What are the options for quiet adj camber plates,not entierly happy with the ones i have,not looking at the fixed ones unless i have to i prefer to have the camber set up accurate

 

Slot the existing strut tower holes...I've thought about this...

 

If I'm not mistaken H-Sport and TSw should be the quietest but I'm not sure,a nd anyway with adj plates you're always going to get a bit of noise.

 

I'm thinking harder about it... now that my front camber is off 0.5deg left to right... with my IE fixed plates, -1.7L -2.2R.... just back from the performance alignment shop... weird - was off by 0.2deg last time, only thing that changed was my TSW springs, which about 0.1deg neg left and about 0.5deg right.... hmmm..... something is amiss...

 

All Minis come with uneven front camber. IE doesn't adjust for this when they build there fixed plates, where as they should have.

Drilling new holes can be done, but also know that one side will be spaced further from the original holes then the other side will.

 

Yeah, I know it's not even... what bugs me is that I was only off about 0.2deg before, and now it's off 0.5deg.... does this translate into a discernible handling issue? Probably not...

 

I never carried this notion beyond the level of thought...but perhaps camber is off - on purpose - to compensate for an average driver's weight...say about 170lbs. When we corner balance our cars, camber is only the same left to right with the driver sitting in the car. Perhaps we should be checking this .2-.3 degree difference against an alignment with the driver in the car.

And maybe it's off in the other direction in which case BMW shoulod be ashamed...

 

I believe it's off because of the space that the transmission mount reinforcing takes up. May have been an "uh-oh"

The difference between .2 to .5 could be little more then a setup error at the alignment shop. It's nothing.

 

Thanks Greg... that makes me feel better... I'm confident you know WAY more than me in this area.

 

Very interesting Greg...and perhaps the towers are true until the transmission load is placed on them...one or both distort a bit.

Would be an interesting excercise to lift the engine just off the mounts and measure the angle and distance between towers...

 

My alignment guy commented that, while camber wasn't even left-to-right, caster was almost exactly even, which (he said) mattered more... since you're typically turning the wheel while "using" front camber, that seems to make sense...

 

asymetric camber may show up as a little darty on bumpy roads...but as Greg pointed above, a couple of 10ths isn't that much...a few pounds of air pressure, more or less in one tire will probably be as noticable

 

Meb I like your idea to achive equal camber while being able to use the IE fixed plates,i dislike the ringing bell that the IE adj make on the rough stuff.I can see no logical reason why it would'nt work if only getting camber equal,downside is you cant fit the Strut Tower Braces back on.

 

You can if you slot both sides and keep the strut tops equidistant....

 

I don't know what brace you have, but some of those can be slotted too...though there isn't a lot of material around the holes on most braces I've seen. I currently use the H-Sport brace and there is enough material to make up a couple of degress. This brace made no difference when the car was new - fanny dyno - now with 160K miles the steering and shocks feel more snug.

 

Consider that the alignment routine specified by Mini is to add weight to the driver and passenger seat (150lbs each side) and the trunk with another ~100lbs, I don't agree that it is off to compensate.

Also, the last time I aligned the Mini (actually it was the first and only time) I sat in the driver's seat while it was on the rack w/o any weight in the passenger seat or trunk. Driver's side camber was 0.1. Passenger side was 0.9. If your above rationale were correct, my weight (185lbs) on the driver's side should have added negative camber to that corner.

My car is bone stock. I'm thinking of having another shop look at the suspension and alignment to see if they find anything off before purchasing some new suspension bits. I'm definitely getting shocks but might also get some camber plates so that we can even out alignment settings. Hopefully we don't need LCA bushings. Car has 40k miles on it now.

 

Well thatt's a good observation for sure.

 

This might be a little off the subject but I thought I would ask here anyways. I know very little about the fine details of suspension changes but have been working closely with a local BMW/MB shop to resolve and odd handling issue.

I recently installed new tires on my 2004 MCS and also IE adjustable camber plates. The car was then aligned to factory specs -0.5 camber up front and -1.3 camber in the rear. The car has H-Sport front and rear sway bars (set to thier stiffest settings), H-Sport lower control arms, H-sport lowering springs, an M7 STB, and a Mason Engineering lower front brace.

After the camber plates were installed, the car drifts in the direction of the last trun. In other words, if I turn right the car will then tend to drift right if I release the steering wheel after returning to straight. If I turn left, the car will then tend to drift left if I release the steering wheel after returning to straight. We have checked the alignment twice and even removed the struts/camber plates to make sure everything was properly installed and it looks fine. The car did not drive like this before the adjustable camber plates were installed.

Has anyone come across anything like this after installing adjustable camber plates? Should I try "softening" the sway bar settings?

Any help is greatly apprecaited!

 

Your camber setting isn't far off from stock at .5 degree neg...a couple of degrees neg can cause some wandering and is one of the reasons a little more caster is added.

Are the strut bearings in good shape? Are the lower control arm bushings in good shape? and how about the front swaybar endlinks...if one of these binds up it might cause the condition you describe; these are attached directly to the strut body may influence return to center.

I'll assume your SAI is correct...there are other possibilities as well.

Also, check to make sure your power steering pump is working correctly. I recently went thru a lot of steering issues that were directly related to the pump..it is a fly-by-wire system so it can affect feel among other things...enough fluid in the PS tank? Trying flushing the fluid - add new. I would actually begin here since what you describe is the same both left and right...my other suggestions above assume there is fault on both sides of the car and that is unlikely.

 

Thaks for the quick response.

The strut bearings (within the adjustable camber plates I assume you mean) are new and feel buttery smooth in the hand and the wheels turn left/right with no resistance while the car is up on the alignment rack (weighted).

The control arm bushings are PowerFlex and less than 1 month old. All looks good in the sway bar drop links.

As far as the power steering pump, I really don't know how to judge "working correctly". I had my alternator go out last year and the power steering pump would not run without the alternator. I know what it's like when the power steering pump is off and I know I don't have that now. I also checked that the power steering pump fan does turn on after running the car for a couple of minutes. The fluid level in the power steering tank is OK.

I read in one of your posts, that you chased steering related issues for quite some time and the problems were solved when you replaced the pump. I am tempted to swap the pump but its not a small ticket item.

The only simptom that I am having is that the car tends to drift in the direction of the last turn. Did you experience anything like this? Any other suggestions to help determine its the pump?

Thanks again!