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Did a wheel alignment on my track day car and now have just under 4 deg neg camber front and rear.
Is this to much ? Its got BC coilovers, sways and running on proxies.
Any comments would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance

Put it this way - you won't get very much tyre life at all on the road, and you are very likely to struggle for much grip in the wet. If it's only a track car that gets trailered to and from, then probably not much of an issue.

The idea of neg camber is to have the full tread width of the outside tyres in contact with the road/track at the highest cornering load point of the corner. You would have to throw the car over a fair bit to get 4 degrees to come back to placing the full tread width on the road, so if the sways and/or suspension are too stiff, you would be better off with less camber so that the tyres and suspension work together in the best possible way. Conversely, perhaps softer spring and sways would be ok with 4 degrees neg camber because the car can lean enough to get the tyres to overcome that 4 degrees.... More camber does not necessarily mean more grip. The ultimate setup may also vary from track to track, depending on the tracks.

This is too much camber - viewtopic.php?f=56&t=41636

Just get yourself a pyromometer(if your rich) else substitute an infra-red temperature gun. Temperature will tell you if your too far off on alignment. That is an awful lot of camber for proxes though (proxes 4 or RA-1). I'm running 2.25 on the front of my car, 3.0 at the rear and that's still a little too much camber for Kumho V700.

standard mx5's have more camber available in the rear than the front.
Does that mean they need a little more at the rear.
What is the original showroom settings ?

The "showroom settings" as such are a joke - all over the place. The general sort of set up for street + track is max caster, about 1 degree negative camber front, about 1.5-2.0 degrees negative camber rear and a couple of mm toe in at each end. You could play with those figures and go a bit more agressive for a "track only" car and see what works best for you and your car.

olboy wrote:Did a wheel alignment on my track day car and now have just under 4 deg neg camber front and rear.
Is this to much ? Its got BC coilovers, sways and running on proxies.
Any comments would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance

You would want to run lower camber in the front than the rear. 3/4 of a degree difference is ideal. 4 degrees is ideal with slicks but may be a bit high with r specs. Best thing is to do a few laps and "read the tyres" as to what is working where.

Terry

Just a heads up ... you can pick up an infrared pyrometer (search "infrared thermometer") from eBay for about $20 shipped. You need a clean tyre surface for them to work properly since they rely on consistent thermal emittance across the tyre face. If the outer shoulders are colder than the inner shoulders, and you can't correct it by dropping pressures, then you have too much camber.

i have an infrared pyrometer but it's a bit harder to use than it sounds.
I have been trying to read the ware on the tyres.
They have been wearing and rollong up on the outer half side
I thought if I could tip the tyre over a bit more then it might wear more even across the tread.
The car is a total track and hillclimb car , not registered so I can't take it for a run up the road.

I also have an infrared pyrometer, and find it very easy to use. Just point at the tyre on inner edge, outer edge and middle and record the readings..

If the outer and inner edge temp is greater than the middle then your tyre pressures are too low.
If the outer and inner edge temp is less than the middle then your tyre pressures are too high.

If the outer edge temp is higher than the inner then you dont have enough camber.
If the inner edge temp is higher than the outer then you have too much camber


Though to be usable you need someone else to do the readings as soon as you pull off the track, as by the time you have dríven back to the pits, removed yourself from the car, retrieved the gun and then measured, the tyres have cooled enough to alter the readings..

Don't mean to highjack the thread but I also have BC coilovers and sways front and rear, and I normally run -1.5ish camber in the rear, however since installing the coilovers my alignment guy said the closest he can get to the -1.5 is -2.5 due to the lowering. Is this normal???

Don't mean to highjack the thread but I also have BC coilovers and sways front and rear, and I normally run -1.5ish camber in the rear, however since installing the coilovers my alignment guy said the closest he can get to the -1.5 is -2.5 due to the lowering. Is this normal???
tuned_to_fly

When i put the coilovers in I played around with it to see how much camber I could get at what height
I thought that as I lowered it more then it would give me more negative camber then it would come back as I lowered it.
i thought I could find an ideal height for max camber but the more I lowered it the more camber I got.
I think it was way over 5 deg before I stopped.
What your guy said may be right I was looking for more negative not less.
You may have to raise the back a little to bring it back
I have standard arms at the back and adjustable top arms on the front
olboy

My green car has about 5 deg. Neg front and rear ... It goes very fast.

My green car has about 5 deg. Neg front and rear ... It goes very fast.

whot

My green car has about 5 deg. Neg front and rear ... It goes very fast.

Sorry Boyracer what other settings do you use and do you run slicks to go that fast ?