Camber and Castor Issue
Turbo Mini Forums

Hi Guys,

I popped the min into a tyre specialist to align the wheels as I changed the track rod ends and it had not been set up since the rebuild has been on the road.

They had a sophisticated bit of kit where each wheel had clamp with a panel on and a long electric beam bar which moves up and down and looks at each panel on the wheels and sends the position data back to a pc.

Any way, they adjusted the tow so that’s all fine now but the camber and castor on the near side were really out. I have adjustable bottom arms and tie rods. But when they improved one it through the other out even more and they ran out of adjustment on the bottom arm and they were not keen to wind the tie rod out any more as they were not sure of how much thread was left in the tie rod. So I plan to pop the tie rod off to check how much more can be adjusted. The trouble is if they get the castor right then the camber will be worse and with no more adjustment left.
I cannot understand why this side is so far out. Granted I have had the sub frame off but it should go back in the same place as the mounting holes are lined up and bolted.

Has anyone had any issues like this or have any ideas of what I can do to correct this? It’s pulling to the left and under boost it scares the pants off me! How do I know if the car has ever been right since it left the factory in 1979 as a 998 drum all round car?
Figures below
Left Right
Castor -2o02’ 2o47’
Camber -1o27’ -0o51’
Hope this makes sense.

check the tie rod mounts for distortion, and the subframe for signs of accident damage.

that castor figure looks worrying,

Just to confirm you have 2 degress 2 minutes caster on the left and 2 degrees 47 minutes on the right.

Standard is 3.5 degrees. So both are out. To INCREASE the caster you SHORTEN the ti-bar.

And yes adjusting one will affect the other. When you have done it 100 times you get a feel of how to get it right. But if you've never done it before you can go round in circles (as appears to have happened here).

I doubt that there is anything wrong, but user error. Also, every time you change the caster or camber you bugger the toe setting. So I hope they checked that afer pissing around with everything else.

Fastest 998 mini in the world? 13.05 1/4 mile 106mph

Hi Wil and Joe,

Thank you for your input.
There are no signs of accident damage and all mounts appear good.
I compared the tie rod today with one of the original ones and the original is shorter so if i set the new ones to the same length of the original am i right in saying that this would improve the camber? Here is the data sheet

Edited by 1275min on 3rd Jun, 2013.

Altering the ti-bar length is used to alter the caster, but will also alter the camber by a small amount.

The shorter the ti-bar the more caster (and you'll reduce the camber). I would set them to the standard length.

Fastest 998 mini in the world? 13.05 1/4 mile 106mph

Will,

on the left its -2.02, i will shorten the tie bar and then hopefully that will sort the camber issue out too.

You say the caster should be 3.5 degrees what should the camber be?

Thanks for all your help!

Camber depends on what you want. Personally for a road car I'd run 0.5 to 1 negative (but closer to 0.5.

Fastest 998 mini in the world? 13.05 1/4 mile 106mph