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      07-28-2015, 10:52 PM   #1
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Getting Camber Right

Looking for some insights from those with experience. My 2011 335d with stock m-sport suspension is my daily - 50ish miles round trip, mixed highway and city. I've gotten 2 track days in this summer so far and am looking to up that to 4-6 next year. I'm running in the top 3rd or so of the intermediate group at track days running bone-stock on continental DW tires. I feel like I'm pretty close to the limits of the car [edit - ok, not really "the limits" - please see post #4].

I'm considering Dinan Camber plates and/or an M3 front control arm kit. Some specific questions for those with experience:

1) About how much extra negative camber do you really get on sport suspension with:

a) Just Dinan plates

b) Just M3 Arms

c) Dinan plates + M3 arms

2) Any suggestions for how much camber I should look to be running at the track? I've seen people on everything from 2.5 up to 4.

3) What's a reasonable max negative camber number for not prematurely destroying the tires given my commute.

4) Taking items 2 and 3 into account, is there any chance I could get the necessary adjustability out of the stock shock towers with any semblance of consistency? I've seen people getting maybe half a degree out of those slots but that's just by pulling the pins on the stock suspension. Between plates, M3 arms, and using the full range of the slot, maybe there's a degree or more of adjustability there?

I really don't want to run adjustable camber plates because of the noise - this is still my daily after all.

Appreciate the feedback and I'll report back as I make the adjustments/mods.

Last edited by gavronm; 07-29-2015 at 06:52 AM..
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      07-29-2015, 12:10 AM   #2
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You need -3.0 min to get even relatively wear on the front tires on these cars. I ran -2.4 last year with M3 and Dinan plates, and the outer shoulders of my Hankook R-S3 were still wearing a lot quicker than it should.

Dinan + M3 arms will allow you to get -2.7 max if you pull the pins. I would just spend the extra $100-200 and get a set of vorshlag adjustable plates and do it right the first time, instead of spending the extra money for re-install and extra alignment like what I went through. Vorshlag didn't really cause extra noise or harshness from my experience just FYI.

Stay away from ground control plates. A friend of mine runs their street plates and get a lot of noises from them.
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      07-29-2015, 12:53 AM   #3
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Just for a point of reference, I've been driving in HPDEs for 15 years, instructing for 10, several hundred days at various local tracks.

At no point in my "career" did I ever felt I was near the limit for my car. Ever.

Case in point. A few weeks ago I attended a day at the BMW Performance Center West at Thermal, where we were handed a bunch of identical M3s and told to have fun and see who had the faster time on their AX course. Between myself, and our chapter's chief instructor, and a fellow instructor who's a regular club racer, there was 0.9 seconds in our fastest lap time...on a 27 second per lap AX course.

That's a freakin eternity.

Think about that. Within a 30 minute session I would have been lapped by the club racer buddy. Within 15 minutes I would have been lapped by my CI.

Clearly I still have a very long way to go to wring everything out of these bone stock M3s. And I'm by no means a slouch on the track.

And guess what? The performance center instructors said the fastest time in the same course is in the 25.xx range, and they can consistently punch that time.

Next time anyone thinks they're at or near the limit of what their car can do? You're no where near. Not unless you're being paid handsomely to drive and drive it damn fast.
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      07-29-2015, 06:43 AM   #4
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You know - I walked away last night and thought about coming back and deleting that one sentence because I figured someone would zero in on it and lo and behold...

Let me put it this way - I understand I'm not driving the car 100% to the limit all the time, not even close, I have no illusions about my place in the pantheon of HPDE drivers, but I do feel that when I'm fighting understeer 95% of the time I'm not learning all the skills I would like to be learning. I would like to achieve a more balanced car to help me learn other skills.

