I USE ZECA'S FOR ALL MY ALIGNMENT NEEDS...STREET AND TRACK BOTH.1200 NE 48TH ST. Pompano Beach, FL 33064. Call and ask for Stenio or Jose 954-942-8003 and tell them you are from TRACKWEEKEND.COM for a substantial discount. Rates will vary depending on the job. You know..camber plates or no plates, ertc.


Stenio just did an outstanding track set up withb toe out for me for Sebring!




They are next to Rennie at Redline BMW in Pompano. Stenio is great and knows M3's pretty well.

My grip is so good on my street tires, that i took a lot off my aggressive camber out. I went slightly toe in front and rear and -1.7 camber front and -2.0 rear. This is a perfect blend for the street for my Bridgestone RE-01 275/19-30 rears and 245/19-35 fronts

A track set up is really different right? I want toe out in front, right? How much? What kind of toe in the rear?
I still want full caster right?

I was thinking -2.7 rear and -2.2 front for my track days 18 inch (-35 offset) 265mm square BFG R1's.

I will be running a 10mm plate in front for BBK clearance.

I could use a little help. Thanks.

Hey David, generally speaking if you use your car for dual purpose street/track then we tend to leave the alignment alone. Dedicated track car would be different as I would set toe out to help with turn in. As far as camber goes, it is really track dependent and even driver dependent. Your best bet is to talk to another vert driver and see how he is dialed in. I have a coupe and while they are similar there are some inherent convertible car attributes to consider like chassis flex. While BMW is a master at offsetting this it still is an issue and will dictate how you run your suspension setup. Normally I take a tire temp probe and after about ten laps of heating them, I come in and see what the temps are on the outside, center, and inside area of the contact patch. This will provide you with great information. If you had to much camber you would see the inside of the temp inside higher then outside and the inverse is true if you had to little. The best advice I can give you is to go out conservatively and change only one thing at a time in small increments. This way your have a better chance of seeing the result for what it is positive or negative. Based on your comments so far I would say you do not have a bunch of track time or you went bananas and modded your car and now have all these settings to play with. Come to the track with plain old street tires for the fact that they squeal more when pushed to the limit. Slicks will not give you fair warning when you run out of grip, they just go. Very dangerous if you have not had a lot of seat time. I guarantee there are a few members on this board that can pass you and I on warmed up slicks with the same vehicle on street tires. It is all about you the driver.

No, not a lot of track time. Only one autocross. My car was heavily modded for a while. I was lacking BBK and a set of square 18's. I can fry my brakes on the street and decided to go BBK for future FI plans too.

My 19 inch staggerd Bridgestone RE-01's offer incredible grip. More than I can use on the street. I permanently mounted wireless temp and pressure TPMSl probes that seem pretty accurate. I will look at a pyrometer.

But not to jump the gun so much. I will have plenty to work with running my street tires at my present level of alignment.

But the deed is done. I have brand new heat cycled BFG R1's (265's)and 18.8 llb D Power wheels (square).

I will introduce them when my instructor says it is time.

I am ready to track with or with out BBK's. I am running ATE Blue (30 days old) (soon to be Castrol) and modified a la Carlos dust shields. My brakes are well bedded and I have 50% tire tread or more on my street tires. Is that enough?

My grip is so good on my street tires, that i took a lot off my aggressive camber out. I went slightly toe in front and rear and -1.7 camber front and -2.0 rear. This is a perfect blend for the street for my Bridgestone RE-01 275/19-30 rears and 245/19-35 fronts.

For street use I suggest 0 toe front and rear. Also, front neg camber needs to be greater than the rear. Did you type the numbers backwards? Front would be -2.0 and Rear -1.7

A track set up is really different right? I want toe out in front, right? How much? What kind of toe in the rear?
I still want full caster right?

All depends how you want to set up the car. Are you willing to change the settings after every event? Do you want to set the alignment once for track and street? Do you want track only set up? Caster will always be max.

I was thinking -2.7 rear and -2.2 front for my track days 18 inch (-35 offset) 265mm square BFG R1's.

This is my setting Front -2.8 camber, 1/16 total toe out, Rear -2.6 camber, 1/16 total toe in.

