-3 camber up front lololol

B8 S4
#1

Alignment:
-3 front camber
0 front toe
-2 rear camber
rear toe put to OE settings (maintain inherit rear end bite + allow for hitting the throttle sooner to take advantage of the active diff).

OK so I put the bars, upper control arms and coilovers on the car.
To put it shortly, the car is transformed through and through. It now turns in with the same immediacy as the Boss 302, but has cornering limits so high that it cannot be explored on the street (the Boss nor M3 had this ability). The front-end grip is so abundant with the new alignment that I can be as aggressive with the throttle as I like – beit on corner entry, or mid corner. The front end doesn’t give up, and the car continues on the line I intend for it to carve out.

I even intentionally over-brake for a corner, and mash the throttle to accellerate through the corner completely. Naturally, because this kind of driver input transitions weight onto the back tires swiftly, it reduces traction on the front end–I do this on purpose to see how the car works during an on-power understeer situation. Despite this, the car does not push…and coupled with the active diff, the car can even be throttle steered early in the corner. It’s so outlandish for me that I’m laughing in the car as i’m doing this.

I can go down an off-camber sweeper, littered with expansion joints some 40kph faster than I could before–with reserve. The car simply has more to give. It is both VERY stable and neutral with the whole setup. Stability both on and off throttle is retained. Actually, the car is much more stable (and actually slightly less pointy than when i just had the anti-sway bars at stock height) since I’ve dropped the ride height.

I have not driven nor setup a car that has driven like this before. The car is VERY capable with some nice tires and a proper alignment + increased roll stiffness. I implore anyone interested in road course duty to give those things a shot. The two things that made the biggest difference were the anti-sway bars and the additional camber. It’s just nuts.

Hope the pic below isn’t redonk size :smiley:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XFAe6wHK93c/VUq_io8docI/AAAAAAAAAwU/xF91teWWudI/s1600/20150505_214844.jpg

I bought a tire temp gun and will measure tire temps at my very next track day and see if -3 is sufficient. I am guessing that on stock bushings, it actually may not be. Good news is that the SPC arms still have room if I need more. Very worth it.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZY0h4APkHjA/VUrDV8cNAlI/AAAAAAAAAwg/QqklkFkzgGc/s1600/DSCF1607.JPG

#2

Nice! Did you ever figure out the Meyle lower arm bushings?

I’m at -2 all around. Will see how that does on my next track day next Sunday.

#3

No! But I will buy that next season or something.
Going to give it a whirl on the stock rubber. Though I really do not like them. Ultra compliant.
I cannot complain though. It is a street car!

Looking forward to hear how your car does with the camber change. What’s your toe?

#4

Cantrell day this Friday. I will be there (@Ridge)

You should join ORP club, a bunch of us did this year. Great value.

#5

Will this reduce the life of the tire more.

#6

I am assuming for sway bars you went full soft in front and stiff in rear?

#7

Damn…way to just completely obliterate my alignment specs! I think you are officially running more camber than westwest ;D

BTW - the wheels look great on your car. When is your first track day on this setup?

#8

Justincredible - it’s not camber that wears tires so much, but toe.
My toe is 0 in the front, and with the lower range of stock toe in back (2.7mm per side), it will actually see less tire wear.
That said, the car ate tires up so bad originally bc of lack of camber and excessive understeer in its original form. This will extend tire life :slight_smile:

Jones2012s4 - Actually I run full stiff front and rear. I opted for full stiff front to increase front bump stiffness. The car has very poor steering response in stock form and doesn’t turn into a corner quickly enough for my driving style. Putting the front bar on full stiff gives you a lot more of that initial response back (though at the expense of mid corner push). I prefer to have the car rotate on entry. I can deal with mid corner push via using the diff to vector it out. So far so good!

drob - 1st track day in June at a small track. Big track in July. Going to be craaazy :smiley:

#9

boro - awesome and I obviously agree 100% about what a unique and fun track car this is, compared to yet another M3. When I complete my front seats project I’ll have the weight under 3600 pounds, matched to 370whp. Needless to say it’s competitive and takes a lot of other dedicated sports coupe platforms like Lotus by surprise.

Mid season I’ll probably lower the car 10-15mm which should boost my camber up to 2.8 or 2.9.

#10

Cool. Have you checked tire temps with your current camber? Curious to know what the spread is between inside-middle-outside. Doing your seats is proper. It’s the easiest way to drop a lot of weight out of the car.

#11

It varies by tire, and by how much you push the front end around (and in which turns - left or right). Everything is pretty well in balance. Pilot Super Sport is a little more sensitive to hard driving the Sport Cup 2, which is a track honeybadger. The net is that no camber adjustment is needed to fix temps. For the most part you get nice reads like 128-131-128 on left-center-right for a given tire.

#12

Awesome great info.

#13

Nice ride OP!

Do you have H&R coilover? What is the ride height in those pictures?

#14

Actually they are KW street comfort.
Ride height is 25.6 ftg

#15

thanks boro

I got a set of Bilstein ridecontrol coilover at a good price, but haven’t installed it yet.

#16

Cool. how does that work? Is it basically a pss10 with presets?
Curious if you could config the settings individually per corner.

#17

The RideControl dampers have 2 settings, softer or firmer. The standard controller allows user to pick between them. With the optional controller, which I bought, the setting can be chosen automatically based on the built in g force sensors. I can use a smartphone to modify the threshold point. Roads around here are pretty bad, so I want a setup that doesn’t tax me on every day drive, but can also handle some fun driving.

#18

Decided to drive the S4 around Thunderhill in anger and abuse the hell out of the Pilot Sport Cup 2’s. It ended predictably. I was basically experimenting with car control by being full throttle at the apex of every turn. Not sure if -3 would have saved this poor tire.

http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/05/11/995f264da4b64421116042e2595bb28a.jpg

#19

Is it possible to adjust to these settings with a stock suspension, only mods úss system? Would the settings hamper straight line acceleration? Or is it to aggressive for street, drags strip and occasional road course (once twice a year at best)?

#20

These settings are good for about 5000-6000 miles at best before the tire is ruined. If you street drive it you’ll ruin them from inside tire wear. If you track drive it you’ll ruin them from outside tire wear like the photo I posted above.