Rear Camber?

[pel]

Hey guys,

Does anyone know if its possible to adjust camber on the rear wheels on my 318i? i have seen a few on the track with the rears laying over slightly but no idea how or what is needed to do it. any ideas??

Thanks.

[Grrrmachine]

Not possible as stock, but you can buy modified rear beams from a user on here (DanThe, I think) that will allow you to do so.

Bear in mind, swapping a rear beam on an E30 is not for the faint of heart.

[mrLEE30]

What exactly do you want to do? The standard set up of a trailing arm naturally adds camber to the wheel as the arm travels upwards, thus when the suspension compresses camber is added. What you see on track cars are likely lowered, thus the travel is half used and thus camber is always present- not much issue for track use as you would have stiffer springs and the suspension would only move over a short distance. But on a road car with softer suspension lowering it too much will add camber but result in arch rubbing or bottoming out, it also causes uneven tyre wear. Some try to remove camber to try to straighten the rear wheels when it is low. To do this you can use eccentric beam bushes for small adjustment, or a fully adjustable rear beam arm mount.

Thus simply if you want camber shorten the springs to make the car sit lower.

[pel]

Im building a track car and was just wondering if it would improve the handling' plus i quite like the look of a small amount of camber on the rear wheels, my problem is the car must still be road legal as ill have to drive it to the track,

would any of you guys recomend it? or would i just be shredding tyres without gaining much handling wise?

[mrLEE30]

Basically rear camber is good for high speed cornering as the car weight is transferred to the outside wheel positive camber on the outside will result in more rubber on the road, but it creates heat and wear so a trade off.

Lowering an e30 adds camber naturally due to the sweep of the arm, so for a track car you want it lowered about 30-40mm on springs designed to be the correct length, adjustable spring seats are the normal way of doing this or coilovers(note only a few companies do rear coilovers, Gaz being one)

Lowering more than 40 mm will mean you have little travel left so basically there is no rear travel left, it is also unnesessary to go too low.

Mine below are on adjustable mounts with coilovers up front. Rear dropped to get 2degree camber (about 35mm) and I have adjusted the fronts to be the same( for front you need adjustable top mounts) you can see a small 2degree looks like quite a lean!



I run this on the road and tyres last quite well.

[pel]

Thats great, just what i was after. Thanks for all the help.

[mcbonio]

Like mrLEE30, I have a 30mm drop on my 325i cab, and running 17" wheels. This does give you a small amount of rear camber, enough so that the top of the wheels just lean in nicely with about a fingers distance between the arch and the wheel. Nice amount of clearance. But of course the tyres wear on the inside much faster then normal, be aware.