AAK is right, the front negative camber should be more than the rear. I am currently running -2 front and -1.7 rear for the street and keep the same at the track. As I improve my skills at the track, I might end up trying-3+ front and -2.8 rear for the track. The reason to go as aggressive at the front is to be able to fit a 275 or 285 tire square setup(x9.5et35 wheel)- otherwise the -2.8 AAk is reporting above makes sense.

Edit: Forgot to mention am running full caster and 0 toe front and 1/16 rear- kinda assumed it anyways.

So I just read through all of these comments here and now I'm confused...
I'll explain. I had Foreign Affairs (FA) do my track alignment and corner-weight balance for my M3. I'm looking at the specs of where my camber is and it's very conservative compared to you guys...

Camber: F= -1.3 R= -1.8

Why would they make my rear camber greater than my front? Isn't it supposed to be greater in the front? Any ideas?

Being that this is also my daily driver, I didn't want to go too crazy with the neg camber and ruin my street tires, so do you guys think I can go a little more aggressive with the camber (than what's on there right now)?

My caster is 7.1
Toe in/out: F= 0.08 R= 0.16

Thanks for your help!

- Carlos

I think AAK would be the best person to give you a better response, judging from his perceived experience, but I will give my .02:

Since we are running RWD vehicles, rear camber will provide greater stability in cornering, but if you go too much it will affect your acceleration as well as braking, and will quickly wear on the inner shoulder as you can imagine. Additionally, the more negative camber you are running the more you will need to monitor/fight the tire temps at the track.

Regarding the front, you will get the best stability and handling the more negative camber you go- notice the safe and sensible limit would be -3.5. Obviously, the more negative camber the more your inside shoulders will wear, and thats why most folks go less than that when on the street (why would you need extreme stability for the street, right?). The rule of thumb for rwd is to have around -1 camber diff between the front and the rear, the front being the more negative.

I don't know why FA decided to set you up with those cambers- did you have camber plates when they did the alignment? IIRC, they probably gave you the stock settings- and BMWs already come up with ample camber at the rear.

You should be able to run safely up to -2.5 front camber for a dual purpose car (i.e. daily drive it too)- but in the case that number scares you a -2 will be safe- I can personally attest to that- just make sure your front toe is set to 0.

I have been using Ken Heiden (Alignment Factory) for my alignments; he is based in Kendall and the guy does only alignments- you could ask him any questions and he should be able to answer.

Thanks George, this definitely helps. Since I got the coilovers and camber plates all installed at the same time, this is kind of new to me. The last track event (with the new camber plates) I felt the car turned-in stronger but felt like it could do better. Perhaps I'll move the front to -2 and leave the rear at -1.8. Would that make sense?

Kendall is quite the drive, so is Doral, that's the only reason I don't go visit the guys at Flat 6 all the time. I'm going to try and get the new adjustments in place tomorrow Friday, prior to the event on Sunday at HMS.

Thanks again.

Thanks George, this definitely helps. Since I got the coilovers and camber plates all installed at the same time, this is kind of new to me. The last track event (with the new camber plates) I felt the car turned-in stronger but felt like it could do better. Perhaps I'll move the front to -2 and leave the rear at -1.8. Would that make sense?

Kendall is quite the drive, so is Doral, that's the only reason I don't go visit the guys at Flat 6 all the time. I'm going to try and get the new adjustments in place tomorrow Friday, prior to the event on Sunday at HMS.

Thanks again.

Carlos, Toe kills tires more so than camber.
I would suggest either of these settings depending on how agressive you want to go:
Agressive:
Front -2.4 camber, 1/32 total toe out, Rear -1.8, 1/16 total toe in.

Less agressive:
Front -2 camber, 1/32 total toe out (get as close to zero as possible), Rear -1.8, Zero toe.


The front toe out will help make the care "turn-in" quicker. Since I used to do more autocross than track I used like an 1/8 total toe out front and 1/4 total toe in rear. This made for instant reactions from the car but kind of twitchy on track.

Aligment takes some time to figure out and a tire pyrometer will tell you a lot how the tire is working. The autocross will be a good place to do some testing.

I have a good place here in Coral Springs to do aligments and they have scales too. Tell them your specs and they'll do it.

Great info Allan,
What's the name of the place you go to in Coral Springs? I'm thinking of adjusting camber today (and alignment) - I have an event at HMS on Sunday. Thanks.