. Only 102 ha ha.

I’m a little worried about my car as at ORP had some evap leak engine codes that threw it into limp mode. I swear it’s like this car and I are in some relationship. Wild rides!!!
I’ll tough it out and hope everything runs good. Wish me luck!