nrgy

I just picked up my car from the shop after getting KW V3 coilovers installed along with an alignment, and just wondered for those of you have lowered your car what your camber is set at?

I'm a newbie when it comes to this kind of thing, but I'll go ahead and list my current measurements and see what you guys think.

Left Front Camber: -2 degrees
Right Front Camber: -2.1 degrees

Left Rear Camber: -2 degrees
Right Rear Camber: - 2.1 degrees

The car sits lower about an 1-3/8" and I'm riding on 19" wheels. I'm not sure how a shop determines what is the proper camber? Does a computer simply tell them the optimal settings based on certain measurements, or can camber be adjusted based on driver preferences? I'm assuming they adjust camber for optimal tire wear? Thanks.

gsrjc

That is a lot of negative camber right there. usually the manufacturer has a range for the front and rear camber for the car. i'm not sure what the range is for the C63. usually any car shop that does alignments have the computer system already programmed for any specific car and then it is up to the technician to make the car's settings back to factory. in some cases, if you lower the car too much, no matter what the technician does, you will not be able to get back to factory settings. in those cases, you can raise up the car a little or get an aftermarket camber kit.

Does anyone know the range of camber for the C63?

yooker

If I remember correctly, the front camber should be around -1.5 degrees from the factory.

I don't see anything wrong with -2 degrees in the front, infact you'll probably want -2 degrees in front to help with dreadful understeer built into these cars by the factory for safety reasons. It's usually much easier for a novice to deal with understeer than oversteer so thats why most cars these days are set up with hints of understeer. However you might want to decrease the amount of camber on the back because as a rule of thumb, rear negative camber should always be less than front.

Camber can be adjusted to match as closely to factory settings or for driver preference. The shop you went to most likely tried their best to match the factory settings with your lowered height. Also if you are concerned about tire wear, 0, -1, -2 degrees essentially will wear the same.

Tire wear is more sensitive to toe-in/toe-out than is to camber so you shouldn't be too worried about tread wear.

nrgy

Cool, thx guys for the information, very helpful! I havn't had much of a chance to test out the new suspension/settings so hopefully this weekend I'll get a chance to see how it feels around some nice corners.