You could, but I can't see you would really want to do this.

You really want the car to be symmetrical around the centreline.  3" toe out on one side with 2 15/16" one the other does not really equal 1/16" Toe in... (well it does... but I wouldn't like to drive it).

The rears are quite easy to play with.  You only need a bit of flat floor, a tape measure and a plumb bob ... and maybe a felt tip pen...

Cheers, Ian

So if I figure out the camber and toe and I shim it and file it can I do just one side?? Just to even them out. 

And I’ve always driven my mini barefoot because if I put on shoes I’m not accurate enough with my feet. Even these so-called racing shoes don’t help.

Please don't hold me to be "The Guy" for suspension tweeks. I'm more like "Joe Average" and can only relate what advice I've heeded and what worked for me.

All I can say it all is 100% your preference, once you've got a basic setting. It becomes a land of diminishing returns or "marginal gains" .

I started with the Keith Calver articles and followed his numbers, and it made a huge difference. The BeanCar had crazy mis-matched geometry from the get-go and it would take right hand turns GREAT and left hand turns it would feel like it wanted to roll over at the back end. Turns out I had a lot of toe-in and positive camber on the right rear, and the right rear was lower than the left rear. Makes sense in hindsight.

Oh, that brings up "Corner weighting" which I have absolutely ZERO input to offer. I surmise that's what hi-los can help you set up and I suspect works off the principle that a level car by measuring tape is not necessarily a balanced car for corner-weighting. Again, I've never ever played with corner weighting.

Another anecdote that relates to CrazyMike and his suspension geometry preferences:

My 3rd Lemons race, and the first one where CrazyMike actually drove in it, was also the 3rd time our Lemons mini was used. First time was at Buttonwillow with 6 newbies, 2nd time was at Sonoma and was 100% driven by the Racines (complete opposite side of the spectrum), and 3rd time was at Thunderhill.  CrazyMike drove down one weekend (Sacramento to SanDiego ) to help with prepping the mini after the Racines had driven the snot out of it and had won Class C in a 998cc motor.

For the first 2 races, Larry Cox (Heritage Garage) had come down and very-precisely set the alignment on the Lemons mini to something akin to what Calver recommended. We did not use a swaybar for those first two races.

For the 3rd race, CrazyMike brought down a swaybar setup that he had laying around from some older race mini. So we mounted the swaybar to use at the Thunderhill race. The 4 team members were Josh S of Yoshifab fame, Larry Cox of Heritage Garage, CrazyMike of CrazyMikeness, and me.

Josh went out and looped it on the very first lap. First black flag of the race and we switched drivers. Second driver I believe was Larry, and before long HE looped it and we earned our second black flag and were forced to do a penalty (I recall it was the Bart Simpson and we had to write on the car 100 times that the mini doesn't handle as well as we think it does, or something like that). 3rd driver out was CrazyMike and... you guessed it... after a period of time HE looped it. 3rd black flag penalty in 1 day and a mandatory 2 hour time out. I went out after the penalty was served, knowing full well if we got a 4th black flag in one day we would be parked for the rest of the weekend. I go out and the car is loose but I don't spin and I finish my stint with zero black flags. Mind you, I was complaining about the alignment since Larry spun and I wanted the swaybar off. In fact, Jay Lamm was saying after our 2nd flag "I don't know what you guys did that was different from the last couple of times this thing has been out, but maybe you should think about undoing whatever it is that you did." CrazyMike was committed to the bar and was tweeking right front toe and talking this and that and I was bowing to his alignment superiority because 1) it was his swaybar and 2) Like I said, the guy can drive the rubber of anyone's car. He set FTD at MMW in a car he had NEVER EVER before driven on a course he had NEVER EVER driven (but he designed/laid out). He beat out all the full race spec cars with sticky tires, The Racines, the supercharged A-series cars, the Vtec cars... all in an early 1275 SPI on street tires but with Sracer springs and swaybars that was owned by Graham who said at the end of the day and prior to picking up the cones: 'CrazyMike, take a spin in this.' BOOM, had FTD by a COUPLE OF SECONDS! He did 3 runs and improved it every time, all 3 of his times were faster than the previous FTD. Oh, and he does it barefoot.  Anyway, makes sense why I was listening to CrazyMike.

