H & R Sway Bar

[gan1hck]

Anyone have experience with this item along with camber plates as the only upgrade?

What would my otherwise stock e90 M3 feel like on track?

Will it help with over edge tire wear?

thanks.

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by gan1hck

Anyone have experience with this item along with camber plates as the only upgrade?

What would my otherwise stock e90 M3 feel like on track?

Will it help with over edge tire wear?

thanks.

I have done most mods on my track car one-by-one so I could feel the net results on track. Since it was the first car I ever modded and tracked, I wanted to feel the results of each change. Now, 4+ years and 100 track days later, the car is a gutted, caged, dedicated track car, and I'm glad I did the mods slowly. The journey has been fun.

The mods you're asking about can help manage tire wear. And they will also change the character/feel of the car a bit.

Camber plates, if they are set to maximum camber, which is generally around -4º, can help manage tire edge wear. The change you will feel is a more crisp, lively, perhaps even slightly edgy, initial turn-in. Ultimately, the car will be more responsive to steering input. In theory, high negative camber can reduce braking power since the tires are not as flat on the track surface, but I have never known this to be a problem. One other consideration: running with -4º camber on the street will absolutely trash the inside edges of your tires long before the rest of the tire is done. Running square tires (same size on all four corners) and rotating them around the car, along with the camber seems to keep tires alive pretty well, but this requires an alternate set of wheels.

The sway bar can also help a bit with edge wear by helping the car not lean as much during turns. It can also help reduce the time it takes for the car's weight to transition in corners. This seems most noticeable in corners that require multiple weight transitions---where you enter on a right turn, and then have to quickly make a left turn. What you will feel is that the car feels a little "tighter" and doesn't seem to slop from side-to-side as much. I had the opportunity to switch say bars in the middle of a track day. I drove the stock one in the morning, and then we switched to an aftermarket sway bar and put it to maximum stiffness. It's not very noticeable until you have to do some quick left-right turns and you subtly notice that the car stays a bit flatter than you remember, meaning it doesn't lean quite as much. The side effects of using a stiff sway bar is that it can induce some understeer. Also, since you're connecting the two dampers together more directly, you reduce the suspension's ability to have each corner deal as independently with the unique surface features that it's encountering.

However, after all this------if you really are running stock, meaning you are running stock tires like Pilot Super Sports, and stock brake fluid, you will trash the tires on track regardless of these mods. Pilot Super Sports are not track tires. Anyone who does a full track day on Pilot Super Sports has bands of melted rubber running along the tire. This ruins them in general after a single day. And the stock brake fluid really isn't up to the task of hitting the track. If you have the desire to track your M3----and you seem to, given the interest in these mods----I would actually start with an alternate set of square rims with dedicated tires like Hankook R-S3 or Yokohama AD-08, quality brake fluid, better brake pads, and you could do the camber plates to help save the edges. Forget the sway bar initially.

[gan1hck]

Sorry...more info.

Probably 70+ track days...logged around 5,000 track miles on my car.

Advanced/Instructor group in the clubs that I drive in.

Camber plates -3

Square set up ....Nitto NT01 is what I finally settled on....tried just about everything else.

Castrol SRF ...PFC 08 with DD rotors in front.

Looking to improve that last second or so of lap time....and maybe get better tire wear...

I hate having to flip the tires on the wheels....was wondering if the H&R Sways would help...and also how it would affect handling...I guess you answered that.

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by gan1hck

Sorry...more info.

Probably 70+ track days...logged around 5,000 track miles on my car.

Advanced/Instructor group in the clubs that I drive in.

Camber plates -3

Square set up ....Nitto NT01 is what I finally settled on....tried just about everything else.

Castrol SRF ...PFC 08 with DD rotors in front.

Looking to improve that last second or so of lap time....and maybe get better tire wear...

I hate having to flip the tires on the wheels....was wondering if the H&R Sways would help...and also how it would affect handling...I guess you answered that.

