I searched for "alignment settings" and "corner balancing" and there's no good single thread with lots of data. Perhaps this is not it, either. But I'll try. Having just installed coilovers after running lowering springs for a year+ I can now adjust everything with camber plates up front and both sets of control arms in the rear adjustable.

So here's my settings taken this morning. It's an '05.

Front
Camber L: -2.0 R: -2.0
Caster L: 4.0 R: 4.0
Toe L: -.05 R: -.04 (Total -.09 ie 1/16" out)

Rear
Camber L: -1.4 R: -1.4
Toe L: -.02 R: .01 (Total -.02 close to zero)
Thrust -.01

Weights (with me -- 180lb -- in the driver's seat)
LF 889 RF 844
LR 560 RR 515

Cross
Driver--1404
Passenger- 1404

Total weight 2808lbs (62% Front/ 38% Rear, 52% Left/ 48% Right)

It drives great!!

drPhilG

 

So your 2800 lbs total weight is with driver? So something like 2620 without the beef?

 

Yes, I'm more confident in this weight than the one I got last year (just goes to show that public scales have large tolerances!). The 2625 includes 3/4 tank of gas which would weigh about 70lbs so dry weight would be around 2560lbs.

 

Have you performed any weight reduction on your car Dr. Phil?

 

F -2.2, R -1.6, corner balanced also and she can drift...

You have PM Phil...

 

Yes, I have. No sunroof or heavy options at purchase, then lighter header and catback, light wheels and tires, lighter brakes, lighter control arms, rear wiper delete. But Ihaven't swapped out the battery, or deleted the rear seat (as I have a 6 yr old), so there is more to come, eventually.

 

you got rid of your rear wiper?? i couldnt live without mine. driving my gfs jetta around is like torture as i had no way to clean her back window.

 

There really is no "definite alignment" since alignment largely varies with your individual use. That's why you get so many different opinions.

Somethings to consider-
Front camber- only adjustable with aftermarket camber plates, can be fixed or adjustable. Fixed plates are OK but you might get different camber for each side whereas adjustable means you can set it evenly right and left to whatever amount you want until something binds which usually it does depending on which suspension you choose.
The more front negative camber you choose the better the cornering you can get with higher speeds but the more you can wear the inner edges of the tires being used. On the track this translates to using more of the whole tire and wearing the outer edges less (heat them out less on the outer edges). Track tires do best with more negative camber, about -2.0 to -2.4 degrees is good.

Rear camber tends to be too negative. More negative camber in the rear increases understeer. Usually you can pick about 1.0 degrees less negative for the rear compared to the front or about -1.0 to -1.4 degrees. You'll need a way to adjust rear camber using built in adjusters on the 2005 MINIs or later or use lower rear adjustable control arms.

Adjustable end links are not needed unless you are installing adjustable height coilovers and you want to do corner balancing like Phil did. For my 2003 MCS I got an overall weight with full tank of gas of about the same 2640 pounds.

Front toe settings can vary from stock toe in or autocross and track toe out.
Zero toe will work as well but the more toe out the more you are scrubbing rubber off the tires during street use. 1/16" to 1/8" toe out can be used in front with 1/16" being very usable for street use and aggressive driving.

Rear toe setting is usually toe in but can be set to zero. More toe in adds to straightline stability, try 1/16" toe in. Normally toe out is not used in the rear.

Castor cannot be easily adjusted in the front but some camber plates do allow for it. More castor is useful.

Whenever you change suspension parts (that lower ride height) you'll need to check alignment except for front or rear swaybar upgrades. Over time hitting road hazzards affects alignment. Check your tires for uneven wear and keep your tire pressures in the correct range.

 

Great post, minihune! NAM certainly benefits from you experience especially with suspension and wheels and tires. I was hoping this thread might become a good reference for words of wisdom and experience shared.

cheers,

 

i say take your car to a skid pad, set it up for max cornering grip, and relearn to drive your car. There is no point in modding if you cant handle the mods you have. You shouldnt mod your car to suit your driving style either, you should mod it to stick tothe road like glue, then learn to drive it that way. Once you better learn to drive the car with optimum cornering grip, you can fine tune it to your specific driving style or requirements (for road coarse i say leave it that way and keep practicing, for autox, your probably going to do some small changes via spring rates, an adjustable rear bar (probably the best because its so easy to adjust and you can change it back from the skip pad set up to super oversteer in 10minutes), or alignment settings). FWIW

Beecher

 

...and for some who track a lot, one setting does not fit all...

