Ubermensch

Quick follow up question, when you folks are using a decimal in these numbers (e.g. 1.5) do you actually mean 1 degree 50 minutes or 1.5 degrees (i.e. 1 degree 30 minutes)?

Also, does anyone happen to know a rough conversion for how many shims in the control arms are need for x degrees of camber? Is it just guess and check?

Thanks,

Shawn

Larry Herman

I also see how he's running 2:16s in a 996. What's your point?

38D

His point must have been that's the slow setup . Seriously, at least post a fast lap if your going to tout a setup.

atr911

10mm is about 1 degree of neg. I have 16mm shims and the minimum I can get is 2.3 degrees.

I think what everybody has left out of the equation is the most important question of all, how is your tire wear? Short of a Pyrometer, which only measures your track setup, tire wear is a good indicator of how your setup is matched to your driving style.

My first day out at the track I corded a set of tires up front because I was too aggressive and didn't have the setup to take advantage of that type of driving. I think that if you begin cording outside of tires before insides wear, you need more negative.

Like anything else, you need to make sacrifices if you want to be as quick as possible on the track. Things like toe and camber will sacrifice ride, stability and tire wear on the street but will enhance corner speeds and stability in high speed corners and under threshold braking.

At the end of the day, increase camber as you see outside tire wear increasing or as your dedication to decreasing lap times increases.

The above recommended specs are decent starting points but you may want to bring your old tires in with you when you get an alignment as ask them for their suggestion.

CWhaley

I hear you.... My set up is very conservative as I still street drive the car and with year old 40 heat cycle MPSC's I can turn better times at the glen.

If I went full blast with Hoosier's, 3 1/2 deg front, 3 deg rear, tweak toe... Scott Leder is telling me I could put down some low H class times... even in my none modified car... (No race shocks... only gt3 control arms)

Gary R.

I think Scott coached Quikrick (RL name) a lot in a GT3, but his is a full race setup. Wonder what his settings are?

CWhaley

I shouldd ask Rick the next time we are together... Last time we broke bread toghter was Nov at VIR.

Ubermensch

I ended up running out of shims before I could get the front camber beyond -1.0 up front. I've got the rear at -1.25 at that's at the extent of it's adjustment. I know a couple of you recommended having a bit more camber of front than in the rear. My impression from what was said was that running more up front didn't impact tire wear much and gave you better turn in. Any concerns with running a bit more in the rear than in the front?

Thanks again for all the advice,

S.

atr911

Doesn't make much sense. You should be able to get -0.8 AT LEAST with the OEM arms. Even if you just put 5mm in there you'd be capable of -1.5.

Are you adjusting the strut mount as well?

Ubermensch

With just adjusting the strut mount he was able to get the driver side to -0.5. He added 2mm shim (in addition to the 1mm stock) on that side and managed to get it out to -1.0. On the passenger side, he need additional shims to get it to 1.0. He used 8 mm (in addition to the 1mm stock) on that side.

atr911

That's really unusual. I see no reason why you should be using different number of shims on the right and left. They should be nearly identical. Has the car ever been in an accident? Is the toe out really bad? (this will effect the way the camber is measured if using a machine to align the car)

If I may be so bold, who is doing the alignment? Increasing the track on the left that much more than right puts up some red flags for me.

CWhaley

This sounds like serious control arm damage. Maybe check the crossmember location, twisted support arms, or even bent strut towers. Atr911 is right that some sorta damage is creating the differnt shim sizes. My car had twisted lower control arms & a bent strut tower on the drivers side (when I purchased it), resulted in strange alignment settings. The GT3 lower c-arms & new struts fixed the problem.

atr911

Not to beat a dead horse, but if the car is being aligned, there will be more than one spec out of whack. If there is control arm damage, caster will be different left to right. The only other option would be subframe problems. Again, your alignment guy should have seen something wonky.

Ubermensch

Thanks for the input. The control arms are new as of two years ago. I purchased the car five years ago. There are no accidents on it's title, but that doesn't mean something didn't happen before I owned it. I do 99% of the work on the car and have never noticed any damage in that area, but it's possible there's something twisted that I wouldn't know to look for.

The car is being aligned by a shop that only does alignments (Alignment Specialties, Brookline, MA). Everything is done by hand (no machine). Generally I've had better luck with this kind of place than the hunter machine shops. The mechanics just seem to be more experienced when they have to do things by hand. Nobody that has aligned the car in the past has commented on damage or unusual readings. Caster was off by 0.5 degrees left to right the previous time I had it aligned. Toe up front is at zero. It wasn't measured this time since I have no way to adjust it. I agree it's odd that it would require more shims on one side. Perhaps it's the shock tower as someone mentioned...

atr911

If caster is off half a degree there's a problem. Make sure that both control arms are using the same hole as there are two options on the GT3 arms. This would explain your problem.