Lotus Elise Front Camber Adjustment
Those of us that track the car really focus on the handling aspects of the car. By introducing more negative camber (camber is the list of the wheels. Negative is when the tops are closer to each other than the bottoms) we get more contact patch in the corners which gives more grip which improves handling which allows great corner exit speed which means faster speeds down the striaghts which in turn results in faster lap times.
It has the added benefit of increasing tire life for tracked cars because it spreads the wear over the entire surface of the tire rather than allowing the wear to occur mostly on the outside edges.
Socket with an allen head tip on a 3/8 drive ratchet with a longish handle. The rear bolt has to come out all the way and the front can just be loosened when playing around Since the shims have a through hole in the back but a slide out on the front. Loctite is important here when you wrap things up.
Up front my car has one 3 mm thick shim, one 1 mm thick shim and one 1 mm thick shim / ABS bracket. So that is 5 mm of shims. Looks like I should be able to hit in the vicinity of -1.4 to -1.7 maxed out.
Warning: if you are removing shims, make sure to remove each bolt, clean, use medium strength thread locker, and torque to proper settings.
I’ve seen talk of “oh, just loosen the bolts, you only need to remove the rear bolt because the shim is slotted in front.” WRONG! Once a bolt is loosened, the bond of the thread locker has been destroyed. The thread locker must be re-applied after the bolt has been cleaned, and the bolt must be re torqued. Skipping this step is asking for disaster.
There are two variants of the bolts: one was a grade 8.x and the other a grade 9.x. Depending on which bolts you have, the torque requirement is different. Make sure you use the correct torque! This is serious business.
Blue loctite when they refasten!