Allright, I have been told by a few people that in order to solve my traction and tire wear problems for autox, I need to look into getting a pair of camber plates. I have searched this forum, and only found spotty paragraphs on this subject. What I would like to know is:

1. Can I get some sort of vote on who has what plates and how they like them?

2. What sort of camber adjusment settings are people getting good results with?

3. Once a certain setting has been aligned professionally, how hard is is to switch back to a better street setting in your own garage?

I know this is a lot to ask, but bear with me here. And PLEASE DONT tell me to do a search.

Thanks,
Brian

 

this is a job for minihune

 

many people have problems with their H-sports....it suffers from the common h-sport bushing problems and some people have reported that after turning left it will bind and continue to point slightly left for some time

Ireland engineering, who makes great performance parts for minis, is creating plates which should be ready. I know people running the prototypes and they love them. They are hoping to keep them in the $200 range too

I have also heard that the Webb motorsport ones work well :smile:

hope that helps a little, i will let others who are running camber plates let you know about the other questions

 

Yea, I was shopping around and the Webbs seem to be the best deal I have seen, besides the irleland eng. you just named.

 

I'll jump in here and share my own experience if I may.
I use the Webb second generation camber plates and the Alta upper and rear control arms for the rear. I've set my front camber to about -2.5 in the front and about -1.8 in the rear. +1/8 toe in the front and 0 in the rear. I run this in everyday use in between track days with hardly a problem. Just a little bit of road wonder and that's it. Tire wear is NOT a problem at all as most might guess it might be.
Once you set your camber, your toe must be corrected. You can't really have one setting for the track and one for the street without getting the car aligned each time you switch settings. Even if you can do the alignment yourself, it's just to much to deal with.
The Webb camber plates had a problem with loose bearings, but the maker took care of mine within 74 hours. I ended up cutting away some of the towers so I could actually get to the four adjustment nuts. Randy suggest using a bent wrench, but that is in no way sufficient to get these plates tighten down. These plates do raise the ride height slightly, but it was small enough that I hardly noticed. Not sure they are better then any other plate though as once they are set, you pretty much leave them there.

My two cents .....

 

Try calling Randy Webb at Webbmotorsports.com, Eric at Helix13.com or Ryan at detroittuning.com for some advice.

1. There are various camber plates at various prices. Most of use don't settle for the least expensive Kmac plates. RDR and Webb plates are solid performers but both only adjust front camber and not caster (which is OK; more positive caster is good but not required). Alta plates may need an additional hole to be drilled for installation.

2. In the other thread I posted a sample of settings that could work for you. Truth is there is a range of settings that will work depending on your total suspension setup and style of driving. There is no one right answer. Once you set alignment you have to drive and see how you like it. All settings are a compromise in one way or another.

For example if I get good results with my alignment using PSS9 coilovers that isn't always going to work for you with eibach springs.

3. While it is possible to change settings for autocross, track and street use, when you change front camber you will be changing toe settings as well. So you'd need to mark camber settings on the camber plate and toe settings. For me that's just too complicated so I have selected one alignment setting I can live with for street use that also is OK for track and for autocross.

I can tell you that my alignment which is pretty good for autocross isn't so good (smooth) for street use. I had H-sport springs and stock front camber (firm ride) then added camber plates and the ride quality was much rougher.
Now I have coilovers to replace the H-sport springs and even with autocross alignment I can adjust dampening to soften my ride considerably. It's still not smooth enough for my wife! Hey this is a MINI not a Camry!

As you can see one upgrade causes compromises elsewhere so more changes can be needed. The stock MINI has mild negative front camber for good reason- good street handling and tire wear.

 

I'll second what Minihune has said. The H-sports are okay but with less than 10k miles the bearing cassettes needed to be replaced. I've also ruined the inside of a set of street tires in that time. And, to top it off, my Mini rides like a buckboard.

Also, forget track-side alignment changes. I don't think any of the currently available plates make this a reasonable option.

After all of the above, I still love the camber!

 

forevercornered,
I too enjoy the camber and the better performance and would not go back to stock suspension. However for a person thinking about going down this upgrade path, it is a big decision that is complex and requires a committed owner willing to do some homework and some testing to get the tuning right.

A good thing to do would be to find other MINI owners in your area that have front camber plates and or coil overs or other more aggressive lowering springs. Go for a ride and note their tires as that is part of the suspension. See what you think for smoothness and how you might judge that setup for daily driving. Afterall, for most of us, these are our daily cars and not some special track only MINI.

There are some owners that do change camber at the track but they are willing to do the adjustments and have the right know how and equiptment.

