I'll be adding Ireland fixed camber plates as part of a program to prevent further strut tower mushrooming. Does this hardware affect understeer tendencies?

Thx,

Alan

 

It will improve traction at the front wheels while cornering, helping to prevent the front end from "pushing" (understeering). Before I installed my coilovers (which have integrated camber plates on the front), the outside edges of my tires were always getting chewed up during autocross runs. After installing the coilovers/plates and adjusting the camber, much more of the tread stays in contact with the road while cornering.

 

that's set agressivly, back it off some while you get used to the new grip. My tire life doubled with the plates.

Best suspension mod for your car!

Matt

 

While I'm wearing both inner and outer shoulders through aggressive cornering, I'm seeing most of my wear on the INNER shoulders... what might that mean? Everything is pretty much aligned to stock spec for MCS sports suspension, a little negative camber up front, etc.

 

When Don at DMH set up my car before the track season, understeer was all but gone and the car handled neutrally. I have the adj. camber plates, rear arms, and a 19mm RSB.

mb

 

Matt,

First off, Thank you for your imput both in MC2 and NAM.

Second. What would be a good Degree of negative camber to run it the front. For a car that autox's and is a daily driver.

Thanks Dan

 

Increase your tire pressure a couple pounds and make sure your toe is
not too far from zero.
If they're still wearing more on the inner shoulders, then you need to
reduce the negative camber a little also.

 

If you can get it to -2 I think you'll be happy with it all around. I say if because I don't know if your h-sport springs will allow it - the stock springs barely allow it. At -2, my springs rub the wheel wells on tight turns.

mb

 

but I live in some wicked hills (poor, poor me). But like others have said, that's running into the limits of the bee-hive spring geometry (a little persuation wiht a hammer on the high points can get a few tenths more). If you do TONS of freeway driving, you may find that your inners still are wearing a bit.... So tune around -1.5 to -2 depending on driving mix.

The Ireland fixed plates take you to -1.75 I think, but you will also find that the car is somewhat assymetrical, with (on gen 1 new Minis) allowable specs from the factory of up to 1/2 degree mismatch side to side. Even if you don't go for more neg camber, the adjustables can dial out this miss-match.

Matt

ps, inner tire wear screams for having your toe checked. Make that your cars toe checked, like cristo said.

 

So, this is good news since I have an 18mm H&R sway bar on order for my (wife's) MCS. I didn't want to go overboard on taking out the understeer - and found a great price ($100 delivered!) on the 18mm bar. I also thought (mistakenly) that the stock MCS bar was 16mm, not 17mm, when I ordered that bar.

Thx.

Alan

 

Anyone tried one of these to adjust their own camber?

http://www.advancedracing.com/smart_camber_gauge.php

 

You arn't cornering fast enough.

 

used by many a racer. But the toe and camber couple, so if you change one, you have to change the other.

And AutoX and street are almost as far apart for specs as you could get. The only one farther would be AutoX and land speed records (O toe, 0 camber, hold on for dear life!). Because of this, any camber setting for both will be a bit off for either. AutoX could use much more, and freeway driving could use less. But not doing anything for front camber in AutoX is a sure way to chew up tires. But if you're doing it in certain classes, the camber plates aren't allowed. So read your class rules closely (this is out of my comfort zone, so I may be a bit wrong here, check in the AutoX racing forum for more exact details.)

Matt

 

I just had a pair of new front tires put on today, and got a good look at the old ones off the car. I have the Ireland fixed plates, and have -2.0 on one side and -1.9 on the other. I don't know what the toe is set at, but it's been a while since the car was aligned and I suspect it's not ideal. Most of my driving is in-town commuting and freeway.

The tires were worn pretty evenly across the tread, although noticeably more towards the insides. The inside shoulders also had an extra 3/4" "bevel" to them, but they weren't worn through to the cords or anything - and they (the entire tread) were worn quite a bit more than I had thought.

Part of the reason I had the car in the shop was because it's been feeling "wandery" lately. Niello thought that it was caused by the worn tires, and that new ones would cure it. From the tire wear and on-center behavior, though, I'm wondering if the front could use the toe pulled in a bit. Next step is to get the alignment checked and the toe adjusted.

 

but the inner wear is also an indication of too high a negative camber for freeway driving. So I guess you get to chose what you want.... Less camber (different plates, the Dinan are -.75 extra over stock, not as much as the Irelands) or some wear on the inner tread.

Matt

 

Yeah, I'm sure that the -2.0 degrees is a bit much for a daily driver that spends most of its time going straight. But, considering how much better the front stays planted when I do go out and play, and that the extra wear was fairly minor, I think I'll leave the Irelands in.

Also, I don't know what affect, if any, it might have on front tire wear, but I must be one of the last MCS owners on the planet who still has the stock rear swaybar. One of these days I'll swap in a 19 and take a bit of the burden of turning off the front tires.

