So I traversed my way through the wonderful LA freeways today to the M7 headquarters to pick up my air plate diverter and strut tower brace. Well once I got home and started with the tower braces I noticed the significant mushrooming on my towers! I sure was shocked....took me about 20 minutes with a 2x4 and a hammer to get things back into shape. But I got the parts on....looks great and handles a lot better in the twisties too. So thanks to Peter and everybody there at M7.....you definitely got a fan of your products today. And if somebody doesn't have at least strut tower braces on their car....it's something that you should take care of, and soon in my opinion!

 

you should probably get an alignment after hammering those strut towers back into shape.

 

I put on my Craven Speed strut tower defenders today, the towers were slightly mushroomed I guess(drivers side had one bolt at an angle) but I tightened everything down and the alignement doesnt seem to be off, at least at the steering wheel. I'll live with it for now, maybe get an alignment down the road if anything feels odd. Personally, I would rather just live with it and wait until new struts are needed and do everything at once. I'll check to make sure everything hasnt loosed up in about a week, then thats the way it stays for now.

 

how much is an alignment at max? 200? how much is a set of the worst tires you can buy? 350-400? i still recommend an alignment even though your steering wheel fells ok. most places offer "lifetime" alignment policies. buy it and get an alignment anytime you want to for free.

fact: you are changing alignment angles

 

My alignment actually wasn't off after putting the strut tower brace on. Still tracks straight even during hard braking and acceleration. Even I was kind of surprised to find that was the case with it! But in reality I'm sure that the alignment IS slightly off....but not enough to warrant an alignment...IMO

 

Sure! Cater to my OCD side why dont ya! Now I will have to go get an alignment to appease my fears....

 

your alignment wont be that much off with a bent struct tower. a change in ride height could only affect the toe by less than a few degrees and that few degrees change could come from a fully loaded car.

the suspension on first gen mini is only front toe/rear camber adjustable. all you need is to get a front wheel alingment which should only cost 30-50 bucks. you could pretty much forget about the rear. set it to max negitive camber if you like that look.i crack it to max neg for street/track use for the looks and max pos (still neg but not as much) for autocross racing to get the tail to rotate. your tires would hardly wear out from neg camber because the back is so light. for the front, i'd have it set to toe out. as the front suspension compresses, both tie rods would push both knockles out so the alignment becomes straight and toe out gives you better turn-in if you into preformance driving.