I'm really surprised none of the vendors in this thread, in the interest of your safety, pointed out that looks are definitely NOT a good reason to adjust camber.

I have read of a few cases where after suspension work was done and performance springs were installed that rear camber was excessive. This would indicate that either there is a problem with the installation or the camber was thrown way off and not corrected. Have you had an alignment to see where it's at since installing the springs? It should be around or slightly more negative than stock with the springs. If it's more than around -2 degrees then it wasn't adjusted properly. MINI spec's higher rear camber to keep the car from spinning around during hard braking and cornering at the same time. If you lower it so it looks straight, you may find the back end coming out on you at the wrong time.

The outside wear on your front tires is from the lack of negative camber there. during hard cornering the weight of the car is mostly on the outside of the tire, which causes wear into the side walls and the premature demise of your tires. You can offset this slightly by adjusting the strut towers inwards. They have slots where the bolts are. This will give you a small amount of negative camber (still much less than the rear though). A quick search for front camber adjustment on an R56 will get you to a thread explaining how to do it. You can also try increasing your front tire pressure slightly to reduce the flex that is causing the side walls to rub the ground. You can figure out the optimal tire pressure by rubbing chalk on the tire from the flat surface down the side. Drive it like you usually do around some faster corners for maybe 10 minutes, then stop and see how far down the side the chalk was erased.

For my 07 R56S MINI recommends a tire pressure of 33 PSI front and back. I find that 36 PSI front and back is much better for tire wear on the street, and on autocross days, anything less than 40 PSI in front and 38 PSI in the rear causes excessive wear on the outside of the tire as well. Your optimal settings will vary depending on year, suspension setup, and the tires you are running.

 

^i don't know if you jjust wanted to go on a rant, or what...

I don't think anyone mentioned wanting to reduce camber because of looks. The only time it was mentioned was for when lowering. You lower the car, and the camber gets crazy in the rear to the point that you excessively wear out the tires. Yes, you can adjust close to stock specs with <1" drop, but you have to align by adjusting the subframe; that's not something you can adjust back for a track day.

Also, the RCA's are to correct rear camber, how did front camber come into play?


anyway, just ordered a set. I will be switching to coilovers soon(summer/winter ride heights) so I will need a bit more adjustability.

 

This thread just stepped into the "WTH?" realm.

 

these two. sorry for the confusion. No rant intended, just a little education

 

FWIW, on my R53 I recently installed the TSW V3 springs with the settled-in drop of ~7/8" in the rear. With my adjustable OEM lower rear control arms the camber was able to be adjusted back to an 'in spec' condition of -1.5deg as reported by Rally Stance so getting the new arms is not required for a facelift Gen1 or a Gen2 car which all have the adjustable lower rear control arms, as long as the drop is not too excessive. For my 7/8" drop all of the adjustment had to be used to bring the camber back to -1.5 deg, I would expect the same thing for a Gen 2.

 

I adjust my camber for looks/stance.

Glad it worked out for you.

 

gotcha, i didn't see those posts.

I'm just happy about the adjustability. I'll be switching back and forth from slammed in the summer to a pretty high, maybe higher then stock height, in the winters to help me get around in the snow we get in the mountains here. That large of a height adjustment twice a year will require adjustment of the camber. Looking into swaybar endlinks as well for the same reason.

From what I've heard from my local shop, any drop less then 1" can be put back close to spec with the stock arms. Anything more requires the sub-frame be aligned, which adds cost. For springs, you probably don't need them. I'd recommend them for anyone with coilovers though.

 

^^^ why would a drop of more than an inch require the subframe to be re-aligned?

 

Agree with you Rally, if the above quote is changed:
from..... 'Anything more requires the sub-frame be aligned'

to...... 'Anything more requires aftermarket lower rear control arms, like the TSW product, to bring the rear camber back into an OEM spec condition'

Then it is OK, but do not have to get the sub-frame realigned.

 

well, not "aligned" per say, but if you loosen the rear subframe, there's some play. you can adjust your camber by moving the subframe a bit.

that probably throws some other stuff outta wack though.

and the reason why more then 1" is they believe 1" of drop is about all the stock rear control arms can handle.

 

just got mine in, and jeeze these ARE beefy.

 

Yes, they are beefy (read: really heavy compared to most others) and they're made in China. Regardless, I installed them.

Unfortunately, the "Made in China" logo is UNDER the clear coat so there's no way to remove it. On the other hand, they spray over the Texas Speedwerks sticker as well.. one of mine was peeling off so I had to remove it. Guess what? Now I have rectangular patches with no clear coat where the TSW stickers were.

/rant

 

It's a very long story that I won't bore you with, but here are the important details. The only part of the arm that was made in Hong Kong which is now owned by China was the turn buckle and had Customs not "picked" our shipment for "detailed" inspection the words Made in China would have been a sticker and not engraved. Customs made TSW engrave them before releasing them.

No future part of the arm will be made in china, now that TSW as found another state side company to work with.

I've learned working with a few of my suppliers that it's very hard to get good parts made in the states that don't cost much more than those coming from over seas.

Sorry to hear about the sticker and I have reported that issue to TSW. I for one don't think they need a sticker.

I have found that you can turn the buckle and get any unwanted part of it out of site without the camber being out of whack.

They are beefy at 5 pounds each and could be used to pull a train too

 

how tight do the bolts need to be turned? getting them hand tight, the turn buckle still spins freely.

 

I found it easiest to put a wrench on both bolts and tighten them against the buckle at the same time till tight. No need to put a tool on the buckle and the buckle shouldn't turn.

 

^good call.

i'm not putting them on myself, but I will be adjusting them myself for track events.

 

Do 'em yerself, Fox. It ain't that bad. :P

 

How are these holding up collectively? They sound pretty nice.

 

the lack of jack stands, and a place to do the work is forcing me to take it somewhere. living in an apartment sucks.

 

With dozens of sets in use over many months now I have not had any customer have a single issue with them outside of the sticker and engraving above.

 

here they are... you can see how freakin beefy they are compared to the stock upper arm.

 

I just picked up a used set of these control arms for my R55. Anyone know what size bolts are holding the control arms at the subframe? Having some trouble removing them.

 

Is there any tire technology adapting negative camber street and track use ?
I love camber performances and look,how i take care my money from early
tire waste ?