http://m3.madrussian.net/diy_camber.shtml I came across this guide a while ago and I've been thinking about it ever since. My hesitation in trying it is that I've always considered the suspension camber a precise affair and the idea of moving the strut by hand (albeit inside the factory slotted strut tower top) seems so un-precise and possibly uneven. Has anyone done this? Does anyone know what degree of camber it provides? Should a professional alignment be done afterwards?
If you are leery of doing it yourself, then just depin it and take it to an alignment shop. They can set both sides precisely the same and tell you what the setting is for repeatablility. Theoretically, if the manufacturing tolerances are good enough, there is no reason why moving both all the way to the stops won't give you the same camber change on both sides, but reality means that you ought to have someome check it. After it is set, make some good marks. Hell, if the shop is nice, you can have them measure it and mark it for stock and for a couple of different angles without charging you an arm and a leg.
There isn't that much range of adjustment. You can take off one of the strut nuts to see the size of the slot to understand. You can take out the pins, move the struts all the way toward the inside, and then take it to get the toe set (since when you change camber the toe will change some too).
I had it done shortly after I bought the car. It was (is) a very common practice since the TSB was approved by SCCA. My alignment makes the car a bit squirrelly on the highways, but handles well around the pylons.
In autocross, it does not even come close to enough static negative camber unfortunately. You'll get lots of edge wear before and after. On my E46 fully setup for D-stock autox (max'd front camber, toe at zero, large front sway bar, lightweight 18" wheels, 245/35 Hoosier A6s, etc), we managed to cord the outside edge of the front Hoosiers in 20 runs -- nothing like wasting two A6s in 20 runs at $275 a piece. It's really sad BMW strut front suspensions are so limiting in terms of camber adjustability from the factory (especially when some non-BMW stock class cars can get -3.0 degrees camber).
