feasibility of two-setting camber plates for street and track

[aaronhoy]

Having a truck and a trailer is just not in the cards for me right now, so I'm having to drive my M3 to the track whenever I go. I have around -2.5 to -3 degrees of camber up front, and I tried really hard to get alignment guys to reduce the toe-in to almost zero so that I don't wear the insides of the tires on the highway and stuff, but I'm still wearing out the insides at a pretty decent rate unfortunately.

Now, I know that changing camber effects toe, so you might say that having camber plates with two adjustable "stops" or something still wouldn't work because then my toe would be off. However, if my thinking is correct, adding more negative camber should cause the tires to also go toe-out (or reduce toe-in).

So, MAYBE, if you had two adjustable stops on your camber plates (so you can set the farthest in the top stut mounts will go and the farthest out they will go), you could set the "out" stops to stock camber, the "in" stops to around -3 degrees or whatever is good for the track. Then have the car aligned to something reasonable for the highway (with some reasonable toe-in), while the camber plates are slid all the way to the "out" setting (so the lower, stock amount of negative camber). Then once you get to the track, slide them all the way in, simultaneously increasing negative camber and decreasing some of that stock toe-in.

Then again, some people might say that just sliding the camber plates in and back out again they won't go back to the exact same spot as before, so the toe will still be off on the way back home from the track. I was just wondering if anyone has tried a setup like this and if so, how did it go, how much was the toe effected by the camber, etc.

[YAOGinanM3]

This can work for camber but you will need to manually change toe for the track and then back for the street. This is not hard to do but it is a PITA to keep doing.

[E36forever]

Anything >-2.5 for the street is overkill. Note; depending how low your car is will depend on what the most positive camber you can achieve with what plates. Also note; expect each side to be off approx .5 deg so with plates you won't be adjusting all the way out.

This is what I did (I have Vorshlag plates);

-Toe is set based on my camber set for street use. I don't change it for track.

-As it turned out based on my ride height one side is all the way out while the other side is almost all the way out to even the deg of camber, which is approx -2.4. The side that isn't all the way out is marked.

-At the track I almost go all the way in, which I figure is upwards of -4 deg or more.

Your adjustment range will depend on how low your car is. If mostly a street car I would be between 12.5 to 13" for the front and 11.75 to 12.25" for the rear. This will give you enough height for street and still give you a good range of camber for both street and track with plates.

[ThreeD]

This can work for camber but you will need to manually change toe for the track and then back for the street. This is not hard to do but it is a PITA to keep doing.

I ran two settings for the street and the track, -3 on the street and -3.5 at the track. I had them first set it to -3, and then zero the toe. Then I had them swing it to -3.5 to look at the toe swing to make sure it wasn't excessive, took a picture of the pointer plate @ -3.5, and brought it back down to -3 and zeroed the toe again (if necessary). This way, when I go to the track, I can set it to the -3.5 setting and have a little toe out up front, and then swap it back down to -3 for DD when I leave the track.

Why am I running -3 instead of -2.5 on the street? I found that starting with a -2.5 camber/0 toe street setting and changing to a -3.5 track setting resulted in too much toe out, which is why I run the -3 street setting. I think the toe swing from -2.5 to -3.5, starting at 0 toe at -2.5 was something like 0.6degrees total toe out, more than I would've liked. I think my current toe-swing between -3 to -3.5 is about 0.2deg total toe out, but I am going off memory on this.

There is some play between the shock tower holes and the camber plate studs, so you won't get the exact setting, but it's close enough to work quite well.

[ScotcH]

1/4" total toe out for track is not that bad ... in fact we run that on the tighter tracks. What you are suggesting, running -2.5 camber and 0 toe for street and -3.5 and whatever toe out is a really good compromise.

[E36forever]

I ran two settings for the street and the track, -3 on the street and -3.5 at the track.

With those settings you might as well not buy camber plates and just swap strut hats and call it good.

That's what I would call a happy medium of mediums.

[aaronhoy]

This can work for camber but you will need to manually change toe for the track and then back for the street. This is not hard to do but it is a PITA to keep doing.

Yeah, that's exactly what I want to avoid doing because I'm afraid my street toe will end up slowly migrating and then getting too bad, so I was hoping I can leave the toe alone. It looks like some other people have had success with that though .

Also note; expect each side to be off approx .5 deg so with plates you won't be adjusting all the way out.

Actually I'm aware of this, that's why I made reference to adjustable stops. I was thinking if there were additional max/min stops that can be adjusted, then you could adjust those to the right places to where you then could just slide them all the way in or out and get the right settings. Hopefully that made sense...

I think the toe swing from -2.5 to -3.5, starting at 0 toe at -2.5 was something like 0.6degrees total toe out, more than I would've liked. I think my current toe-swing between -3 to -3.5 is about 0.2deg total toe out, but I am going off memory on this.

OK, so then if I set my highway alignment up so that I have a bit of toe-in (like 0.2 or so), then I'll still cross the line to toe-out when pulling the mounts in for track camber, but I maybe won't go too excessive. Sound promising! Thanks.

[NeilM]

OK, so then if I set my highway alignment up so that I have a bit of toe-in (like 0.2 or so), then I'll still cross the line to toe-out when pulling the mounts in for track camber, but I maybe won't go too excessive. Sound promising! Thanks.

You can absolutely do this—I have for years.

You'll need to get a custom alignment done someplace where they're willing to let you participate while playing with the camber settings. Determine your best compromise and mark the camber plates accordingly, done. At the track, jack up the front of the car, loosen the camber plate bolts and slide the struts to your marked positions. Reverse on departure.

My Vorshlag plates have a pointer and scale, making repeatability easy, but it should be perfectly feasible with other brands.

Neil