 

There is a lot of talk about allignment setting on this board, but how do you actually do an allignment on a mini.
I have done home allignments on my WRX which are quite accurate. Strings f to rear to adjust toe and a camber gauge for camber. My questions are what is the measurement of the front and rear track on a 2005 MCS Cabrio?
My second question is how to actually adjust the rear toe. Any pictures or tutorial?

Thanks,

Bob

 

Track width changes with wheel offset ( mine is quite different from stock as are others) and toe is adjusted via the 3 bolts at the trailing arm as it attaches to the uni-body. Rear toe is best adjusted with two sets of hands...it's a bit of a PITA.

 

A note on upgrades and driving skill. Unless you've been doing competitive driving for bunch of years it's not likely your skill level is approaching the performance capabilities of your MINI, even in stock form.

Increasing your driving skill will take some time. Maybe 1 to 5 years or more and the more you change your car the more you will need to adjust to those changes. The worst thing you can do is to make changes every week chasing after some desired benefit.

If you track your car or run in autocross you usually can see that by the end of the day or in the last sessions that you are doing much better than at the beginning, this is due to improvement in skill level since your equiptment has been kept a constant (except for your tires warming up if you have R compounds).

A skillful driver in a stock MINI with stock alignment will often perform at higher levels on the track and at autocross than a mid modded MCS with a less experienced (not even a novice) driver. Small errors lead to alot of lost time.

Alignment for the MINI is usually done at speciality alignment shops for best results. Most regular garages can do stock settings but are not equipt to do custom settings. Most owners choose a compromise alignment setup that can work for track, lapping sessions, autocross, driving events and street use. This way one setting can be done then retuned slightly if needed or redone the following year.

Most owners don't bother changing from one setting to another at the track or on their own. It's easy enough to change dampening settings if you have adjustable coilovers (depends on which one you have) or adjust sway bar settings.

Stock MINIs can adjust toe front and back but on earlier models front and rear camber were not adjustable. In later years 2005 and later the rear lower control arm had a small adjuster for about 0.5 degrees. Now the new 2007 MINI has a small adjustment possible in the front tower plate for front camber adjustment.

Stock alignment is good for street only use, a smooth ride, and good wear on your tires under normal use. It also keeps your warranty intact.

Performance alignment on one extreme is for heavy track use, if set for this the car would not be very good for daily driving- rough handling, bumpy ride, squirrly and twitchy steering response, not very comfortable and usually noisey.

Autocross alignment is not so extreme as track and could be used for the street with some compromises, usually to tire wear over time.

Take your pick and don't hit potholes if you want to keep your alignment intact. Rough cost is about $90-100 to do a custom 4 wheel thrust alignment, takes about 100-110 minutes.

 

minihune, next time, would you be more precise?

 

Reason why I know is I wait for the job to get done and for the three alignments I have gotten this is the range of time needed to finish it.

Seems that it's consistent given the technician and the equiptment.

I think if you had to change and adjust ride height and do corner balancing it's going to add some time- a couple of hours to the bill. You'd have to be present to sit in the driver's seat with your helmet for a good accounting of correct weight distribution- the alternative is put some sandbags in the driver's seat that roughly equals driver weight.

 

I assumed so...I was compassionately jabbing your accuracy.

My friends constantly jab me; "hey does your coffee cup withstand the sever negative G loads while going thru a 90 deg"...or "hey, does your peanut butter and jelly sandwich stick better with poly or spherical rod ends"...it goes on like this all day at work and at home...all in fun. Chief of Police in my town did the same thing one day last year...I took him for a rippin ride after a day at LRP...he uttered not a word thru the entire drive. He quietly got out of the car and walked home never to be heard from again. He's now a believer in both accuracy, and, the car he use to call "cute".

 

To echo DrPhil, excellent, excellent post. Very informative, thanks very much.
Nice, man.

 

Damage done right the first time doesn't have to be done again.

His wife described him as "white as a ghost" I said, "Steve shouldn't have called my car cute."

 

Great thread, hope you don't mind me adding a few (maybe elementary) alignment related questions to it. If so, let me know and I'll start a new thread.

How significant are the changes to alignment due to changes in track? Does rolling diameter contribute to alignment as well? Is the wider track of my summer wheels/tires adding positive camber to my suspension?

My summer tires (205/50/16 Dunlop Sport Maxx) are mounted on 16x7 42 ET wheels. These tires have worn rather unevenly (outside edges down to around 1/16" tread left, inside almost full tread after around 7.5 - 8K miles, rotated front to back twice) and recently caught punctures at the edge of two treads / sidewalls. The uneven wear seems to be a product of insufficient negative camber up front. When mounted on the rear, the wear seems to be pretty even. My winter tires (OE 205/45/17 Eagle RSA Run Flats on S-Lites) with roughly equivalent mileage don't display any evidence of wear yet.

How much negative camber should a good alignment shop be able to get out of the stock front suspension with out bending/filing? Any over stock?

I plan on having adjustable camber plates and LRCAs installed in the not too distant future, but would rather get my summer tires replaced and a good alignment performed prior to that if I can get the front camber adjusted enough to avoid burning up another set prematurely (my budget plan had been to replace the Dunlops and install USS/SRPs, then power mods, then suspension mods).

 

How significant are the changes to alignment due to changes in track?
In my experience unless you make some drastic changes it doesn't make that much difference. This assumes you mean make changes in track due to spacers or wider wheels/tires. It's simple enough put your race/track tires on your car then do alignment with everything set to go.

Does rolling diameter contribute to alignment as well?
Not really unless there is a drastic difference. My race tires are 22.8" and my street tires are 24.7" and alignment is not really affected.

Is the wider track of my summer wheels/tires adding positive camber to my suspension?
Probably not anything significant. I would not be too concerned. I have 15x8 rims on for autocross with spacers and it's not really changed alignment significantly.

Unless you have a new R56 MINI you cannot change stock front camber settings which is usually -0.5 degrees. Normally we look for about -2.0 to -2.4 degrees in the front. Later model MCS, 2005 and later have a small adjustment nut on the lower control arm bolt and you can do a little camber adjustment about 0.5 degrees. In the rear you want -1.0 to -1.3 degrees.

Actual alignment limits are set by your MINI and your upgrades, you can't always get as much front camber, it does vary. Adjustable front plates work better than fixed plates as sometimes right and left camber is not equal and fixed plates don't allow for evening it out.

If you have stock alignment you can expect to wear through any tires you put on the track extra fast. Any track time you put in will require more negative front camber if you want to make best use of your tires. Buying tires then running them on the track doesn't make sense if you have non adjustable stock alignment.

If you are serious about handling and track then the order of mods are-
Serious suspension mods-
Track style alignment-
Wide lightweight rims- not sure which 16x7 rims you have
R compound tires- widest that will fit the rims and not rub.

then later on-
USS and similar stiffeners
power mods

Your front tires are showing wear common with track use or performance driving. Your winter tires are not showing them because they haven't been to the track.

Now before you do all this you have to set a budget and plan plan plan ahead. All this suspension stuff is expensive and complicated.

Coilovers (which ones?) vs Lowering springs and shocks vs custom springs/shocks
Front adjustable camber plates
Lower rear adjustable control arms
If you have adjustable coilovers with control over ride height- then do corner balancing and add adjustable endlinks to front and rear swaybars
Adjustable rear sway bar and some add an adjustable front swaybar
Peformance alignment
Then the chassis stiffeners, USS/SRP or tower strut bar.

A track tuned MINI is not going to be comfortable for daily use, it's going to be very jarring and rough, you can detune it a little and use the coilover adjustments to help a little. You can put on taller sidewall soft riding street tires. Toe settings that are good for the track will wear out street tires faster.

 

Good piece in the new Grass Roots MotorSports about camber and it's all done with a MINI.

they ended up with -3 in the front for the best track set up. Check it out.

 

...however, it is very poorly written. I do not have it in front of me but from what I remember much needed information was left out making it all but useless. For instance, what were the tires pressures and suspension settings in the rear; before and after? And how about the all important fronts -- they dropped them by two pounds from what? And if you are writing of a track setup why not Hoosiers, Kuhmo, or Hankook tires? What about spacers? Spring rates? Damper settings? Ride height? Track temperature -- air and surface? Etc.

 

Don, the article was meant as a conceptual piece, not a setup sheet.

Everyone elses input is great! Generally speaking from my experience, more camber in front than in rear, and typically a whiff of toe-out in front and neutral or slight toe-in in rear gives a great starting point for the MINI. It's too bad nobody has come out with adjustable caster plates yet; the only solution is ALTA's PSRS, which adds a fixed [and unknown] amount of positive caster.

 

Yah, it just kinda takes you through the process they went though trying different camber. With no 2 MINI's alike even knowing the complete setup wouldn't be of much help.