I am looking to get Camber Plates for Christmas. I have a 2002 R53 MCS. My suspension is stock except for a 19mm sway bar. I am also looking to add a front strut brace.

For the Camber Plates I have been looking at 4 options and I'm wondering if anybody can offer advice on which is the best choice and why (comparing performance, features, quality, ease of installation, noise, etc.) especially since they are fairly comparable in price.

The choices are the Helix/RDR ($449), Hotchkis H-Sport ($495) , Vorschlag Competition ($440), and Ireland Engineering ($?). The Ireland's are fixed, the others are adjustable, so I am not really considering the Ireland. The Vorschlag look very interesting (see write-up and photo here: http://brrperformance.com/blog/?p=35 ) but I never heard of the brand and I'm wondering if anybody could endorse or not.

I would appreciate feedback, especially if you have experience with more than 1 brand. Thanks and Merry Christmas (or Happy Chanukah).

 

I may be missing something..but why would you want C/C plates w/o lowering the car???

 

I don't think that it's necessary to lower the car. Maybe desirable, but not necessary.

 

I just meant that theyre usually used on lowered cars to correct the geometry... they say they help mushrooming, but so do those reinforcement plates..

I was under assumption that they didnt so anything for a stock-spring/suspension car

 

LOTS of folks run camber plates on MINIs with stock ride height. I'm one of them. Anyone who loves aggressive cornering can benefit from more front camber, even if you have reasons for staying at stock height - personally, I like ground clearance for the less-than-perfect mountain roads I assault.

My only personal experience is with the Ireland fixed plates. For a street car, they're really all most folks need. Ask the guys in my club... I'm pretty aggressive. And I'm happy with the Ireland's. They are a bit more comfortable than the adjustables due to their oversized rubber bushing. You WILL inherit whatever difference in left to right camber that your car has stock... in my case, my camber is about -1.7 on one side and about -1.85 on the other, because my stock camber was off by an equal amount. In my opinion, no big deal... not anything I notice or that impacts the drivability of the car. But it drives some folks crazy that the numbers are different, even if there are no tangible side effects...

 

You don't need to lower the MINI to gain huge benefits from Camber Plates and IE also makes an Adjustable Camber plate, can be seen at http://www.autoxcooper.com/ie_suspension.html and cost much less then the others.

 

I guess the best way to answer that is as follows from M7's website:"From the factory, the MINI offers no adjustability for front wheel camber. This can be problematic for those that change their wheel and tire sizes which results in poor, uneven tire wear. Non-adjustability is also a problem for cars that take part in spirited drives or track days because of loss of grip in the front tires along with poor tire wear."

 

In my opinion, non-adjustability isn't the issue for the vast majority of drivers... insufficient negative camber is. I have no need to change my camber. Just to have more than was provided stock. The M7 pitch sells the need for *more* camber... but not the need to *change* camber on a regular basis. Hence the reason that many folks are happy with fixed camber plates.

 

Gotcha. good stuff. I guess i thought theyd have some good stock adjustment

 

Paul is right. Again. I get 10 orders for fixed for every 1 adjustable and most that do get adjustable set them and leave them. Plus for a daily driver running much more then -1.5 will kill tires faster then you can say "TireRack.com" Most of my adjustable customers are hardcore track and AutoX guys with MINI's that see the street only when headed to an event.

 

do the IE fixed plates need different ones for left or right hand drive ?

 

Nope, camber plate is a camber plate for US left-hand drivers and our Friends overseas driving on the right side of the MINI.

 

For right hand drive, you just swap and run the left camber plate on the right side and the right one on the left side.




JUST KIDDING.

 

Seeing as how we helped Vorshlag develop the MINI plates, I can vouch for them... Interesting to see that another vendor picked them up that's not really in the MINI market, but that's the way it goes!

If you want the skinny on them, let us know - it's all we run, and we sell 'em, too. They don't change ride height and are bombproof. We've know, we've tried to kill them. The original prototypes are still on my car. In our not so humble opinions, they are simply the finest available.

 

So Vorschlag plates = TSW plates?

I thought they looked pretty familiar...

 

Yup, they are one and the same... Vorshlag bought the company that originally came up with the design, along with their IP and patents. And, they're local to us and friends and fellow racers...

 

+1 for the IE fixed camber plates. They actually run a little quieter than stock, and the improvement in grip when cornering is substantial.

My tires were wearing badly on the outside quarter of the tread, due to the mountain hairpins I inhabit frequently, and they cure this issue too, along with preventing future mushrooming.

For a street-driven car, I'd steer you away from any of the adjustable plates, as you will basically pick a number and set them permanently anyway, and the number will be close to the -1.75 that you will get from the IE Fixed plates. There is no no need to transmit any more noise into your MINI, unless it is for racing, where it matters.

 

Well said.

 

I went with SPC adjustables. They don't add to the ride height, and they are a little less expensive than the Hotchkiss and Helix. I've had them for 15 months, and so far NO problems. I have them set up at -1.8 and actually the tires have been fine. I think toe can really impact wear even more than neg. camber. My toe is at 0. Best tire wear I've had in five years of ownership, including OEM.

 

I have the TSW plates. They really are great plates, very beefy, very strong. They DO add a little bit of noise...but IMHO its fairly minimal. I would tend to agree with most though to go with the non-adjustable unless you intend to track. Especially if you aren't too far off side to side

For me I'd like to run ~ 1.5 on the street and 2-2.25 on the track. But I've had a few issues with a mysterious bent suspension component. Left side plate maxes around -3 and right side maxes ~ -1.5 thus I had to limit it to -1.3 to not get binding on the inside fender...since then I've replaced the lower control arm and I believe it helped. But haven't been able to get re-aligned.

Basically, with adjustability you'll either just set it and leave it or you'll actually use it and that might be more problem then its worth.