I did do this experiment once. I got new Michelin Pilot sport cups (good track lapping tire) 205/50-15 and put them on stock 15x5.5" rims. I put two on the fronts of my MCS with front camber plates (-2.3 degree front camber) and H-sport springs and another two identical wheels on the fronts of a stock MC. We both went on the track doing lapping for two 15 minute sessions. I was going faster by a few laps or roughly up to 14 miles per session.

After it was done we looked at tire wear on the two tires. We were making mostly left hand turns with essentially one high speed sweeper left, one hairpin left, one chicane left and one right and one off camber turn left.

Wear was minimal on the left front and severe on the right front outer edges.
The outer edge roughly 1/2" on the outside and inner two treads were gone, not chunked, but rubbed off and the inner edges especially the inner most edge of the MC tire was untouched. The wear on the MCS tire was moderate and on the MC tire was severe- very easy to tell which tire was which. I figure the MC went about 25 miles on the track at speeds up to 75+ mph, MCS up to 90 on the track. It's a short lap about 0.8 miles.

So you can use stock alignment but your ability to drive fast is less and your tire wear can be alot worse.

 

Does anyone have any experience with the Ground Control plates - as seen on the GRM mini?

 

I'll second what Minihune has said. The H-sports are okay but with less than 10k miles the bearing cassettes needed to be replaced. I've also ruined the inside of a set of street tires in that time. And, to top it off, my Mini rides like a buckboard.

Part of the reason, I would suspect, that the ride suffers with additional negative camber is that the damper is inlcined toward the center of the car, even more than stock. A damper set absolutley verticle is best because the pistion speed is linear. A damper inlcined will have a progressive rate to its piston speed. As the speed of the piston increases so does its damping quality which will make for a rougher ride. FYI

Jeffs, those look like some really nice camber plates!

 

I've never seen those plates before. They do look nice though! However, it appears that new mount holes are created, and the tower openning is enlarged. At least that is how it appears...

 

Now these are nice camber/caster plates.
Tony, I see the same thing, but who cares? It looks like the inside back stud is in the same location, so being that this plate looks as if it fits over that hump, I'd bet it's an easy setup. Also I agree that the center hole has been enlarged as the rise has been removed.

Any info on these????

 

[QUOTE=meb] A damper set absolutley verticle is best because the pistion speed is linear. A damper inlcined will have a progressive rate to its piston speed. As the speed of the piston increases so does its damping quality which will make for a rougher ride. FYI

QUOTE]

I'm sure this is true, however I wonder how much harder the ride is due to camber. If the strut max travel is, say, 4 inches (a made up number) and you have max camber, how much less travel would you have vertically?

The H-sports make the major difference, I would think

 

You are correct on both counts. For those that haven't seen it, the project page at the Grassroots site can be found here:
http://www.grassrootsmotorsports.com...nicoopers.html

Ground Control actually lists no products for the Mini, but historically they are years behind updating their website. It is likely, however, that the pictured piece is simply a generic 4-bolt unit that's been made to fit, especially since it was originally fitted about two years ago. This picture shows the machining necessary to get fit flush.



As you can imagine, hacking up the shock towers isn't something to be undertaken lightly. I have been meaning to call them to find out exactly what products they offer for the car, but I haven't done it yet... I'm not much of a phone person.

[edit] an added benefit of the design is you don't have the reduced shock travel present with most of the other products.

 

Thanks for the confirmation Jeff. Yeah, I'm not keen on cutting, especially in that area. And this is from a guy who has done some surgery on his MCS... Heck, even if done properly, I'd worry about weakening the integrity of that area...

I actually wanted plates that mounted from below for the perceived strength reasons that I envision. I would think that most of the forces involved, at least the harshest of ones are upward; and having it push up against the support of the tower seems to be desirable. Randy Webb mentioned that was indeed a factor in why his plates mount on the underside.

That being said, impact to ride height is the trade-off. And if accounted for with an adjustable coilover system, then some travel is sacrificed to correct things. So long as the system can account for this without issues, such as bump-stopping, then all is well.

 

You are correct and if anyone is interested this means it's not STX or STS legal, don't know about SP though.

 

So all in all, you guys would recommend this for me. The eibachs allready give me a stiff ride, but it doesnt bother me in the least. But I still have a question on the self adjustablility. If you mark the places on the camber plate from stock to track setting, what is stoping you from switching with ease? Is the toe setting not markable on the plate? Sorry for my ignorance, but I am trying to expand my understanding here.

 

I know this condition occurs but measuring the difference requires some, well, stuff I don't have. I only added it because I've read a few posts tethering additional negative camber directly to ride quality - sans springs. Reduced travel after lowering might exacerbate this condition. Practically, this is a feel thing; very tactile, very individual.