Back to the Thill story:

Josh goes out for his second stint of the day, and...  you guessed it... he loops it. 4th flag for one day. We're done-zo.  Jay Lamm comes over and admonishes us and says We're parked. Done. And he's steaming. We decide to hang out and spectate at least for day 2. End of Day 1 Jay comes over and says, "I'm going to let you guys start tomorrow. But ONLY because you brought the Citroen to the last race. But that's it, we're even, now. No more favors. Don't F- this up."

So I made an executive decision: While CrazyMike is a guru of autocross and perhaps alignment, I was the team craptain (sic) and said, "We're putting it back to the alignment that I know works and taking off that damned swaybar." Off came the bar, and Larry helped me get the alignment back to what it was the previous two events, and we drove all day Sunday with no more looping and zero black flags.


Aside from increasing the camber a little on the front (about 2 - 2 1/2 degrees negative) and rear (1 full degree negative) to account for more even tire wear, the alignment hasn't changed over the 10 years since. Graham Reid suggested I try dialing in more caster rather than increasing the camber, but I have never done that. And the Lemons mini doesn't really come out much if at all anymore. I had it at MMW in San Diego for people to autocross (with an 850 motor and a 4.1 diff!), but that's really it.

And some point, you want a car that anyone can drive and is safest in all conditions: That's sorta what stock geometry is for. Then, beyond that, you can start tweeking it to suit what YOU want.

Jay Leno drove my Hyundai Accent at the Sonoma Lemons race in March 2019 and kept complaining about the tires and the lack of grip. He ran into the tire wall and even hit a corvair (I only found that out after the show made it to air in Sept 2019). When he got out of the car and I saw the front end damage from him hitting the wall and I said wtf, he responded with something like "Well, if you didn't have 100year old tires on it and it had some suspension on it..." to which I replied "Well, you can try to drive the car that you WANT it to be, or you can just drive the car that you HAVE. I don't build $500 dreamcars-" which he interrupted to say, "You don't have to tell ME, that's OBVIOUS!"

But that's what I tell drivers who come run LeMons with me: Don't drive this as the car you WANT it to be, drive this as the car that is IS.

When it's YOUR car, ttf, you can MAKE it to what YOU want it to be.

Sorry lack of places to go.  Truth of the matter is I’ve driven the same roads time and time again over the last 20 years. There are some off camber turns where  you can haul around and the back drifts.  This is lots of fun, and I love going into the turns and/or with people on my ass.  I think that’s what the mini is made for. Drifting, aside from others.  And every time spank says something It’s like “hey”,  this time it’s my sway bar, I have so much junk on this car I just forget. I have a friend who is trying to talk me into negative camber brackets. They could be original as they look cobbled together. I’ve always told him no but now I’m wondering if I’m doing the right thing.  So is a good amount just personal preference??

I love watching Nick Swift and his colleagues at Goodwood, drifting through Madgwick corner at @ 85 MPH [link]. Alas, my spirited driving is confined to windy mountain roads and a nearby go-kart track. At the track, my entry speed at the sweepers is 55 MPH, with an exit speed around 35 MPH. Not exactly drifting velocity.

The rear wheels are set at 0.26° of toe-in, 0.5° negative camber and I have a rear sway bar. When my rear-end does break loose, it hops and skips and allows the car to rotate around the turn. It seems to work, but it's not pretty.

When I'm carving a turn in the mountains and my approach is a little too hot, as Spank said, the last thing I want is lift-peddle oversteer. It's a long way down to the bottom of the canyon.

Here's another good one. [link]

It depends on what YOU want. You can dial it in to whatever it is that suits your driving style as well as the reason you are driving it and how sticky the tires are that you are using.