I've read many of your posts The Hack and respect and appreciate your input in this forum, but I don't want this thread to go off the rails. Thank you for your thoughts. Do you have any comments on camber?
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      07-29-2015, 06:54 AM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Cloud9blue View Post
I would just spend the extra $100-200 and get a set of vorshlag adjustable plates and do it right the first time
Thanks for this - I hadn't looked seriously at those and even a quick search reveals a lot of people commenting about how quiet they are.
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      07-29-2015, 09:23 AM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by The HACK
Just for a point of reference, I've been driving in HPDEs for 15 years, instructing for 10, several hundred days at various local tracks.

At no point in my "career" did I ever felt I was near the limit for my car. Ever.

Case in point. A few weeks ago I attended a day at the BMW Performance Center West at Thermal, where we were handed a bunch of identical M3s and told to have fun and see who had the faster time on their AX course. Between myself, and our chapter's chief instructor, and a fellow instructor who's a regular club racer, there was 0.9 seconds in our fastest lap time...on a 27 second per lap AX course.

That's a freakin eternity.

Think about that. Within a 30 minute session I would have been lapped by the club racer buddy. Within 15 minutes I would have been lapped by my CI.

Clearly I still have a very long way to go to wring everything out of these bone stock M3s. And I'm by no means a slouch on the track.

And guess what? The performance center instructors said the fastest time in the same course is in the 25.xx range, and they can consistently punch that time.

Next time anyone thinks they're at or near the limit of what their car can do? You're no where near. Not unless you're being paid handsomely to drive and drive it damn fast.
I am not sure how is this helpful at all. Stock e92 chassis has a lot deficiency that should be eliminated simply for reliability and long term cost effectiveness, which is the case here.

Plus, OP drives a 335D, and unless his groups are full of people that can't drive and really slow cars, keeping up pace in intermediate group in a stock non-M e9x and on crappy tires are pretty impressive in my opinion. None of us are pro drivers, but you have to remember these cars aren't exactly race cars either.

And also autox =/= road course. It is like comparing doing improv shows to making blockbuster films.
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      07-29-2015, 09:31 AM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Cloud9blue View Post
You need -3.0 min to get even relatively wear on the front tires on these cars. I ran -2.4 last year with M3 and Dinan plates, and the outer shoulders of my Hankook R-S3 were still wearing a lot quicker than it should.

Dinan + M3 arms will allow you to get -2.7 max if you pull the pins. I would just spend the extra $100-200 and get a set of vorshlag adjustable plates and do it right the first time, instead of spending the extra money for re-install and extra alignment like what I went through. Vorshlag didn't really cause extra noise or harshness from my experience just FYI.

Stay away from ground control plates. A friend of mine runs their street plates and get a lot of noises from them.
For what it's worth, I have the ground control street plates and don't have excess noise from them. I run about -3* on track with them.
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      07-29-2015, 09:32 AM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by davidwarren
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cloud9blue View Post
You need -3.0 min to get even relatively wear on the front tires on these cars. I ran -2.4 last year with M3 and Dinan plates, and the outer shoulders of my Hankook R-S3 were still wearing a lot quicker than it should.

Dinan + M3 arms will allow you to get -2.7 max if you pull the pins. I would just spend the extra $100-200 and get a set of vorshlag adjustable plates and do it right the first time, instead of spending the extra money for re-install and extra alignment like what I went through. Vorshlag didn't really cause extra noise or harshness from my experience just FYI.

Stay away from ground control plates. A friend of mine runs their street plates and get a lot of noises from them.
For what it's worth, I have the ground control street plates and don't have excess noise from them. I run about -3* on track with them.
Which one? They sell 3 different versions. Street, hybrid, and race. I hear complains from street and hybrid plates the most often.

I would still go with Vorshlag due their better design (bigger and stronger spherical bearing and sealed radial bearing comparing to the GC race plates which use an exposed thrust needle bearing).
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      07-29-2015, 10:22 AM   #9
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Not to argue, but I had the GC street plates as well. They didn't make any noise until one collected road debris in the bearing (road construction on the commute), but that was something cure-able though somewhat of a pain at the time. They did amplify noises I already had, such as road and tire noise and passed more vibration through to the cabin. Just less isolation.

