I just got the new IE street/race plates. Very nice indeed. Of course, they don't come with installation instructions. I can figure the strut removal and replacement but I have a few questions that some of you with these plates may be able to answer for me.
1. I presume the thin annular washers are for the shock tower to circular bearing interface. But there's 4 washers per plate--why?
2. As the bearing holders are assymetric, which way to I put them in? (hard to describe) The 3 holes are offset to one side of the bearing--do I put these toward the inside of the car or the outside?

thanks for any help. I can post photos to assist in the Q and A if needed.
cheers,

 

Let me know if your install goes well. My mechanic and I intalled the street/race plates on my MSC with H&Rs and Bilsteins and we can't get more than about 1/2 degree negative camber as the springs hit on the inside of the strut tower at 1 degree neg.

Vince

 

Vince: Is this the same problem that I have read about with hitting the inside fender on the driver's side? And do you have the new IE plates with the 3 (6) holes (for adjusting bolts rather than the older 2 (4) hole variety?) My car is an '05 with HSport springs and stock shocks. I intend to do the install myself, and that may be next week.
Will report on the install. I'm looking for -1.8deg that's all.

cheers,

 

We just dropped my car off the rack after attempting to install the updated IE plates (adjustable street/track). It seems that the reinforcements of the shock tower on the 05+ cars create a point of interference for the springs when you increase negative camber. I have pics of the interference points I will post later.

The max neg camber with sufficient clearance is about -1.2 degrees. With the spring contacting the shock tower protrusion it is maxed out at -1.6 degrees.

I removed the plates and will be returning them. Note that no other camber plate design will overcome this limitation - it seems coilovers with a narrower diameter spring or some sort of lengthened lower control arm are the only options.

 

and here's the pic. You can see where they've pressed in tubular impressions into the body part to reinforce the shock tower. These impressions run all the way up to the top and intrude into the shock tower interior and hit the spring when you try to achieve any meaningful camber increase. They contact the second coil of the spring counting from the top on the inboard side.

 

I just installed these this weekend. I should have the car on the rack by friday and will post the max -camber possible on an 03. These are the new plates with the 6 holes.

I put 2 of the washeres on each side of the bearing. Is that what you did?

 

My tech actually did that part while I was returning voicemails, so I didn't see it. It wouldn't affect inboard-outboard spacing of the spring though. Do you know if you had the shock tower reinforcements that are visible in the pic above?

 

There was something there, but I can't say if was the same as yours. I check it out tomarrow.

 

Also, did you have issues with the upper swaybar link mount hitting the inner fender / shock tower as well? If the spring hadn't hit, that would have been the next point of contact on my car.

 

Oy vey. This is not good news at all. There are many MINIs out there with lots of negative camber up front from plates, but not 05s and later? I must admit that all those i've seen have been before 05, and I have heard of people hammering the fender/shock tower protrusions down. Did you not consider that, or ? If the fender is double skinned, then maybe some panel work is not out of the question? And it's the drivers' side only I presume?
thanks,

 

I got my IE plates about 4 months ago and was able to get -2 degrees easily without cutting anything. The first place I took it to for alignment did not realize that the block can be rotated into 4 different positions for different amounts of camber/caster. Once I got it home the first time, (set to -1/2 degree) I reoriented the blocks and was able to get greater than -2. I took it to another shop and had the alignment done again with great success. I got -2 front and -1 rear.

Good Luck,
Mike

 

I'm not going there. The whole point of the Ireland camber plates was to not have to hack up the car.

 

The plate design, orientation, or even existence has no bearing on the linear relationship between camber and the position of the spring/strut assembly. You'd need to replace the top spring mount with an offset one in order to rectify the interference fit up top.

 

While cleaning my car today, I saw the ridges on the drivers' side you refer to. There's no doubt they stop short of the springs on the passenger side, but go all the way into the shock tower on the driver's side. Why, I wonder? Could it be the engine mount on the 05 that is really close to the shock mount, so they felt they needed to reinforce the unibody there? I understand you don't want to get the ball-peen hammer out, but trust me, if I need to bash some sheet metal to get -2deg, I'm doin' it! I checked and the shock tower is double-walled, so there should be little structural damage to worry about--and if there is, it can't possibly be as bad as what I've seen after cars get wrecked and then "repaired" at body shops--they just hide all the hammering and creasing they do to get the car roughly back in shape.
Anyway, time will tell...
cheers,

 

I'm not sure what you think you can do with offset mounts, but the centerline off the strut and spring will still be in the same place for a given amount of -camber. offsetting the mount would be the same as adjusting the IE plates to more positive to get clearance. If you really want to move the arm out you could cut the outer ball joint mounting off of a spare arm, then fit and weld it to the original to get another inch or so. You'd really need to be sure of that welding though.

 

The SPRING mounts. Not the STRUT mounts.

IE offset the spring in relation to the strut, as is the case on the lower spring perch - if you look at it you can tell it's not centered.

 

Take a look under the hood - you can see the reinforcements from the other side. What does this mean? If you bash em out it will be painfully obvious when simply lifting the hood and looking at the shock tower. Not easy to hide.

 

Trust me, no-one will ever see a bashed in shock tower ridge on my car--the Unichip covers everything between the tower and the CAI. And my guru, Onasled, beat his, so if it's good enough for him, it's good enough for me.

cheers, phil

 

I have just come to the realization. That the different spring rate and shorter
length of the H-Sport's has blown out my stock struts & shocks. Mind you I
have approx. 17k on this set-up...but now the ride is unbearable. Moving on
to a coilover set-up. Look from underneath at your rear springs, the top 4 or
5 coils on mine are resting together! Leaving only 3 or so with any space between them. Check yours out..

 

And when you turn the steering wheel more than 300 degrees?

 

That is normal on aftermarket springs. They are there to take up space to keep the spring in place.

 

IE camber plates installed on an '05. -2deg no worries after bashing the ridges on the driver's side shock tower just for insurance. Would have been close without, but since I had clear hammer access...why not?
Anyway, these plates are great--easy to install and well built.

cheers

 

Left and right side (respectively) inner tower pictures:

 

Now mine -both- look like the passenger side, sort of... haha.

 

Glad you got the plates in and to -2 like you wanted. Hope they work out well for you. I know that they have for me!

Mike