camber / tyre pressure / tyre wear question 172 Cup

[tertius]

Wasn't sure whether to put this here or in the track day section, anyway here goes ...

Did my first track day in the 172 Cup yesterday (I've done dozens before in other cars).

Car is on new standard shocks, ProLine springs and was aligned to standard the week before; tyres ContiSport Contact 3s.

At the end of the day it was clear I didn't have enough camber on the front and I was driving on the shoulders a fair bit.

I was running the tyres at 30 psi hot.

My question is, could I offset this by running the fronts at slightly higher pressures, or do I have to get more camber - I assume Eibach camber bolts are the easiest solution?

How easy are the bolts to fit? Could I fit them and then get an alignment place to dial in a bit more camber for me - say 2 degrees?

Bit of background - I don't actually plan to keep the car that long as my Elise should be back on the road in a couple of months; so I'd be willing to live with a bit of accelerated tyre wear if necessary. Plus I really don't want to spend too much on modifying a car I won't be keeping. I'm running the Conti tyres as I was expecting these early season track days to be on the cold/damp side ... typically yesterday was dry sunny and 15 degrees C ... ... few more days like that and the fronts will be toast!

As an aside, they are impressively quick cars aren't they. Though I'd give a lot for a bucket seat ...

 

[Chip-mk1]

More pressure is likely to just decrease the grip, and hence make more you likely to slip on bends and wreck the tyres from the abrasion of doing so, it would be far better to get some more camber, or of course more caster which will then introduce more camber dynamically when the wheel is turned.

Bolts are a piece of cake to fit, well worth doing for track work.

 

[tertius]

I agree the higher pressures might increase overall tyre wear, however, my thinking was whether higher pressures would have the effect of stiffening the sidewalls slightly and prevent the tyres rolling over onto the shoulders quite so much? And whether the downsides would outweigh the benefits? The shoulders after all don't offer all that much grip so keeping the tyre a bit more upright should offer a bit more outright grip. So a gain in one way and a loss in another.

As I say I don't object to a bit of increased tyre wear.

However, it sounds as though I should bite the bullet and pay the £40-odd for camber bolts. plus alignment of course.

 

[Chip-mk1]

I dont think you'll stop the roll like that, but feel free to try


Alignment tends not to be altered much by camber bolts on these struts due to the location of the steering arm, its not like on say a corsa b where a chance in camber will result in a massive change in toe, so not massively urgent or anything in this instance, but still worth having done of course.

 

[tertius]

OK thanks.

I used "alignment" rather loosely - I meant geometry - i.e. making sure that I had the bolts set to give a suitable and consistent amount of camber on both sides. Unless that too is obvious when fitting them?

 

[Chip-mk1]

TBH you can happily just set them on the max adjustment they allow for a trackday car generally as they dont change it by a massive amount anyway.

But dont get me wrong, im a big fan of getting a proper alignment printout of everything including caster etc just as a sanity check.