I'm just an autox person, maybe track work stresses them out more?
edit, oops I didn't see this
And also autox =/= road course. It is like comparing doing improv shows to making blockbuster films.
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      07-29-2015, 10:37 AM   #10
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Thanks guys for all the responses - any thoughts on how much negative camber can reasonably be run on the street without trashing tires?
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      07-29-2015, 11:08 AM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gavronm View Post
You know - I walked away last night and thought about coming back and deleting that one sentence because I figured someone would zero in on it and lo and behold...

Let me put it this way - I understand I'm not driving the car 100% to the limit all the time, not even close, I have no illusions about my place in the pantheon of HPDE drivers, but I do feel that when I'm fighting understeer 95% of the time I'm not learning all the skills I would like to be learning. I would like to achieve a more balanced car to help me learn other skills.

I've read many of your posts The Hack and respect and appreciate your input in this forum, but I don't want this thread to go off the rails. Thank you for your thoughts. Do you have any comments on camber?
At least you got one thing right. Your car's not fighting understeer 95% of the time. YOU are.

I said what I said for a reason. Those M3s we drove didn't have "special" adjustable cambers. We all went into the slow corners "understeering" because we were riding on the outside sidewall because they're limited with just a hair over 1º of negative camber up front. Heck my CI rode with me and immediately commented that, to combat the inherent understeer in the chassis, I must trail my brake into the sweeper following the highest speed straight on the course, but brake early to avoid inducing understeer in corner entry otherwise I will be fighting understeer through the entire turn, thus losing a ton of time because it's almost all full throttle through a fun chicane and some esses for the 2nd half of the lap. I'd like to think I would have figured that out almost immediately as well, but when he said it after the first lap out, it was like a "duh" moment.

Had I been able to dial in some more camber up front, I could probably have shaved another 2/10th of a second, easy. But it ain't making up for the half second I was behind, because the same guy (my CI) would probably have picked up that same 2/10th.

I'm not saying "don't mod your car." I'd be a hypocrite if I say that, since I've got 3.5º of negative camber on the front of my MZ4 Coupe and 2º of negative camber in the rear, for a car that sees 4,000 miles overall on a busy year.

So why did I even bother bringing this up? You guys (and by you guys, I include myself) need to stop thinking about fixing YOUR DRIVING by making changes to your cars. If you can't figure out how to fix understeer through your driving, then fixing the camber is really just putting a bandage on a MUCH BIGGER ISSUE.

Now, if you are still reading and want my honest opinion about the camber? For your described use, a 50 mile round trip daily and 4-6 events a year, anything significantly more than factory camber setting is going to make you burn through the front tires in no time. The M3 arms will get you what, 0.5º more than stock? You have to ask yourself, is $500 in parts and labor going to be worth more than two more events under the belt vs. accelerated tire wear, and at the end of the day you'll probably still be frustrated with the lack of front camber. In all honesty, a fully adjustable camber plate is the ONLY solution, because you can dial in all the negative camber you want for the track, then after the event, bring the front end up and move the camber back to a more stock setting to conserve your tires for the street.

Having said that. Back to my original point. My CI was 0.7 seconds FASTER than I was on his fastest lap. And by lap 3 he was churning that time consistently. Yes the M3 was understeering badly, about as badly as any BMW chassis ever suffer (surprisingly, we also drove the M235 and that was shockingly neutral, and I thought we would all have had more fun with that on the course than the M3). I'm just going to leave this final nugget. Each of my practice lap I shaved 1/2 second off, and each of my officially timed run I shaved off an additional ~1/10th of a second. I didn't add some magical camber to the front end of the car nor cure it's inherent understeer. I merely figured out how to deal with it progressively and use my car control skills, the brakes, and the throttle to neutralize the car's own tendencies.

