Hello everyone, I am writing to ask for suggestions on camber settings for my track/street e92 M3. I'm trying to find a good balance between track performance and not destroying my street tires. Some information about mods I'm running now: Suspension - FortuneAuto 500 series Tires (Track) - Toyo R888R 265/30/19 square setup Wheels (Track) - Apex Arc-7 19 Tires (Street) - Michelin PSS 255/35/19(F)/275/35/19(R) Wheels (Street) - Vorsteiner Vff-103 19.x9.5(F)/19x10(R) Brakes - Essex AP Racing BBK Thanks in advance for your thoughts and input.
I'm not sure there's an ideal compromise. Optimal neg. camber for the track for maximum grip and even tire wear (probably about 3° neg., generally - maybe a little more, close to 3.5 or over might be too much; when you have even wear across a track tire, or even hot temps across the treadwidth, your camber settings should be about right) means inside-edge wear for regular driving. Running a staggered setup where you can only swap side-to-side on the same axles won't help even out wear any, which means you have to get tires dismounted, flipped, & re-mounted. Unless you're carrying at least a full extra set of track wheels and tires, staggered, if you burn through a tire, your weekend's done, unless there happens to be someone on-site with the right tire-mounting equipment who can do it as quickly as you need it (not the case at most driver's school events). With a square setup of running same size tires/rims front to rear, that opens up tire swapping options a bit. For track days, the more-heavily worn fronts can be switched to the back as needed, & vice-versa on the street where the powered wheels get more wear. If you can live with the ride-quality compromises and lack of compliance, the race-type adjustable camber plates can be an option, I've seen folks with the solid ones where camber and caster can be adjusted separately, and they are able to switch from a track camber setting to street setting (having the camber positions marked for both & determined by having the alignment done to measure both settings). Loosen bolts on the fronts, push and shove on the car some to get the strut tops slid over to the right setting, and re-tighten. But, losing the compliance of the bushing in the strut bearing means you'll be feeling bumps in the road a lot more. If you're in an area with nice smooth roads that's less of an issue, but if not, it means more of the pounding the struts get is passed into the unibody through the strut towers. Somewhat increased risk of street tire damage too from that, besides the already minimal sidewall height. Combination street/track setups means some degree of compromises, either way.
This is a double edge sword would like the track setup but hate the expensive tire wear that comes with it. I have some customers that use adjustable camber plates in the front and mark there adjusters in the rear for the track specs and stock specs. They then will adjust them to track specs before going to the track and once done set them back to stock. Once a year they come in for me to remark where the track specs they want and make sure the stock spec markings on the adjusters are correct.
