Looking to improve the all ready stellar handling of my GP. Did I read correctly that camber plates will help protect the strut towers from "mushrooming"/damage? The GP seems to find plenty of pot holes here in the midwest.

Could anyone recommend a brand of high quality camber plates?

Any insight or perspective on how adding camber plates will change the dynamics of the GP is appreciated.

Thanks,
Jim

 

Jim
Camber plates are a good mod for a GP or any MINI if you like going around corners faster. They will give you more contact patch of the tires when cornering. They will not do anything for straight line running other than to wear your tires slightly more on the inside. If you corner hard or use your car for some track days it will help to even out your tire wear as you will be wearing the tires more on the outside with stock suspension. The newer MINI'S have some ribs inside the fender strut mounts that may limit the amount of negative camber that you can achieve with stock springs. If you ever plan to go with coilovers with 2 1/2' springs you will be able to get more negative camber without that being a problem. Some people have to massage those ribs a little to be able to use -1.25 fixed plates, some don't. It depends on your particular car and how the tolerances came from the factory. Also by using fixed plates you will not have any adjustment and may have a disparity between left and right camber. Again it depends how your car came from the factory and is probably something that you may not notice, especially on the street. If you have done an alignment first you may know the difference you now have between left and right. If the fixed plates are made correctly you will be adding -1.25 camber to what you currently have now. That should be somewhere between 0 degrees and -.75. So if you start with -.75 and you add the -1.25 plates you should end up with -2.0 degrees. The majority of street driven MINI'S here seem to suggest going with around -2.0 camber up front and -1 to -1.5 in the rear. Toe settings are mostly set at 0 front and rear to a smidgeon toe in for better staight line tracking. You may or may not be able to get those rear camber settings with the limited adjustment found on the '05 & '06's. If not you would be able to add rear controll arms to achieve that. One thing that is important when you are looking at people's alignment specs is how the alignment was performed. At a MINI dealer they have a spring height test that they set before the alignment is done. What they are doing is adding weight to your car to get to a specific spring height measurement so that from one alignment to the next they have a consistant starting point. Measurements, such as toe and especially rear camber will change depending on how much weight is in the car. Things to consider is how much do you weigh and how much fuel is in the car. I prefer to be sitting in the driver seat with a 1/2 tank of fuel during an alignment as that is the way I will be driving down the road most of the time. Most independant alignment shops do not weight the car that I know of so the specs will be different. I suggest you find a good alignment shop that would allow you to sit in the car at alignment time.
I have just recieved a set of fixed -1.25 plates from Ireland Eng which I will be installing as soon as the weather gets a little warmer. My GP is off the road for the winter and I would not be able to give you any reports until spring.
I have had an alignment done as mine was off when I picked up my GP. Currently I have -.75 front camber left and right. I guess I am one of the luckey ones to have like camber on both sides. So if all goes well I should end up with -2.0 both sides. I thought long and hard before making a decision on what plates to buy and wether or not to go with adjustables. Some of the things I considered was ride quality, ride height, and NVH. The Ireland plates use the same type of bearing (from BMW) which is set in urethane. Reports that others have made is that they do not induce any NVH and keep the ride height the same . I could never see myself wanting to lower the GP anymore that it is currently and I am very happy with the JCW springs and struts. Being that I was luckey enough to get a car with -.75 camber left and right my thoughts were that the fixed plates would be just right. If I had a greater disparity my decision might have changed. Also the adjustable plates seem to add a little NVH or ride height depending on which ones you choose.
Lastly, yes any camber plate will give you added protection from mushrooming and is probably the best way to help prevent this.
Sorry for being so long winded, Steve

 

I just bought a 2005 s and it has camber plates, but the added support that has been added limits the travel so they are not extremely useful on my 05. You might want to investigate this before you spend the cash.

 

Thanks for all the great points and very thorough explanation!

 

I installed H-Sport adjustable camber plates (new design) on my 2003 MCS and noticed an improvement in handling. I removed the camber plates from my 2003 MCS and plan to install them on my GP. Other than a handling improvement, two of the main reasons I installed the H-Sport camber plates was to correct mushroomed strut towers and torn rubber strut bushing/bearings. I thought about the fixed plates but was concerned that the rubber bushing would tear like the stock bushing and the fixed camber angle would not be what I wanted (too little or too much) or would be uneven side to side. I live in California (not too many pot holes but railroad crossings) and was a little surprised that my towers mushroomed and the bushings were tearing with about 40,000 miles on the vehicle. My car was lowered with stock shocks.

The H-Sport plates do a great job of re-enforcing the strut tower. The solid bearings do add a little NVH but will not tear and are replaceable. The H-Sport plates also do not change the ride height. I plan to pound-in the rib to gain clearance for about -2.1 degrees. At the same time, I will install H&R springs, to lower the GP a little, and will use the stock shocks. It will be interesting to see what rear camber I can adjust to after lowering the GP. I would like to have about -1.5 degrees in the rear. I hope I can adjust to that without using aftermarket adjustable control arms.