89 E30 with Eibach springs, sway bars, Bilsteins for use at track DE events and now have added a camber plate adjuster for the front end struts. Any suggestions on a good starting point for negative camber? (rarely used on public roads)
Consider having your alignment shop set your front camber to match the rear, unless the rear's way outta wack for some reason. Was a long time since I didn't have some adjustment to the rear trailing arms, but I think in those days I saw 2-2.3 degrees neg. camber all around. These days it's closer to 3 degrees for me, but I would think you'd make the car-tail happy throwing a bunch of neg. camber in the front without a similar amount in the rear, assuming everything else is set for the car to be reasonably balanced. If you do ever drop the rear subframe, that's the time to replace the solid brake lines running to the rear of the car (if they're in bad enough shape to need replacement). Also when the subframe's off, it's not a bad idea to add some reinforcing welds to the trailing arm mounting tabs, unless you'd opt for one of those kits that replace the trailing arm mounting tabs for slotted tabs that allow adjustment.
thanks Thanks for the input, much appreciated. I'll probably drop the rear sub frame next winter to do bushings and all the things you mentioned.
You can safely run about 2.5 negative camber on the street in an E30. You don't actually have to match the rear but I'd stay within 1 degree of your current rear camber. Have fun!
I always ran another degree of negative camber front to rear on my track E30s and E36 M3 with good results. Negative 3+ front and negative 2+ degrees rear works well and doesn't chew up tires. Good turn-in, stable through high-speed sweepers. THEN you've gotta figure out the right toe settings, a whole 'nother subject.