Mike Kimbal aka CrazyMike likes a VERY loose car, but he can drive the rubber off of anyone's car in an autocross regardless of the setup. I've heard people hop out of his track car and one said "the most dangerous, slippery thing I've ever driven in my life. I never want to get back in it" and I've heard the very next person hop out and claim "It's bloody fantastic! I could point it anywhere I wanted to go and it behaved as if it were reading my thoughts!"

I've driven my same street car (the BeanCar that I started my mini adventures with) with the 100% stock suspension and skinny steel wheels, with fixed 1.5 bottom arms and 5" wide rims with 145 tires, with 165 tires, with 4.5" and 165 tires, fully adjustable suspension, minispares "street" rear swaybar, the tubular adjustable rear swaybar. Toe in on the rear, toe OUT on the rear no swaybar, Toe OUT on the rear WITH swaybar (Yikes!) , Zero toe on the rear WITH swaybar, and so on.

With a 998 engine and in MiniMeet autocross events and even for fun street driving, I liked 1/16 toe OUT on the rear, no swaybar. It worked well to get the back end to help point the car-- or as I described it "lift off throttle and oversteer" and it happens at a lower speeds and the 998 engine can control it and help pull it out pretty well and when my foot is on the gas the car is "hooked" or carving the turn using tire grip. With toe out PLUS a rear swaybar, the oversteer was VERY abrupt and without warning and the 998 couldn't correct it /pull it out in time to make me feel good about it. Zero toe at the rear plus the tubular rear swaybar does the same as the toe-out, no-swaybar but is better for HOLDING that drift in a long radius turn and at higher than autocross speeds, especially with a limited slip diff. This is a good setup for track day driving where you can use every inch of the track approaching freeway speeds.

Most of us won't or SHOULDN'T really experience what it's like to "drift" a mini at higher speeds on the street. Totally not advised. Doing it on a closed course where you can work your way up to it, know what the corner is like just moments before when you last went through it is totally different than approaching a familiar but "current conditions unknown" corner. So like others have said, setting your car up to corner like the "Racers" or whatever probably isn't the money best spent for someone just looking to have a fun-handling car on the street.

I can't say I can offer you a good description of what works for higher speeds and sticky tires such as hoosiers or a032r. I've never driven on them in my own car, and I only drove on race slicks once and that was on someone else's car in an autocross.

Observations regarding the importance of suspension tuning:

Aside from a reliable motor, and brakes capable of safely stopping my vehicle, proper suspension set-up has been the single most crucial element in making my Mini an enjoyable car to drive. I’m not talking about shaving a couple of tenths off my lap times, I’m talking about a street car that feels right; a steering wheel that I can let go of on the highway for 5 - 7 seconds without ending up in a ditch, a steering wheel that transmits the road surface and crown angle without being yanked out of my hands, a car that turns in and exits a corner in a predictable fashion, a ride that is firm and flat without loosening the fillings in my teeth when I run over a tar strip. These are the things that put a smile on my face and make me think all is right with the world.

When I borrow my son-in-law’s pickup truck for a trip to the dump, I have to endure a steering wheel with 90° of slop and a white-knuckle experience every time I go around a corner or hit the brakes. I don’t care. I don’t expect it to be a pleasurable experience, I’m going to the dump. A weekend romp in the Mini is another matter.

My advice to the new Mini owner would be to put the motor and brakes in good working order and then spend your money and effort on the suspension. The paint, the interior, the cool-sounding exhaust, and most everything else can wait. If your initial driving experience isn’t enjoyable, you’ll be much less likely to follow through with your restoration. 

Start with adjustable bottom arms and heavy-duty adjustable tie-rods. Exchange your rotten rubber bushings for polyurethane. Make sure your ball joints are properly shimmed. Check for excessive wear on the steering rack. You may have to freshen-up your wheel bearings. If you still have too much play in the front wheels, and the ball joints and bearings are in good order, consider new front hubs. If you have more than 10k miles on your shock absorbers, chuck ‘em and get new ones, preferably adjustable. Hi-lows, definitely. New cones (or springs) if your budget allows. Experiment with tire pressure—try 26 psi (front) & 24 psi (rear) for starters. You should consider these items as a starting point in getting your suspension in order. 