Of course, I'd like to think, had I been able to kick our CI's considerable, 200+ lbs R.E.W.A.R.D.S. weight out of the car, I'd be able to keep up with the club racing buddy who went out on a SIGNIFICANTLY lighter car. That doesn't excuse the fact that my CI set his fastest lap of the day (in practice) with my 225 lbs in the car.

p.s.: I bring up the M3 and camber again, and although I said you fix understeer through your driving, to some extent, here where camber would have helped in my lap time. That sweeper that I struggled with on the first lap out (decreasing radius, very deceptive), had I had the luxury of more camber, I could brake later and trail into the turn later for a shorter period without inducing corner entry understeer, thus allowing me to slowdown for a shorter period of time (pick up 1/10th), and also let me get on the throttle sooner without experiencing corner EXIT understeer (another possible 1/10th). Our CI, I figured out, had figured out how to conserve his speed and momentum through the first set of chicanes leading on to the front straight, something he is adept at while racing Spec E30, a crucial momentum car.
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      07-29-2015, 12:57 PM   #12
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- OP might be a natural or an complete idiot when it comes to track driving. But we are not here to argue that. Everyone has different skill level and learn differently, a motivated person will figure out the best course of action him/herself. And on the other hand, no amount of online preaching can help an complete idiot either. I personally don't find these long off-topic debates useful.

- OP asked a technical question not the best philosophical approach for becoming a competent track driver.

- Adjustable camber plates allow you to ADJUST your camber just FYI... OP can run conservative camber and toe setting for street to save your tires, and just slide in the plates for a more neg camber and toe out for track events (a pretty easy process on our macpherson strut fronts, and no need to have them professionally realigned if you mark down the settings).

- M3 front arms are well worth the money for better steering feel, so you will have better idea what the front end is doing, which will allow you to learn faster (especially if you are trying to refine your trail braking techniques).
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      07-29-2015, 01:14 PM   #13
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OK - You guys have sold me on the adjustable plates. Sounds like the added NVH, which was my primary concern, isn't that bad with a quality set. Based on some additional poking around and searching I'll probably take Cloud9blue's advice and go with a set of Vorshlag's as lots of people on lots of different forums seem to agree they are relatively low or no noise added.

Now about those conti DWs...
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      07-29-2015, 01:24 PM   #14
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Cloud9blue View Post
Which one? They sell 3 different versions. Street, hybrid, and race. I hear complains from street and hybrid plates the most often.

I would still go with Vorshlag due their better design (bigger and stronger spherical bearing and sealed radial bearing comparing to the GC race plates which use an exposed thrust needle bearing).
The street plates. They actually were really horrible when first installed. Loud and clunked a lot. But I got an alignment later that same day and they were hardly different than my stock hats. So it could just be an alignment issue when they get loud.

I take mine in for an alignment before and after each track weekend. That might be excessive, but my guy does a really good job. I prefer almost 0 toe on the track and just a slight toe-in on the street. I'd have to look at my notes to tell you the exact value.

My alignment guy is a big proponent of not toe-ing out on the track.
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      07-29-2015, 01:43 PM   #15
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gavronm View Post
OK - You guys have sold me on the adjustable plates. Sounds like the added NVH, which was my primary concern, isn't that bad with a quality set. Based on some additional poking around and searching I'll probably take Cloud9blue's advice and go with a set of Vorshlag's as lots of people on lots of different forums seem to agree they are relatively low or no noise added.

Now about those conti DWs...
If you get adjustable plates just make sure they are installed correctly and aligned and you won't have any problems with noise. If you get the race plates and also daily drive your car, I'd expect them to last no more than a year before they start making noise.
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      07-29-2015, 05:57 PM   #16
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Cloud9blue View Post
- OP might be a natural or an complete idiot when it comes to track driving. But we are not here to argue that. Everyone has different skill level and learn differently, a motivated person will figure out the best course of action him/herself. And on the other hand, no amount of online preaching can help an complete idiot either. I personally don't find these long off-topic debates useful.
99.9% of the time, when I respond to any threads here, I don't respond for the OP's sake. Because 100% of the time their mind is already made up and no amount of preaching, as you say, will change their mind otherwise.

