If you been following the rally Mini in projects you will know I'm running 2008 STI dampers all round on the R50. The set up works really well with no issues so far. Seeing as I have around 1 1/2 " more ride height I went with the factory settings as a base . The back is how I like it , a little bit of oversteer. The front has some toe in which seems for give some tyre squealing understeers, anyone run toe out. Some settings would be nice too.
Running toe out will make the car turn into the corners faster, and that makes you think you have less understeer. Running rear toe out will improve the turn in as well. The car will not track as well with toe out on either end. It will wander and follow every rut in the road. For a racing or rally car where you are on it all the time it is fine, but for the street it is a pain. If you have raised the car that much I suggest you bump steer it. I think you will find you have a lot of toe change when the suspension deflects.
If you added camber in front you added toe-in. Running a bit of toe-out is not a bad thing. Under acceleration the front wheels will tend to pull closer to 0 toe. On turn in it will help a lot. Braking can be a bit squirrely on pavement. You will get used to it, but do a bit of testing before driving in anger. FWIW I would not run toe-out on the rear. You already said your MINI is a bit tail happy. With toe-out you will be chasing the tail a lot. Justa my .02.
For the track MINI: -3.4mm total toe on the front 0.0mm total toe on the rear You can run -toe on the rear, but the car tends to wander under braking.
The big variable here is what surfaces Chris will be running on. I doubt any are going to be race track smooth, most likely quite the opposite.
Thanks chaps! Looks like I'm about there with what I have. I just wanted to check. I do have cheapo tyres so maybe that's another issue. I will say the Mini is pretty well planted and stable even under none ABS braking. Like Chuck says I don't have any smooth surfaces to drive on and when I do the rally I'll be on gravel. I hope get my Dunlop gravels any day. As a rule of Thumb....if it's fast on tarmac it's going to fine on gravel.
I use 0 toe in the front and rear, quite a few folks I know use toe out on the front so I wouldn't worry about it. I would avoid toe in on the front. Because you are running higher ride height your static camber requirements could be quite different as you will be in a different spot in the camber gain curves.
Thanks UK I think I'm going to try 0 toe and see how it goes. I used to run a little toe out with the Swift which seemed work well. Since the alginement the rear is great but the front has more understeer. This morning was fun! I hit a corner with bumps and got a really nice sideways exiting the corner! A nice wake me up! hahaha