I've a meg rs250 lowered on h&r springs and it's taken me a while to adjust to the active nature of the megane's rear. Didn't realise that there is a cheap option in the form of camber plates to add a bit of negative camber to the rear. My question is, would it be a worthwhile mod to do? And how much negative camber would be good to add for road driving? Or is there something else to try first. I've noticed there's quite a few long corners that I'd drive and although the front end is nailed down I can feel the back lightening as the corner progresses and would like to neutralise this slightly as one slightly too brisk coming off the accelerator will lead to spinny-spins. Any thoughts?
Honest answer, If your not doing a lot of TD's and don't have a proper Coilover suspension setup, Don't bother.
Haha, I'm not looking to make it into some sort of RS3-alike handler, but I reckon that the rear end is quite twitchy and rather than some lift-off oversteer on the roundabout outside marksies, just a bit more of a tiptoe towards neutrality.
You can use camber plates to give a little bit rear toe in , but always within manufacturer limits. Or just play with tyre pressures, increase front or lower the rear. Also, you can have worn tyres always at the front Very cheap ways to make micro correction to the car's balance.
Don't drive like that on the road? Sorry to sound boring but if you're anywhere near the limit on the road then you're driving like a dick, and no amount of rear camber will make a difference to that Get to a track day, get the arse out and learn how to drive at and over the limit
You don't have to be lit to the balls to experience what I'm talking about, there are limits at low speed, decreasing radius corners but were the instability that has been engineered into the rear of the megane to give it adjustability on the track is unnecessary on the road. There are plenty of roads with 60mph speed limits with corners that need to be taken at much lower speeds. I'm just looking to put a little bit of stability back in so that the rear isn't trying to help me tighten my line when the front end is still going exactly were I want it with grip to spare.
Hmm ... Genuinely if you are anywhere close to experiencing this on the road then you're going too fast If you can't stop in the distance you can see, it's "too quick". Now obviously, that's not always practical, but that is irrefutable to minimise risk So If you're doing 60 round any corner, you won't be able to stop in a short distance - it's over 100ft (based on Highway Code it's over 200ft but they're hardly realistic) and if you could see over 100ft in front of you, then it's not really going to be classified as a corner If you're now increasing the capability of the car, you're allowing a higher speed you can travel at before you decide to dial it back... That just means you're increasing the speed at which you could crash, and the probability of crashing also It's purely an opinion but I just don't see any point in thrashing on the roads because the potential consequences aren't worth it and it's also irrelevant how good a driver you are - the "worst" accidents will be ones you can't avoid. Biker down in middle of road, animal darts across road and causes you to swerve or whatever Appreciate not everyone will agree but "camber plates" and "road use" just shouldn't be in the same sentence in my eyes In terms of the effect of the camber plates... I don't think they help snap over steer. If you are lifting to the point where the weight shift is significant enough to cause the car to unsettle then increasing camber won't give you more grip... Rear camber is best when you're leaning over through a long corner and want the car to have a bigger contact patch Adverse camber on the side of the road (to make water drain away) would also make for a bit of an "interesting" experience because you've now increased the amount of roll the tyre needs to go through in order to have the biggest contact patch In short I just don't think it's a safe option
I understand your points regarding the safety aspect, but the scenarios that you've given aren't really representative of the situation I encountered, we're talking speeds of <30mph here on an ovalled roundabout. It just felt that the rear tyres were on their tiptoes (not actually, just a 'feeling') and about to let go. The tyres are mid-life RE050's on the back with slightly newer continental csc6 on the front so this might be the first thing to change With the suspension suspension geometry of the megane, has my lowering it has effectedly removed or added some negative camber? Im not looking for some 'because racecar' style rear camber, but rather, if I have removed some would it not be a good idea to put some of this back in. This is not some project to allow me to take my fav corner X more mph, blowing all speed limits away.... Not entirely sure regarding road camber - I would assume that as the whole side of the road is cambered that the effect isn't going to be noticeable, unless the weigh transfer occurs towards the middle of the road.
This isn't directed towards the O.P. - just glad to see some very sensible posts about driving on the road that I completely agree with. The media goes on about how great sports cars are driving on the limit on the road. It's their fault people do this imho. If they were a bit more responsible and reported that to get anywhere near a modern cars limit on the road is virtually suicidal and should only be done on track I think we'd have less people killing themselves and others. They'd put themselves out of a job though so that won't happen. I used to drive like a complete twat on the road... Yet I was still regularly shocked at how dangerously some of my friends would drive... Until I got caught.. Which was a good thing as I then learnt how to (try and) drive properly on track and had much more fun doing so.
I'm certainly not against Neil's ideas against reckless road driving, nobody likes seeing someone twatting about putting other people at risk. I don't like the suggestion that I must be driving like a penis because I have identified an aspect of my megane's handling that I wasn't keen on and wondered how to change it. A lot of the track days around me would not take very kindly to driving the car with the arse out, and to be honest I have no desire to go all drift-king either. A cars handling is a feature that can be experienced at all speeds and conditions. I think there's an assumption that when mentioning changing handling it must only be at the absolute limits of speed and grip. One of the best changes I've ever made was adding BMW m3 front control arms (more neg camber) to my normal e92 - it completely transformed the steering feel and for want of a better description, confidence in what the front was doing, and that was at all speeds. I'm just approaching this from a similar direction
Might give the tyre swap a go... Should have put on that I've got 20mm spacers at the back (definitely helped)
