Couple questions about the effect lowering has on camber

sreams

sreams

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For those of you who have the Carl Nelson springs, did you measure the effect lowering the car had on camber? I'm curious about how much negative camber would be added... in degrees.

Do Carl's fixed camber plates add positive camber to compensate, allowing for closer-to-stock camber? Or do they add even more negative camber? The ones from Ireland Engineering mention that they add negative camber.

I just received a set of the K-MAC adjustable camber plates from BavAuto. They seem to be very well made, but they only seem to allow for adjustment toward more positive camber. I was hoping to be able to set camber to about 0 degrees for normal driving, and push toward negative for track days. If lowering the car adds enough negative camber, these could work (thus my first question). Otherwise, it looks like I'd have to drill three new holes on each side of the car to flip the camber plates around, thus allowing for them to be adjusted for additional negative camber. I'd obviously like to avoid that option.

As a side note... if the K-MAC plates work out, they are a nice alternative to the stock strut bearings, since they are less expensive (oddly enough).

-Scott
 
I doubt that 1" lowering springs change camber more than an imperceptible amount. Our coupes start at about 0.7 degrees positive, Carl's fixed plate adds negative camber back to around zero or a bit less. (I have them and love them) Longer control arms or a camber adjuster I saw on Murray's coupe which was under the ball joint also add negative camber. Most camber plates are marked L and R like Carl's.
 
I could see fixed camber plates needing to be marked left and right if there is any adjustment at all to caster. The adjustable K-MAC plates aren't different from left to right, and they can only be adjusted "out" (or front to back for caster). Seems like an odd design, unless they were intended to correct excessive negative camber on extremely lowered cars.

Update: I just took the plates apart, and while it doesn't seem intended, the adjustable bit can be rotated about 120 degrees, thus allowing for adjustment inward. Looks like these will work out after all.

-Scott
 
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One last question...

Now that I've figured out how to alter the camber plates to do what I want, I can now choose to have them favor caster adjustment in the negative or positive direction. For those of you who do track days, which would you recommend?

Also, I've been trying to find reference alignment specs for the E9 cars. This is as close as I've gotten:

http://www.e9-driven.com/Public/Library/BMW-E9-Manual/pages/en/32000240.html

It says "See 'Technical Data' for reference values", but I can't seem to find that section. It would be nice to know what the stock caster angle is so that I have an idea of where to go from there.

-Scott
 
For a track car you would increase the caster. It increases the steering effort but also increases the straight line stability.

Increased caster also increases the camber gain as you turn the wheels. The outside wheel will go more negative, the inside more positive as you turn. This is helpful for combating body roll.

I'm pretty sure some of the newer M cars have offset plates for increased caster from the factory. I think that's an M plate on the left.

IMG_7418.jpg
 
More caster improves turn in due to weight jacking- the inside front and outside rear gain in their share of load which reduces understeer. Conversely, more caster can be detrimental to corner exit if you have an open diff due to the reduced load on the inside rear which can cause wheelspin. Caster can be a great tuning tool in race car setup.
 
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