 

Camber plates come in fixed and adjustable models.

For adjustable there is a range that is limited to about -0.5 to about -2.5 depending on your suspension parts.

The more negative the front camber the more you can reduce understeer.

More negative camber can-
Reduce braking traction
Reduce acceleration traction
Wear the inner edges of the front tires
May affect wandering tendency on bumps or road ridges

You can reduce understeer by
Increasing stiffness of rear sway bar (increases rear weight transfer)
Decreasing stiffness of front sway bar (decreases front weight transfer)
Reduce front toe in
Increase aerodynamic downforce on front tires
Decrease aerodynamic downforce on rear tires
Use wider front tires vs rear tires

See
http://www.rallylights.com/other/stuning.htm

 

Minihune - Thanks for the link to Susquehanna! Great tabular listing of components and effects!!

 

A couple of questions about the IE Fixed camber plates.

I guess Matt already answered this above, but will the increased camber in front reduce understeer to the point where I should reduce my rear sway bar setting? I'm thinking that it wouldn't be a bad idea, particularly with winter coming?

I'm on FSDs with stock springs, urethane in the front and rear control arm bushings, and OMP lower frame and cabrio diagonal bracing. My car measured even on camber at a recent alignment. I do a LOT of driving on twisty mountainous roads.

I've got a Mini-Madness 22mm rear sway bar, presently on middle setting. When I tried the hardest setting, the tail became too loose to suit me on public roads where there is no shoulder and a 200ft. drop if you lose it.

So do the IE Fixed plates make a significant difference in understeer, to the point where you adjusted rear suspension settings?

Also, just from their images, I can't tell if the IE fixed plates are likely to reduce mushrooming. They don't look like significantly larger area than the stock bushing carrier plates.

I've got M-M strut tower plates installed, and I'm wondering if I should keep them along with the IE Fixed plates?

Any comments from experience would be appreciated.

 

My two cents:

I have an Hsport 19mm rear swaybar (on middle setting), FSD's, M7 USS, stock springs, cabrio braces, GTT front brace, and IE fixed camber plates. In my case, the plates did NOT make the car any more prone to oversteer... they just made turn-in much more eager and precise, and increased front grip, reducing understeer up front... of course, I'm running a relatively conservative rear bar in a relatively conservative setting...

As for the anti-mushrooming impact, the plates are NOT much larger in "footprint" than the OEM plates... but they are MUCH thicker and more solid. So their benefit on mushrooming isn't spreading the load over a larger area, so much as just replacing the wimpy stamped steel stock plates with something that's much stronger and less likely to deform. I'm comfortable that they're *enough* protection... at least for me.

YMMV.

Edit: By the way, our driving styles / preferences are likely quite similar. Everything I do to my car performance-wise is to improve duty as a mountain twisty beast. Wish I got to actually use it for that every day like you...

 

That being the case, I can predict that you would almost certainly like these:
http://www.mini-madness.com/index.as...ROD&ProdID=324
and these:
http://www.mini-madness.com/index.as...ROD&ProdID=323

In both cases, they add a lot of precision without harshness, as both bushings work in rotation, not compression, so they transmit very little additional road-nasty to the car.

Does this make us soul-mates, or do we need a recommendation engine to NAM, sorta like Amazon.com?

I've also noticed in the past that the good Dr_O and I also seem to come to similar conclusions, so I guess I'll plan on relaxing the sway bar setting when the camber plates go on.

 

OldRick I'm running the IE fixed plates with a 19mm H Sport rear bar on full stiff. When the road is wet I have to be careful, because the rear will get loose if I push too hard. I will most definitely be moving my rear swaybar to its softest setting for winter driving.

 

IE fixed camber plates do have a larger surface area to spread the load,


and are more ridged by virtue of both larger area and thicker, solid steel as opposed to the stamped OEM steel on the stock guide support.


Understeer tendencies are reduced due to increased traction up front.

Negative one degree up front is enough for the majority of public road environments.

I have the same amount of camber on both sides with IE fixed plates so not all MINIs have camber disparity up front from the factory.

An alignment is required after increasing camber because toe will be affected.

 

Wow, I'm sort of surprised by the robust look in the IE plates.

Building on what Cristo wrote, toe will literally drag tires along the road...so with this picture in mind, excessive toe, in or out, with eat thru tires. By contrast, my experience with the mini is that it takes more than 2 deg neg camber to begin to cause accelerated tire wear...and I had plenty of grip with less camber...although where a tire spends most of its time is influenced by driving style and spring and dampers to some degree, which in turn affects wear.

And I too notice better tire wear with camber plates (1.5 - 1.75 deg neg) and basically stock toe.

 

Thanks for the great pictures - those are far better than IE shows on their web site, and completely assuages my concerns about their preventing mushrooming. Looks like I'll have a set of M-M strut tower reinforcement plates on the Marketplace soon...