Wait a minute…...70 track days plus other mods……haha! I didn't see that coming. You said an "otherwise stock E90 M3"…..I thought I was talking to a dude who had never tracked!

Anyway, here's what I used to do when my car did both street and track duty. I had the car aligned with MAX camber in place----just slam those bad boys all the way in. I didn't even care what the number was. You should be able to get more than -3º. I just wanted the max for edge preservation. Then, when I wanted to drive the car on the streets, I would go to minimum possible camber on those plates. (People would say, "well what about the toe on the streets?" My answer: Who cares what the toe setting is on the street. Anyway I had it measured, toe changed by like .02 from max to min camber change…..no big deal) That really saved the street tires. And honestly, who really cares what the camber is on the street if you track the car? Even at min, it was still around -2º which is close to stock camber. So, I would drive around town and up to the track on street tires and minimum camber. I would bring 2 floor jacks with me and at the track, I would adjust camber back to Maximum camber for track driving. (Unfortunately, you can't switch to max camber with only one floor jack. It requires both front wheels in the air at the same time.) I would drive the track day, and then at the end, I would switch back to minimum camber when putting the street tires back on. (I guess you could do the camber at home right before leaving for the track, but I'd still be putting 260 miles on my street tires with max camber every time I went to the track.)

If I truly want max life from my tires, I still flip rubber on rims. There's just no way around it with these cars……they're just heavy and they abuse outer edges.

The sway bar may help a little bit more with your lap time, but you will face the possibility of some understeer. I did run a tad (less than a second) faster after it went on that day we swapped it on at Buttonwillow. Was it the sway bar? Who knows…..Everyone else that day got slower as it got hotter, but I got a bit faster---even with the hotter temps. If anything, I believe it's the more efficient weight transition that helps---and again, it's subtle. It just feels------uhhhh----tighter, less "sloppy". Tire edge wear will only be minimally different with the sway bar. Let's put it this way----for me, there were no miraculous changes in edge wear when the sway bar went on. I corded an edge of a BF Goodrich R1S a few weeks ago after only 11 heat cycles…..the rest of the tire was fine. But that's what still happens when the tire is subjected to angled bowls, lonnnng abusive sweepers like at Big Willow and Nascar ovals like at Auto Club Speedway……

One other note: As I've been flipping rubber on rims, I've been finding that I need to monitor the inside edge (that used to be the outside edge) because that edge sometimes wears a bit funky once flipped. My friend and I have both found corded inside edges after flipping. Anyway, you may already know that, but I figured it's worth mentioning.

[gan1hck]

haha...ok...otherwise "mostly" stock e90 m3

That's exactly what I do with my camber plates.

However, with the struts pushed all the way in, I get only -3.

I'm with you in regards to the lap times....so many variables every time you go out for a session.

However, thank you for the feedback on tirewear...I was hoping for a magic bullet, but maybe I just need a lighter car.

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by gan1hck

haha...ok...otherwise "mostly" stock e90 m3

That's exactly what I do with my camber plates.

However, with the struts pushed all the way in, I get only -3.

I'm with you in regards to the lap times....so many variables every time you go out for a session.

However, thank you for the feedback on tirewear...I was hoping for a magic bullet, but maybe I just need a lighter car.

Weight, aero and sticky tires----ah yes, the trifecta that will send lap times plummeting. If you don't want another car, and you're willing to mess around with this one, gutting can lose a lot of weight out of an E90. My E90 lost 440 lbs after the gutting even with a full cage in there. BUUUT the weight balance of the car was COMPLETELY thrown off since most of the weight was taken out of the rear. It was super tail happy. So-----here ya go down the slippery slope----aero can fix it! Actually, aero really is amazing on the E90 M3. It does wonders.

If you're curious, I have a build thread going where I have documented my experiences along the way with all of this stuff: http://www.m3post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1158445

Anyway, good luck.

[gan1hck]

Thx!