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I had camber plates installed last week. I'm starting out at 2.0deg neg camber on the front with a little toe out and 1.5deg neg camber on the rear with a little toe in. These plates allow for adjusting caster. Don't know what factory setting is but she's at 4.5-4.9 deg now.
Time for a followup. I have to say it hasn't gone perfectly smooth either. But after yesterday's work I believe the installation is finally trustworthy enough to auto cross with.
When I got the car back the first time not only did the front end sound loose with knocks and rattles but I noticed something off and after a quick measure found the front end 1/2-3/4" higher than the rear. What I don't know is if this was the original setup. So, after another set of spring seats, the front end was back where I thought it should be. As a side note, the shop I use is dealing directly with K-mac in Australia.
The front end is still making a rattle at this point but I decide to go ahead and modify the NM Engineering strut tie bar to accept a socket for the bottom mounted bolt vs the allen head cap screw as part of the original mounting. When I mounted the supports I found some washers where I didn't think there should be washers and removed them at assembly. The rattles disappeared but the plates would not clamp tight enough to hold their settings.
My shop consulted with K-mac and it was reasoned that some spacers were too thick which is what was discovered at disassembly. A little filing, reassembly, realignment and all seem to be working well at the moment.
Here she is with some new rubber ready to do battle this weekend.
first off, thank you for being the guinea pig in this, although i assume you didn't expect to be a guinea as one assumes that it just simply fits!
that being said, with the adjustments you've made, is K-Mac aware of this and have they made the appropriate adjustments for future buyers or are we going to have to make the same "adjustments" for them to fit.
The car felt solid and sure this past weekend at the first autocross event of the season. Just as important, the settings held. All that's needed now is a little driver confidence and dialing in the setup. I was disappointed in the tire wear and might need a little more camber and different tire pressures.
In answer to MarcoPolo's question, my shop offered this response after inquiring to them ....
"I just got off the phone with K-MAC to verify. They have updated their camber plate kits with the most recent spring seats we used. They have 2 different kits. 195416-2 is the stage 2 "street" version which is for racing and also for comfortable daily driving. and 195416-3 stage 3 is their "racing" version which has a different bearing in it that has a harder feel to it and designed strictly for racing. I hope this information is helpful."
One other item to watch out for is to make sure the spacer circled in the picture below is 0.5mm thinner than the adjustment plate.
The car felt solid and sure this past weekend at the first autocross event of the season. Just as important, the settings held. All that's needed now is a little driver confidence and dialing in the setup. I was disappointed in the tire wear and might need a little more camber and different tire pressures.
In answer to MarcoPolo's question, my shop offered this response after inquiring to them ....
"I just got off the phone with K-MAC to verify. They have updated their camber plate kits with the most recent spring seats we used. They have 2 different kits. 195416-2 is the stage 2 "street" version which is for racing and also for comfortable daily driving. and 195416-3 stage 3 is their "racing" version which has a different bearing in it that has a harder feel to it and designed strictly for racing. I hope this information is helpful."
One other item to watch out for is to make sure the spacer circled in the picture below is 0.5mm thinner than the adjustment plate.
BadakVT, you will have to ask that question to K-mac.
Bster13, I didn't do the disassembly/reassembly work so there's questions I can't answer, sorry. The car felt and sounded solid for a 2 hour drive to the event and back as well as the event itself. I've got my everyday tires back on the car and I will followup on any thing that comes up here short term. My car is no where near the settings in the post you linked to, so it's hard to say if I would encounter the same issues.
almost 2 weeks now...assume you haven't AutoX'd it since...how's it been during daily driving. any noises or anything different that may or may not concern you?
I've now completed 2 autocross events and 18 hours of interstate driving since the last alignment. Inspection this morning showed no discernible change in the settings.
There have been a few pops, creeks and rattles but at the moment I haven't any answers on where they came from. The car feels solid and surefooted. My daily tires showed a propensity to inside corner wear after a 10 hour trip but that is probably helped by the toe out settings I asked for.
I'm now considering a change to the dampers and /or springs. Does anyone have any experience or suggestions on some 3rd party items that will work with or replace the electronic dampers on our MINIs?
