I have a weird alignment problem and thought I'd see if anybody can shed some light on it.
I went for an alignment yesterday after swapping out my IE fixed negative camber plates out for OEM strut mounts. I haven't been to the track in a while, so I figured this would decrease the wear on the inner tire.
The problem is with the stock mounts in, my left front has -1.6 degrees of camber and my right front has 0.6 degrees of camber (positive camber)
The tech that worked on the car thinks that when I rubbed a curb a year 18 months ago that I shifted the subframe.
I'm skeptical of this for 2 reasons, one I had an alignment done after rubbing the curb and it lined up ok, Second is because it drove fine until recently when it started drifting to the right.

First I plan to look over the strut and make sure I put it back together right. And make sure the strut tops aren't mushroomed, and flatten them if possible.
After that, I'm not sure what my next step should be. The tech recommended having my car checked by a frame shop.
My other thought is I could just get adjustable camber plates so that it can be corrected. I'm not super stoked on adjustable camber plates because of the expense, and i've heard they're prone to failure and being noisy. I also don't want to add parts to fix a problem that is elsewhere.
Any thoughts or experience with similar problems?

For data, I'm attaching my 2 alignments, the most recent and the one done after the curb rub (with negative camber plates on)
I can probably find the alignment before the curb rub if it makes any difference.


Other things in the suspension that could cause it are pretty unlikely, I think. all my suspension bushings have been replaced with powerflex in the past 25k miles, as well as my inner ball joints. My outer ball joints are 50k miles old, but seem to be in good shape, no play that I can find. I've always had an M7 strut brace on it, but 127k miles on city streets hasn't been kind to the strut tops.

 

Having had my subframe out multiple times I don't see how it could shift unless you bent it when you hit the curb which is unlikely. The camber is adjustable so I'm not sure why your shop couldn't get it right.

 

Kind of my thoughts too, and honestly I’d think that I’d bend a tie rod, control arm, strut, or wheel before I could shift/bend the sub frame. Hitting the curb did get my attention, but it didn’t even scratch the wheel.

on the R53s the front camber isn’t adjustable, without adding camber plates at least.

 

Can't explain the positive camber, but I've seen a few instances now (myself and others) where the strut body becomes physically deformed within the knuckle allowing resulting in 1-2 degrees of unintended camber. I'd carefully inspect all related components, no matter how innocuous. Start with the struts.

​​​​​​Also, if you don't plan on reusing those IE plates, I'd be happy to give them a home. Lmk if you're interested in selling them.

Best of luck! I was in your situation a couple years ago.

 

Well I looked over it and didn't find anything obvious. I do kind of wonder if the struts are worn out. They're koni FSD's with almost 70,000 miles on them including probably 12-15 track days. The control arms look good, the struts look good to me, and I don't see any obvious mushrooming.

I did remember that the car fell off the jack the other day which has never happened to me before, but it fell onto a jack stand and i found a small dent in the chassis where it landed on the jack stand. It's kind of close to where the control arm bushing bracket bolts to the chassis, so I wonder if maybe that is part of the problem. I'm trying to find a frame shop near me that I can talk to at least. I'm also just tempted to put adjustable camber plates on it and call it a day. Any recommendations on adjustable camber plates? I'm kind of between vorshlag and Ireland engineering. I like that the bearing is replaceable on the IE plates, but the vorshlag plates look a bit more robust and I find fewer complaints about them, though they're twice the price of the IE plates.

 

Here’s some pics of the dent.

 

You're probably aware, however adjustable camber plates will require an alignment shop willing and able to do that with the extra steps required to dial-in the desired settings. All alignment shops near me strictly use the typical Hunter infrared gauges which would require more labor with need to place the vehicle on level surface, roll it back/forth a few times, then recheck measurements. None I contacted would do that (mine has circa 2006 Helix adjustable plates), so I ended up buying an SPC FASTRAX CAMB/CAS GAUGE 17-22" manual tool with optional accessories. That worked well enough, however I would have preferred paying a competent shop to do it once.