Heading over to West End tomorrow for an alignment and rear anti bumpsteer kit install. Just upgraded from star specs in OEM AP1 sizes to 255 square setup with RS3s. How much camber should I run? The car is my daily driver but I'm not too concerned about tread wear. Seems like I should run at least 3 degrees all around, maybe more? Any input is appreciated.

 

Unless you have camber joints up front you won't be getting -3 up front unless you are slammed. Most guys max out around -2.5.

Are you going to be tracking the car at all? Unless you'll track it no point on running all that camber. I can tell you from personal experience on 255 RS3s all around -2.8 front, -3.1 rear isn't enough at either end for even tire wear. I'm getting more wear on the outside edges front and rear. I just picked up some camber joints for the fronts and plan on running around -3.3 front and rear.

 

Yes, I do plan on tracking the car 6 - 9 times a year. Which camber joints did you get? Perhaps I need to get some of those eventually...

My car is lower than stock, but not slammed. Maybe an inch lower than stock all around. With my current setup, it sounds like I should just go for max front camber and about -3 in the rear? Does that sound right?

 

What width rims are you running?

I currently run -3.3 all around (J's S2 in the front, SPC in the rear, both installed by Darin as well) and still wear the outer edges more. However, I'm on 8.5" rims. Most people run 9". "ideal" would be 9.5" or 10" for the 255 RS3.

Based on the number of track days you plan on doing, at this point, I would simply max the camber all around, and purchase additional hardware to get the camber you really need asap.

Also, the best way to determine camber is to use a probe type pyrometer. After a session, take readings (asap, tires cool quick) on the outer, center, and inner edges and adjust camber and tire pressure so that the temperature spread is small (less than 10 degrees ideally) across the 3 readings.

 

Running 17 x 9 +62 rims on the 255 square RS3 setup.

Max camber all around for now is the best I can do with my alignment tomorrow. Thanks for the feedback, now I know that camber joints front & rear are what's needed

 

I've got J's S1 camber joints.

 

I run less camber in the rear because I run a stiffer front roll stiffness and need the benefit of straight line acceleration grip you gain from running less rear camber. This seems to be the trend in autox but I'm unsure about road racing.

Good luck!

I'm also using the j's racing camber joints but if I was to buy now I'd prolly buy the hard race ones since they are cheaper and the same exact thing.

 

Make sure your alignment guy knows that you can get more negative camber up front by reducing caster. For a stock suspension you're probably better off by going with near minimum caster and max camber.

 

Wrong. The only way to MAX out the camber within the range of the stock adjusters is to push the caster adjuster all the way outboard along with the camber eccentric. Pushing the caster adjuster outboard pushes the lower ball joint out and forward = more caster and more camber. If you want minimum caster, you will also reduce camber using the stock adjusters.

I do not recommend this for the RS3, it likes camber, and to a certain extent some caster because you are able to load up the side wall more quickly, but there is a window of tire-happy that is easy to over shoot. If you have a fairly high static camber, having lots of caster puts the tire out of its zone at high steering angles in low speed corners.

If you don't have the means to add camber other than by increasing caster that's fine, but I do not recommend reducing your static camber by reducing your caster angle. These tires feel terrible in the the low 2* camber/4-5* caster range.

 

Quote:

Wrong. The only way to MAX out the camber within the range of the stock adjusters is to push the caster adjuster all the way outboard along with the camber eccentric. Pushing the caster adjuster outboard pushes the lower ball joint out and forward = more caster and more camber. If you want minimum caster, you will also reduce camber using the stock adjusters.

Conventional wisdom says more caster = less negative camber using only the stock adjusters.

Looking at the adjusters it would appear that max caster would allow max negative camber but everyone on this board says you have to reduce caster to get maximum negative camber up front.



I run adjustable ball joints up front so I've never had to use the stock adjusters to set max negative camber so I haven't experienced this myself, but I've seen countless s2ki members post about having to reduce caster to get to -2 or more camber up front.


If the axis between the camber adjuster and the lower control arm ball joint is 90 degrees or forward, then extending the caster adjuster would move the ball joint in an arc inward and reduce camber. I have always assumed this to be the case since everyone says less caster = more max negative camber.

Anyone else want to chime in?