I post, merely for my own amusement most of the time, and in the hopes that sometimes others that read but don't contribute can gleam a nugget of truth from the BS I usually spout.

Plus it gets archived by the Google Bot, so every once in a long while, when I am running classroom at the events I teach, I just google up a topic and project it on screen instead of having to talk about it myself.

You have no idea how many times that long @ss post I made about braking has saved me from having to explain "regressive braking" for the thousandth time.
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      07-29-2015, 06:10 PM   #17
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Quote:
Originally Posted by The HACK
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cloud9blue View Post
- OP might be a natural or an complete idiot when it comes to track driving. But we are not here to argue that. Everyone has different skill level and learn differently, a motivated person will figure out the best course of action him/herself. And on the other hand, no amount of online preaching can help an complete idiot either. I personally don't find these long off-topic debates useful.
99.9% of the time, when I respond to any threads here, I don't respond for the OP's sake. Because 100% of the time their mind is already made up and no amount of preaching, as you say, will change their mind otherwise.

I post, merely for my own amusement most of the time, and in the hopes that sometimes others that read but don't contribute can gleam a nugget of truth from the BS I usually spout.

Plus it gets archived by the Google Bot, so every once in a long while, when I am running classroom at the events I teach, I just google up a topic and project it on screen instead of having to talk about it myself.

You have no idea how many times that long @ss post I made about braking has saved me from having to explain "regressive braking" for the thousandth time.
It sounds like someone need to find a better hobby...
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      07-29-2015, 06:39 PM   #18
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Quote:
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It sounds like someone need to find a better hobby...
Not really. This was sort of a pet peeve for when I used to work in the automotive aftermarket industry.

People give bad advice. Really bad advice. Especially on the intarweb. Thus it leads to customers calling us with some really bad pre-determined rationale. And again, 99.9% of the time they've already determined that we're in the wrong regarding whatever problem they're having on their end.

So yes. When I get bored at work, sometimes I waste useless time trying to correct against this massive wave of ignorance on the intarweb, knowing that I am but a small grain of sand compared to the vast dumbassery that gets posted in the sort of sheer volume that is impossible for me to actually make any sort of real dent on that is the ocean of the intarweb.

But I soldier on. Because it gives me a small amount of stress relief during very stressful work day.

In a weird way, although your "advice" to the OP would probably solve his "performance issues" on track, it does nothing to help the OP, because of his use patterns. Even if he were to be able to get up to 3º of negative camber, given his relative high street use vs. actual track use, it's not going to actually do him any real good. In reality he would have been much better served to figure out how to cure his understeer problems through altering his driving, because with light camber he would be able to use those Conti DWs both for street and track and still manage to get pretty good at both.

But I figured he's already made up his mind, based on his post. So why not go about responding in my own way? Because if I'm just here to "help," I would have told him to get camber plates too. But that doesn't actually help him, IMO.
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      07-29-2015, 07:04 PM   #19
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Quote:
Originally Posted by The HACK
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cloud9blue View Post
It sounds like someone need to find a better hobby...
Not really. This was sort of a pet peeve for when I used to work in the automotive aftermarket industry.

People give bad advice. Really bad advice. Especially on the intarweb. Thus it leads to customers calling us with some really bad pre-determined rationale. And again, 99.9% of the time they've already determined that we're in the wrong regarding whatever problem they're having on their end.

So yes. When I get bored at work, sometimes I waste useless time trying to correct against this massive wave of ignorance on the intarweb, knowing that I am but a small grain of sand compared to the vast dumbassery that gets posted in the sort of sheer volume that is impossible for me to actually make any sort of real dent on that is the ocean of the intarweb.

But I soldier on. Because it gives me a small amount of stress relief during very stressful work day.