A word about alignment. Having a front-end shop do your initial alignment is not a bad idea. If you have hi-lows, make sure you have your ride height where you want it before bringing your car in. Instruct the shop to follow the factory recommendations for toe, caster, and camber. Then, purchase toe plates and a castor/camber gauge. These can be had for about the price of a single alignment job. As your knowledge and expectations grow, you’ll want to do some fine-tuning yourself. Tires showing wear on the outside? Add a few extra degrees of negative camber. Car feeling a bit squirrelly on the freeway? Add a few extra degrees of caster. Do you break into a sweat when parallel parking? You went overboard on the caster; back it off a bit. Excessive torque steer? Experiment with your toe settings. And remember, each caster/camber/toe adjustment you make (including ride height) changes the other settings. That’s why having toe plates and a caster/camber gauge is a good investment. You can’t go running back to the alignment shop every 2 weeks. 

These old and cheaply made automobiles require a lot of care and attention if they are expected to be enjoyed at the highest level. On the other hand, if your expectations are no greater than mine when I’m headed to the dump, well, lucky you—you’ve just saved yourself a considerable amount of time, money, and effort. But, I think you’re missing the point.

Question; I thought the rear was supposed to “slide out” when your in hard turns where it just follows the front wheels around the corner??  (I hope that was clear)

Agree. I'm disappointed in the quality of the aftermarket brackets. Wish I would have thought about shimming the OEM brackets. Good explanation on the difference in front vs. rear alignment. 

I've installed 4 different adjustable rear camber/toe brackets... ALL of them have been crap. I've broken 3 of them so far, granted the breakages have been on "track" cars, but with street tires (non-sticky tires).

2 different ones have required significant modification (grinding) of either the bracket itselt, the swingarm casting, or both in order to get the alignment correct/balanced.

What I've determined is the metal on the stock brackets is FAR superior to what is used in this aftermarket adjustable stuff and you are much better off shimming the brackets away from the subframe to get the toe you want (they all likely have too much rear toe) and then you can file the hole on the stock bracket upwards to move the swingarm pivot shaft upwards to get the camber you want. The good news about doing the back is the car height doesn't really change the toe and camber settings to any real significance, and you don't really have to spiral your way to your final setting because one doesn't really impact the other. It'll just take a LOT of mounting, dismounting, mounting, dismounting to get the filing done and checked repeatedly.

Fixing your front alignment will actually change the way the car feels in your hands. It's immediate. Adding the rear alignment will change the way the car feels in your seat. It my experience, it aids in the car's "taking a set" and helps with confidence in longer-duration maneuvers. It can be the difference between your car pushing /plowing or having the ass end helping the car to carve the turn.

Its worth getting a wheel alignment done.  Even though they can only set the front toe they should be able to provide a report of all the other angles so you can see where you stand.

Be aware that Minis are some what flexible so near enough is good enough.
Q
cheers,Ian 

Exactly. The best use of adjustable suspension components; front or rear, is the ability to dial-in equal side-to-side settings, whatever setting you may choose. 

At the back they're called negative camber brackets (for the trailing arms). For an ordinary driver they won't make any difference. If you want to seem like a boy racer and insist on having negative camber, you can save some money by filing the hole in the existing brackets into a slot. This will give you  +- 1 degree of negative camber over the existing camber which may or may not result in actual negative camber. The trouble is Minis are so poorly made you never know what the camber is and it is probably different on either side. 

How important are the Adjustable rear negative camber arms?? This is for 64 Morriss Cooper. this is a strictly road car. I don’t drive that much, last year I drove 1000 miles or a few less. I don’t haul ass anymore now I drive pretty safely with only a few outrageous moves. Thoughts??