Long day. It all started when I noticed the top mount cracked on the passenger side. I ordered the fixed camber plates because I am on a restrictive budget a can't do the entire suspension yet. Besides the car only has 40k on it so it seems that I should be able to get a little more out of it. I put on less that 400 miles per month including autocrossing. Anyway, I got the mounts and since all my tools are in NE and I don't have a garage I started looking for someone to install them. Two recommended shops said no and a third said sure. It will be 4 1/2 hours at $125 and no it wasn't the dealer. After thinking about it for a week I went and bought a jack and jack stands. Then I rented a spring compressor and borrowed a storage unit to work in. Using several DIY's including Blimey's "How a stud lifts a Mini". I did the job my self this weekend. I took about 4 hours to do the swap. I don't have air so for the top nut I used an old sparkplug wrench and an allen wrench. A few short lengths of pipe gave me enough leverage to get it loose.

The alignment took another four hours as I had a senior moment and forgot to consider that a 1/4" on the tie rods is considerably more at the tire. After lots of trial and error using a home made toe setup I got it to an 1/8" and the wheel is straight going down the road. I wanted a 16th but was too tired and said, close enough. It had an 8th when I started. There is noticeably more camber but I cannot check that. Trying to tag a couple photos on the end here...we'll see.

Thanks for looking...Roy

 

Good job. I noticed a big difference after I installed mine!

 

Second best mod on my MINI after the 15% pulley. Well done Hoof!

 

The next autocross is on the 17th. I am looking forward to seeing what changes.

 

Since this is where it started, I figured I would just add to this thread. Hope that is allowed...I am bored waiting for parts. I recently replaced the R105 wheels (23lbs) with a set of 15x8 Traklite Burn wheels (12.5lbs) that I bought from Good-Win Racing. I wrapped them in 225 45 Rivals. I had 10mm spacers on front and left them in until today. I jacked it up and was playing around and realized that no spacer is needed. Removing the 10mm spacer significantly reduced the poke and it looks better. I wonder what effect this will have on the torque steer that I have been noticing since installing the wheels. I have to run 5mm spacers in the rear or the wheel weights will get ripped off by the lower control arm. If I move the weights inboard they will clear but that will only leave me about 2mm clearance between the LCA and the wheel. Is that enough? Back to the waiting part...Megan Racing CO's, Wheel studs, H-Sport RSB, and rear camber adjusters all in boxes somewhere between the mainland and Hawaii...tic toc..tic toc.

 

do these camber plates essentially replace the strut mounts? im getting sick of replacing the OE mounts every year.

 

Yes they replace the strut mounts. They are a heavy duty piece, these aren't going to fail.

 

my only concern is that after installing lowering springs, it pushed to negative camber. im trying to fix that as well as find some type of quality mount.

 

Look into Vorshlag adjustable camber plates.

 

My car is lowered on JCW springs, maybe 1/2". With the IE fixed plates I have -1.8 & -1.9 front camber. My car handles like a dream & my front tires last longer that they did without the IE plates. Adjustable plates are the way to go if you find my cmaber numbers too much.