Alignment
I mentioned that the car felt a bit understeery at Tremblant last month. So I took it in to a local race shop that opened recently (
Bulldog Motorsports in Clifton, NJ) for another alignment. After a lengthy discussion with a couple of guys who have experience on the track with the W201 chassis, my goal was to be able to dial in between 3 and 4 degrees of negative camber up front.
Turns out I had -3 degrees camber in the rear but only -2 degrees in the front. Plus, there was a massive amount of toe-in up front. The GC camber plates don't have a provision for caster adjustment, so we were stuck with whatever we had. Luckily, it was in the right ballpark.
We were able to dial in lots more negative camber up front, but really weren't sure what our goals should be in terms of toe. Considering the suspension design and weight are grossly in line with an E36 M3 on Ground Control suspension, we figured that would be a reasonable baseline. That meant a bit of toe-out.
This is what we ended up with:
FRONT CASTER: +10.2
FRONT CAMBER: -3.3
FRONT TOTAL TOE: +0.08
REAR CAMBER: -3.0
REAR TOTAL TOE: -0.23
I haven't tried it out on the track yet. But just driving around a few on-ramps and things you can definitely feel the front end is much, much sharper on turn-in (I'm sure the toe-out has a lot to do with this). And the car feels more neutral overall; the balance has shifted from gentle understeer to slightly tail-lead.
We'll see how it does on a real circuit: I'll be at Calabogie with the folks from BMW Club of Ottawa next weekend (July 20-22) and then at Summit Point with the BMW CCA NJ Chapter the following weekend (July 28-29).
Can't wait!
:Woot: