[The HACK]

So much bad information being passed around on this forum. SMH.

[uber]

Originally Posted by The HACK

So much bad information being passed around on this forum. SMH.

what's bad? why is it bad? you gotta specify if you're going to complain. people like me have no idea what information to follow.

[CALWATERBOY]

Originally Posted by ThatRWD

What would be a said proper shop? I want to go to NTB since they offer a lifetime one and I'm lowered with KW V3s. This is what I'm at right now.

Lifetime....alignment?

Screen shot shows adjust way, way, way >snip< way, way off.

Did they leave it that way?

[HouseN54]

Originally Posted by The HACK

So much bad information being passed around on this forum. SMH.

Do enlighten us with Your proper information.

[The HACK]

Originally Posted by dominators

what's bad? why is it bad? you gotta specify if you're going to complain. people like me have no idea what information to follow.

All of it. The only good advice came from OP's alignment shop.

Oh and Ocelaris got it mostly right except one small mistake about positive camber...although I agree with the principle of what he said.

Everything else posted in here is utter BS by people who have ZERO clue. Seriously, if you don't know, don't pretend you know.

[BOOSTHOT]

Originally Posted by The HACK

All of it. The only good advice came from OP's alignment shop.

Oh and Ocelaris got it mostly right except one small mistake about positive camber...although I agree with the principle of what he said.

Everything else posted in here is utter BS by people who have ZERO clue. Seriously, if you don't know, don't pretend you know.

I think you're the one who's pretending.

[The HACK]

I'm not going to claim I'm a suspension expert. I am not. I know what I know, and I know what I know is far less than what I don't know. But I do know this.

This, is the most basic of all "modern" suspension designs.



A wheel/tire connected via a king pin, or hub, to a fixed pivot point that's attached to the bottom half of the chassis, with a spring/shock/strut attached to the hub on a fixed angle with pivot up top. The most basic suspension since they moved away from spring leafs (sorry Corvette) and torsion beams.

As the most basic of all suspension designs, geometry (camber, toe, caster...etc) mostly follow this basic design. But for this discussion sake, I don't have time nor the patience (or detailed understanding) to go through the other suspension geometries so we'll concentrate on camber. This is how ALL sprung suspension will behave with at least 1 fixed pivot to the chassis. See below.



If you will notice. Since the lower control arm (sounds familiar?) pivots at both the chassis side and the hub/king pin side, but is of a fixed length, that means as the suspension moves up, or lowered, NEGATIVE CAMBER increases because the length of the control arm serves as a "radius" and it is the top of the spring/shock/strut combo that moves.

So at this point you guys are probably asking, big f**king deal. What does the most basic suspension in the world have to do with my Ultimate Driving Machine, my BMW that I paid $$$ for?

Here you go. This, is called a MacPherson Strut design.



Those of you with sharp, eagle eyes will probably pick up the fact that I merely stripped the words from the first diagram and added MacPherson Strut to the top. That's right folks. What we have in the front of our BMWs, is the most basic of all suspensions. A MacStrut. Same MacStrut design is on the front axle of my Hyundai Veloster Turbo. There's nothing complicated here. And as I explained above...When the car is lowered, or the entire suspension component is moved up relative to the chassis on this particular design, the negative camber increases.

Still following me? So, to answer the OP's question. This is what a factory MacStrut on a BMW typically look like.



Without lowering the vehicle, there's usually a finite adjustment available on the top of the strut to increase or decrease camber. If you open your hood, you'll probably see 3 nuts on top of the strut tower, plus a small "pin" through a hole. The pin locates the factory camber setting, with the pin removed, and the nuts loosened, the strut can be pushed in or out away from the chassis for approximately 3/8", typically the range of about 0.7-1º of total adjustment. I marked on the diagram what looks like arrows on top of the strut and on top of the tire. That's the range of typical adjustment available to you on the front end of the car.

What happens when you lower the car?



The illustration shows the more "extreme" end of camber change when lowered. But the principle stays the same. Imagine the dotted lines as the highest factory recommended camber angle. You would have to adjust the strut all the way to the outside and there's probably still a pretty damn good chance that at the maximum end of your strut bearing travel, it won't come close to the maximum factory specified camber setting.

That's why, the alignment shop typically don't want to deal with cars that are lowered. There's no way of telling whether or not they'll be able to come within factory recommended camber settings. And while those of you who've been stalking me on ZPost would probably call me a hypocrite, because I am running with -3.5º of camber up front, and -2.0º camber in the rear, both well OUTSIDE of the factory recommended settings, I told my alignment shop to align to those specific settings after they told me that those settings are way outside of what BMW calls for in their alignment's computer database. I do that for specific reasons, none of which will likely concern any of you, of course. Frankly, they (alignment shops) don't know who they're dealing with, and there's a good amount of liability involved here.

If you had told the alignment shop to get as close to the factory setting but set both side to even, and you're okay with it falling outside of factory specs? The alignment shop would probably just shrug and say "your the boss, boss" and told you "but BMW specified *0.4-0.9º of negative camber!" and still do it, because then you'll at least appear to them having waived your right to get the car aligned to factory spec, which they don't really know if they can do it or not based on the fact the car is lowered.

(*by the way I pulled those numbers out of my @ss. Sorry if they stink.)

Now, I'm going to discuss "double wishbone suspension" and the fallacy introduced here (fallacy or idiocy? I don't know) that you only have to worry about gaining camber on a lowered car on a double wishbone suspension. This, is a double wishbone suspension.



There's a reason why when the Acura NSX was introduced back in the '90s, all car enthusiast's manginas were wet with excitement. It came with double wishbone suspension on ALL FOUR CORNERS. See how the kingpin is attached by TWO pivots, both on top and the bottom to the chassis? There's a reason why double wishbone design is SUPERIOR to the MacPherson Strut.



As the suspension compresses, or as the car is lowered, and if no other parameter is changed, the suspension parts move like a PARALLELOGRAM (did I spell that right?) or a trapezoid. That means, as the suspension compresses, the camber only increases based on the movement of the shock/spring in relation to the chassis. That means, get this...Double wishbone suspension camber gains are linear and less than MacPherson Strut (to a point). Double wishbone still increase camber because as the suspension is compressed, the strut/shock is still attached to the kingpin and will increase in negative camber. But it's linear. It's predictable. It's SUPERIOR.

But yes, even the mighty double wishbone suspension will increase camber as it's lowered.

[HouseN54]

I do believe we are on the same page in the knowledge section, and I also do thank you for taking the time to write and explain to others.

[Sidewinderpb]

The HACK: Seriously....that was awesome. Are you an engineer or architect? Great drawings.

[wdeerfield]

Being in boston you should just go up the road to Turner in Amesbury.

[ajsalida]

Great explanation by Hack.

Just to add a few points. Lowering the car with H&R Sport gets you lots more neg camber in the REAR than in the front, since the rear is a fancy 5-link and highly non linear in ride height vs camber in these regions as H pointed out. Problem is you cannot get anywhere close to stock alignment parameters then (like best you can get is -2.0 or so) without replacing camber arms etc.

Yes you can get the front close to stock spec by removing the pins and shoving the top of the struts OUT, but that is not what people do. Personally I have found more like 0.5 deg +/- removing pins, so you push them IN for more neg camber. This gets you to maybe the -1.5 deg or so range in front. The reason one may wish to do this is these cars with McP struts seem to like more neg camber in front, and the fancy rear with lots of neg camber and a front McP with almost none would handle strange.

In addition to this I personally set up all my cars with close to zero toe in front, and slight (like 0.2 deg) total toe-in rear.

So OP, I would find another shop that knows something about our cars, and then go over with them your options and anticipated use of the car. Then come up with something that fits budget and intended use (street only? Autocross? Track days? etc.) Of course the more you go to HPDE and non street stuff the more aggressive the alignment and solutions.

What I suggested above is not radical at all and require no extra parts, little/no increased tire wear, just slightly more work (pull pins) and then have an alignment spec in mind you want the tech to hit...Car will handle very well and maybe be a little bit darty if you've never driven a car set up that way.

Main point here is you cannot hit stock alignment specs with H&R sports in there, don't even try. Question is what to do and which direction to go. Simplest is minimize camber loss in back and get the front close as you can to similar neg camber with pin removal. Little more aggressive toe settings front and rear than stock. Some shops can't deal with that, find one that can.

[The HACK]

Originally Posted by BOOSTHOT

I think you're the one who's pretending.

You know, I think you're right. I am pretending. Good call.

What am I thinking, trying to pretend to be an expert amongst a sea of giants of the industry. It is embarrassing...I should just take my ball and go home now, where I won't have to compete with such wealth of knowledge that is the E9X crowd.

My bad. Sorry for the posing. You guys have taught me a very valuable lesson...Don't come here pretending you know more than the real experts here.