In a weird way, although your "advice" to the OP would probably solve his "performance issues" on track, it does nothing to help the OP, because of his use patterns. Even if he were to be able to get up to 3º of negative camber, given his relative high street use vs. actual track use, it's not going to actually do him any real good. In reality he would have been much better served to figure out how to cure his understeer problems through altering his driving, because with light camber he would be able to use those Conti DWs both for street and track and still manage to get pretty good at both.

But I figured he's already made up his mind, based on his post. So why not go about responding in my own way? Because if I'm just here to "help," I would have told him to get camber plates too. But that doesn't actually help him, IMO.
Don't get me wrong, I do appreciate the times you are trying to be the voice of reason among the sea of poorly informed enthusiasts that we often see on the forums. But this clearly isn't the case here.

But I am not sure how you arrived at the conclusion that OP isn't trying to improve his driving on his own and is driving his car incorrectly. I am sure he is seeking ways to further improve his driving if he plans on tracking the car more. But on the off chance that he is one of those ego centric idiots who like to spend tons of money the equipment just to prove something on the track instead of focusing on the most important part, the driving, he isn't going to listen anyway to something completely off topic from the discussion here.

Furthermore, it is his own car and money, as long as the parts are safe and effective, why does it matter to us?

Anyway, answers have already been given. There is no need to further derail this thread.
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      07-29-2015, 09:48 PM   #20
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So much for not getting my

Lots I could say but I don't think it's necessary. I hope somebody searching for info on camber plate combinations and M3 control arms finds this thread helpful someday.

Last edited by gavronm; 07-29-2015 at 10:02 PM..
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      07-29-2015, 10:44 PM   #21
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gavronm View Post
I really don't want to run adjustable camber plates because of the noise - this is still my daily after all.
I've been running Vorshlag plates now for over three years and thirty thousand miles and they're dead silent. Easily set to a precise point given the way they're made and they can be reset easily if marked correctly on their arrow plate.

With M3 control arms you can get to nearly four degrees of negative camber whether you need it or not. The strut tower opening will have to be ground back on the inboard side to provide full clearance for the top nut, I had it done and then primed and painted with no issues otherwise.

You can also have the caster set to max positive for faster turn-in due to increased dynamic camber but the steering will be heavier. The combination of arms and plates will increase steering response and precision and make the subframe bushing problem very obvious if you don't drive smoothly. This is a good thing cuz it helps train track driving so solid rear subframe bushings don't become a crutch for poor driving form once they're installed.

And as pointed out earlier you can swing the camber back to a pre-marked street position to save tire life. Can't do that with the Dinan plates.

None of this will really help much with understeer since in most cases it isn't the car that's at fault it's the driver overdriving the chassis. Not easy or cheap to improve the chassis to make understeer conditions more difficult to get into though. Still, Vorshlag plates and M3 control arms aren't a bad investment if you're planning on learning how to drive a track.
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      07-30-2015, 08:40 PM   #22
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Quote:
Originally Posted by justpete View Post
I've been running Vorshlag plates now for over three years and thirty thousand miles and they're dead silent. Easily set to a precise point given the way they're made and they can be reset easily if marked correctly on their arrow plate.

With M3 control arms you can get to nearly four degrees of negative camber whether you need it or not. The strut tower opening will have to be ground back on the inboard side to provide full clearance for the top nut, I had it done and then primed and painted with no issues otherwise.

You can also have the caster set to max positive for faster turn-in due to increased dynamic camber but the steering will be heavier. The combination of arms and plates will increase steering response and precision and make the subframe bushing problem very obvious if you don't drive smoothly. This is a good thing cuz it helps train track driving so solid rear subframe bushings don't become a crutch for poor driving form once they're installed.

And as pointed out earlier you can swing the camber back to a pre-marked street position to save tire life. Can't do that with the Dinan plates.

None of this will really help much with understeer since in most cases it isn't the car that's at fault it's the driver overdriving the chassis. Not easy or cheap to improve the chassis to make understeer conditions more difficult to get into though. Still, Vorshlag plates and M3 control arms aren't a bad investment if you're planning on learning how to drive a track.
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