This car is new to me, but one of the first things I need to do is get more negative camber on my front wheels. I do not trailer my car.

My thought about the best way to do this is to increase the camber at the track by lifting the front of the car and increasing the camber with plates and then changing them back before driving home.

Does anyone do this? Or should shims be the way to go?

 

no one in their right mind change camber from track to street. just set it and be done.

doesn't sound like you do a tons of track, so if you do 2.0 deg of camber, you wont have THAT much inside wear.

to get 2'0 of camber, you just need to lower the car a bit and perhaps rotate the shock mount.

 

The car is pretty low as it is after being corner balanced. Some pictures taken at the track show that the front nose dives a good deal under heavy braking and under compreshion, I had rubbing on the outer edges of my front tires.

Maybe just shims. What do you think about 2.2 deg. Too much?

 

generally between 1.8 and 2.4 is okay without generating too much good or bad tire rubbing...but at 2.5 or above (especially on the rear) the insides wear away super fast.

tire wear is also accelerated if you run too little or too much psi.

adjusting camber yourself with hand tools? it's not a 944 with shock tower camber plates!

 

what mooty said
try BBI in Huntington Beach

 

who corner balanced your car? it sounds like it's too low. but of course, i haven't seen the car yet. but it souldn't rub.

if you are in LA, CA. try westend alignment (i think alarcon is still there). 911 design loren beggs can do some magic as well.

 

Rotate the strut mount and u have a fair degree of adjustability so u can go conservative to preserve tirelife or when the economy gets better go for more camber later. Mike

 

Sure about that? I seem to recall that rotating the strut would give you a min of -2.5deg, but I could be wrong.
In any case, the OP should determine how much the car will be tracked versus street, type of tires for track, level of capability(i.e. intermediate type driver, or advanced fast driver), what the trackday objective is, etc. If the car is mainly used on the street with occasional track days a reasonable compromise setup (say ~ -2deg) would work fine without killing tire life. If serious then take pyrometer readings at the track(lot posted on the right way to do this) and get expert advice on what the readings are saying about the camber, pressures settings, etc,.

 

Mike, you are correct. Rotating will set your camber range from about -2.5 to about -4.0 without shims. Obviously more past -4.0 with shims. If you rotate you need to know that you cannot run a "conservative" camber setup in front. Personally I think -2.5 is conservative anyway

 

I used to as well but some of that still depends on the tire. -2.5 is the minimum I can currently get on my car but I found on my last set of R888's I didn't need much more than that for them to be dial'd in correctly. When I throw BFG's or Hoosiers on there next year I'm fully expecting to need >-3.0 to make them happy though.

 

Having gone through much trial and error this season, I will share my insight. With no mods to the suspension, you can get at least -1.8 to -2.0 in the front. With shims, if done right, you can comfortably get to -2.4 with minimal rubbing full lock (stock wheels, tires, susp., and ride height). With rotating the struts, I had it set to -2.4 but my alignment guy told me he could have backed off a couple of tenths so figure -2.1 to -2.2 minimum. There will be minute variations car to car though so your results may vary.

In the rear, there is lots of room but I found that it is easy to have too much camber in the rear without any useful gain in traction (only increased tire wear), all without modification. I settled around -2.3 which seems to be pretty good.

 

yeah 888s really don't like too much camber. Think its the stiff side walls forcing the tyre to ride too much on the shoulder. Having now tried MPSC, I don't see myself buying 888s again.

 

we must know the same people...joey is great with suspensions!

 

Yea, you once told me about meeting him and you were going to take your turbo in. Joey lived in Seattle and took care of my car. Hope he is doing well.

 

LOL, you are the last person to give advice on "conservative" settings around here