I'll shut up now.

[IN54NITY]

Sea of giants...



Hack, seriously, don't leave. My beer is so much more enjoyable reading your posts, and I may even learn something.

[stashtrey]

This reminds me of when I got aligned at a BMW indy shop with Koni and h&r on my xi. I was in the waiting room/lobby and the tech came in and was talking to the service guy and started bitching about how much he hates people that lower their BMW and it is such a pain in his ass. I stood up and told him to put it back to where it was when I brought it in and " give me my fucking keys, cock smoke! "

Needless to say I won't be back there! Radial Tire in Sacramento is solid. Great crew and best prices on Michelin in the region. They beat Tire Rack on my PSS..no shipping cost. Clean mount and they didn't lay the weights like a jackass. Highly recommend AA others have often in here. Racial all the way!

[ThatRWD]

Originally Posted by Ocelaris

I used to do alignments at a shop in college. The mechanic is giving you good advice, I'm surprised anyone lowering their vehicle wasn't aware that it would effect camber which effects tire wear if your car can't adjust to the lowering. i.e. cars have typically a few degrees positive or negative camber, when you lower it on a mcpherson strut typically it goes negative 3-5 degrees, in which case you try and adjust it back to spec. Depending on how low you went you may not be able to get back "to spec" in which case you'd have a few degrees negative camber and might wear unevenly. A mechanic who's being honest with you (like they were) is one to be trusted, not shunned; if you want to bury your head pretending they're just being mean, go ahead, but it's true. If they can't get you back to spec sometimes they make camber "kits" which are eccentric bolts which give you a few more degrees play in camber. While your at it look at toe in as that's an adjustment you can tweak to your preference. "to spec" may be driving miss daisey, a little negative camber helps your turn in on corners at the expense of a little tire wear. Lowering doesn't affect toe in/out but a lot of cars have a lot of toe in (imagine your toes pointing in) which keeps the car going straight, but harder to turn; flattening that out gives it a little more aggressive turning. Lots of articles, mechanic isn't lying to you.

Originally Posted by The HACK

All of it. The only good advice came from OP's alignment shop.

Oh and Ocelaris got it mostly right except one small mistake about positive camber...although I agree with the principle of what he said.

Everything else posted in here is utter BS by people who have ZERO clue. Seriously, if you don't know, don't pretend you know.

affairs are expensive, is there something I can provide you guys with and you tell me what settings to put it on ? Not trying to be lazy just packed with a fulltime job and college

Take your car to a good shop thats all I can say, EAS here in socal was booked so I ended up taking it to a local shop, paid $120 and got the car back with a off centered steering wheel and a scuff on the bottom of my M3 leather steering wheel (from the wheel holder tool). The alignment came out okay but the tech did a piss poor job of centering the wheel and setting up the tool to not damage my steering wheel.

I noticed the hunter machine they used had specs for a E90 "lowered car", posted below.

Now I got to pay EAS to get it right, I don't want to take it back to the other shop and risk further damage to my wheel. Plus the steering wheel is so off center the fact that they released the car to me after test driving it left a bad taste in my mouth, the tech had to have noticed and didn't bother to fix it, nope stay the f*** away from my car.

These specs are different then the normal E90 specs, off my memory I can tell you these specs allow up to -1.0 degree of front camber, the regular specs allow something like -0.6, which my car would have met anyway, I'm on BMW Performance Yellow Springs, and Koni Yellows, my car sits low.

You also have to look out for shops that can damage your wheels when they mount the targets, I always read guys taking their cars to firestone or some other generic alignment store that are not accustom to working on nice cars. Luckily for me I came out ok in this regard.

I don't get why you'd go to all that trouble of adding upgraded springs/shocks/etc. to the car, with the intention of making it handle better, but have done nothing to take full advantage of it; up front at least. Having three times as much camber out back is only making that notion worse. When you take it to ECS, at least have them pull the pins. You owe it to yourself.

I removed the pins on the mounts before I installed my new struts and just centered the hole on the mount with the hole on the strut tower, this is really an in between alignment, I'm having EAS install new tie rods in a few weeks and get the "real" alignment done, I'm rolling on PSS not Hankooks so I needed to get somewhat of an alignment done.

[ThatRWD]

Index did you get it realigned ? How is it now? I'll take it to a shop after I learn all these things for myself, got a 5 year plan at NTB, suppose to be meeting there with a nice tech tomorrow. Don't the cars have more negative camber in the back from factory? Why is that bad?