[QUOTE=Veni_Vidi_Vici]

 

Sorry to revive an old thread but I had some information about the Ground Control parts. I contacted their sales staff and they mentioned they have "race only" parts - meaning not directly bolted on and use metal bearings, etc. I am trying to get more details about the camber adjusters as I'm just not satisfied with the current offerings that are out there for the Mini. I'm hoping Ground Control has a bolt-in version that mounts from the bottom and doesn't require drilling. Only problem is they almost always require some type of aftermarket spring like a 2.5" ID coil spring so you won't be able to reuse your stock springs (which at this point, I would like to do).

My other car is a 2002 Subaru WRX (for sale BTW), and I have Ground Control top-mounted plates on that car along with a coil-over conversion kit. Ground Control makes a nice product, and IMO probably a better solution than most out there. Their original designs had strength issues, but these newer billet machined plates are beefy as hell and strong.

For those that don't know, the main reason you would want a top-mounted camber plate is to gain and/or maintain strut travel. Many bottom-mounted camber plates raise the front of the car which requires you to reduce bump travel to lower the ride height. Decreased bump travel means bottoming out, and infinite spring rate and inconsistent handling. Obviously this depends on the type of strut used as some are shortened and some have independent height and preload adjustments. In many cases, having a top-mounted plate with extra travel is just gravy because then you don't sacrifice anything and maybe gain bump travel.

Sorry for the aside...I've dealt with Subaru bump-travel issues for the past couple of years and Ground Control is the only one to fix it without running very short struts. I will post more info when I have it...

Matt

 

Thanks for the additional info Matt. Please keep us posted.

AFAIK, this is the only camber plates that mount from the top. Do all the rest, which mount from the bottom, reduce suspension travel? Or does that depend on each individual design?

 

I'm pretty happy, but measured an 8mm increase in ride height. I find this baffling as the bearing mount thingy seems much thicker than it needs to be.

I ran -2.2 camber, and had some very slight spring rubbing with H-Sport springs. Now I'm running -2.0 with Ledas, and I could go a bit more aggressive with the plates if wanted.

I agree completely that this is a must have for aggressive driving. My first track event without them trashed a set of GSG3 in two days of driving at Infineon. Tore the outer sholder all to shreds with 4-5 sessions a day, about 4-6 laps a session (this is a road course, so I toasted both front tires.) One tire was to the belts. Really pissed me off!

Now with plates, I've done three track events on the current set, and about 14k miles so far, and have another 6-10k to go (I live in hills and beat the snot out of my tires, longest ride before was just over 13k, shortest other than the track hacks was just over 8k, for the crappy run-flats, and I was trying to burn them up!)

So now I have much better handling, and better tire life, seems like a perfect world. But watch strut travel with lowering springs. Just ask TonyB! If you lower, go stiff with high damping, otherwise a 2x4 and sledge hammer are in your future to pound down your dished shock towers!

Matt

 

I also have the RDR's and would not go back to stock. I did it for the increase in tire wear during track days but was blown away by the improved handling with the increased neg camber. I am running -2 deg in the front and -1.5 deg rear and am very happy so far. I plan on adding PSS9's next year, no need to stop improving

The increase in height was noticable before alignment but not after with the -2 deg. I did not measure it as I couldn't do any thing about it so why worry.

Dan

 

I'm running Ireland's street/race plates... -2.25 up front and -1.2 in the rear, 0 toe in back and ~.25 total toe in the front. Wicked quick turn-in, super stick in the bends. No difference in ride height - and best of all, street ride hasn't changed very much at all...

It will make a HUGE difference - I won't ever go back. After the season is over, I'll go to less negative camber in the front and then dial it back in when the season begins anew in March '06.

I have marked mine with the -2.25 setting and will ratchet them all the way out after the season is over. I'm not sure what that'll be, but it'll be at least a degree less than current. I am lucky enough to have a friend that has an old trackside-style Snap-On camber/caster gauge from his racing days - works like a champ!

 

Hey just to let you guys know, I also researched the GroundControl camber plates when I first read that grassroots article when it was released. However their sales staff turned me down in terms of them producing another set of those camber plates. But I think that they are the best designed plates out there by far and really attack the problem that a lot of us face for tire wear and adjustability. I also think that if enough of us got together and asked them to make some they would, and reason I say this is because when I talked to the guy he said that they are not producing them due to they do the fact that they dont believe there would be a high desire for them in the market. They claimed it was a one off piece they did for the race team, but dang it I want some of those too!

 

If I recall, to mount those Ground Control camber plates, you have to cut out the top of the strut tower. This isn't legal for several very popular autocross classes (you'd be straight into Prepared or Modified, where it is unlikely that a new Mini will ever be competitive).

Autocros classing aside, I just think it's nuts to cut big holes in the sheet metal of your car unless it's a dedicated race car that you will never attempt to sell as a street car. But that's just me