Suspension Brakes 1st Gen Most liked posts in thread: Alignment Setting Help

What's your tires?

On R888's GG-compound (HPDE compound) and H-Sport front/rear sway bars I run:
-2.0 F and -1.2R for camber.
Toe is 1/16 out in the front and 1/16 in at the rear.

Quite solid for the faster sweepers and the rear still comes nicely around on the tighter stuff. You could run a bit more camber up front if you want/need since you don't drive on the street much.

 

I run -2.0 front and -1.5 rear with zero toe both ends.

 

Another data point...

Front

Camber -2.5
Toe -0.00000001 Or as I say, the negative side of 0

Rear

Camber -1.8
Toe 0

TSW Camber Plates, H&R rear 19mm bar on stiff, AST Coilovers w/ swift springs.

I came up with these as a recommendation from TSW. I like it, the car feels good. There may be better setting butI'm happy here.

 

Any comments on how these settings affect or improve handling would be appreciated.
Maybe some back ground on how you decided / developed these setups.

 

At the end of this week going in for an alignment. New stuff; Koni FSD's, Alta LCAB installed 50/50, IE Fixed camber plates, H-Sport upper and lower rear Camber Links.

 

I'm running a similar setup to what you'll have, Norm. FSDs, IE fixed plates, H-sport lower arms. Also Powerflex front control arm bushings, H-sport 19mm rear sway set to medium, TSW v3 springs.

What I run:
Front camber: whatever the IE fixed plates give you. Can't adjust it. Mine is about -1.8 on one side and about -1.6 on the other.
Front toe: I've tried zero and about 1/16 in (at the coaching of the alignment guru) I prefer zero. It's more responsive, and a bit more "twitchy" - but I like it.

Rear camber: about -1.2
Rear toe: zero to 1/16 in. A little in provides better stability, or so I'm told. Personally I liked the way the car handled best with zero toe front and rear.

In general on a mostly-street MINI - hard to go wrong with about .5 less negative camber in the rear than the front, and zero toe. Very responsive. A little front toe in makes the car more straight-line stable. I little front toe out makes the car twitchier / more responsive. Not sure how the Alta PSRS will impact all that, if at all.

 

I run 1.8 front and 1.6 rear on both cars.

 

Do you guys check tire temps using a pyrometer?

 

I do. Use a little cheapy Ebay one. And adjust the pressure accordingly.

 

I'm at -2, -1 & 0 toe all around.

FWIW, Grass Roots Motorsports did a great article dialing in a Mini with pyrometer and the like at a track. What I remember finding very interesting was that they pyrometer would have had them at more than -3 up front, but lap times had them at about -2.5.

All of these things are guides, and the stop watch tells you what's best for how your drive and the feel you like to have. Any one of these are good starting points, but dial it in based on your driving style.

Matt

 

Absolutely. I co-drove my car at an Auto-X once with a friend. While I felt that the car needed more adjustment, my buddy thought it was spot on. I left it at those settings as a compromise. He ended up beating me by 1/10th of a second at the end of the day. I am certain that if I adjusted the suspension, tire pressure to my liking the results would have been different.

 

-2.0 front, -1.5 rear, zero toe all around. 19mm rear sway full stiff, TSW springs, Dunlop star spec tires. HPDE instructor kept saying how much he liked my setup. Great for big sweepers, not twitchy enough for tight autocrosses.

 

This is a great thread, thanks to M^Cubed for starting it.:smile5:

 

MINI suspension setup

We run something very similar to Nathan:
Camber -2.0 front, -1.5 rear
Toe neutral front, 1/16 toe in on the rear (helps with threshold braking)

We tried all kinds of settings at the track with our KW coil-over setup and found these were the best for the MINI.

 

Some one correct me on this, but my alignment guy, who I argue with over what my settings are every time I get it done, tells me that -1.5 in the rear is a factory setting. True?

 

I think that's it...

but it's plus or minus 0.5 degrees! It's not a very tight spec...

Matt

 

Misc data point...

Stock rear suspension on my 06, the least amount of camber we could get was -1.2.

 

I do know that with more negative camber, it can become hard to slow the car and to get traction because of the contact patch shape. But honestly, that was derived from Gran Turismo (4). In the real world it would depend on your tires a lot.

I've been running this set up for about 3 years.
Camber -2º front, -1.5º rear.
Zero toe up front, 1/16th toe in at rear.

IE adjustable plates, 4 IE control arms, polyurethane front control arm bushings, polyurethane engine moutns, 22mm bar on full stiff, stock springs and dampers, 5mm wheel spacers, 195/60/15 Nokian Vee's.

The car is super responsive and can snap the tail on demand, yet hold sweepers if I'm on top of things.