OK, so I have the dreaded mushroomed strut towers. I don't so much mind the repair (insurance covers the majority). What I will mind is doing it twice.

So what is the best preventative solution for this?

Should Install the M7 STR Plates vs. a full front stress bar?

Also, I remember reading somewhere that someone had used longer bolts once they put the m7 plates in, but now I can't find it no matter how long I search. And I can't remember what bolts they said they used (I swear they even included a part number).

Thanks all - I bow to your collective wisdom.

 

how about 15's running 175/65's or something? lol

 

It's the tower that mushrooms. The tower is UNDER the plate. The force comes from under the plate.

While the plate does somewhat reinforce the tower (yes, I have them too), it by FAR does not prevent mushrooming. It will reduce it somewhat... But think of it like this:

If you're on one side of a normal door holding it shut, and there's someone on the other side of the door trying to open it and they're large enough to cause damage to the door, your reinforcing of it will slow them down and maybe prevent a little bit of damage to the door, but the door is still going to take a beating and end up damaged.

I think we have yet to see a proper fix, as it would include something between the strut and the tower, IE under the tower reinforcement to spread the force to more points rather than the isolated (and obviously not the strongest) area the tower provides

 

MRV, What and how does insurance cover the majority of the cost? Michael

 

it's been said the problem is the tophat. it's also been said that proper camber plates in addition to the reinforcing plats on an M7 kit are the ticket. YMMV. I put M7 bars on both MINI's as soon as they came home from the dealer...cheap preventative measure (hopefully).

 

Jay - I have the M7 plates (1/2 of the prevention fix) on my MCS if you want to check them out this weekend. After the AX season is over I'll be installing the Ireland adjustable street/race camber plates which is the 'other' 1/2 of the fix.

I didn't have any mushrooming before the plates, nor have I had any mushrooming to date even running on the M7 springs. So, hopefully the installation of the plates at the same time as the M7 springs is helping the prevent the problem. My upper hats/mounting plates are currently in good shape.

 

Kevin, I've seen your SRT plates before. Unfortunately you were smarter than me and I didn't follow through with installing them. I was thinking about the camber plates as well, but I will have to look into them further. Do camber plates give you uneven wear on your tires ?

MISTRO - Comprehensive coverage covers the repair. Put it this way - MiniUSA will tell you that the damage is not from product failure, but from impact. If it's from an impact, then the insurance will cover it as a Road Impact. You had an accident - it was with a pothole, or train tracks, or whatever, but it was still an accident (you don't have to hit another car for it to be an accident). So long as you don't just have liability insurance, you should be able to claim it.

 

The solution is RDR/Helix camber plates and the plates or a M7 strut bar. This effectively clamps the strut tower inbetween two full think alum plates. I ahve no concerns about mushrooming in my car.

Of course you have to buy the camber plates.......nothing in life is perfect.....or free

 

Anybody have the Dinan camber plates? They seem significantly cheaper than the Helix ones.

 

So the only (or at least the best) way to avoid my strut towers from exploding is to spend several hundred of my own dollars on a performance MOD? Um... really? That sounds like a serious performance defect to me, and trying to pawn it off as a "road impact" (so I have to claim it on my auto insurance, pay a deductable and possibly have my rates go up) is totally and completely unaccaptible.

Does anyone have the final skinny on what causes the mushrooming? There's so many theads on this, but they're a bit contradictory at times... I don't have this yet, as far as I can see, but I DO drive my car "with spirit" so I don't want to get it, if possible.

ALso, can the M7 bar be used with the OEM air box? I hear that the bar has some bonnet clearance issues too - a guy in my club has one and his bonnet bulges a bit at the rear when its closed.

 

I don't think this is really a correct analogy, because the strut tower is just a big piece of metal. As long as it doesn't permenantly deform, it isn't really being damaged. We need a material scientist to remind me of those stress/strain and elastic/inelastic things.

It doesn't matter which side of the strut tower the plate is on, as long it mounts flush onto the surface of the tower and is bolted on really tight. It just needs to stop the strut tower from deforming enough to get into the "inelastic" part of the stress/strain thingy.

My guess at the mushrooming mechanism is the stamped metal that holds the strut bearing is cheap. It gets bent so that it's contacting the edge of the hole in the center of the strut tower, so then every bump is pounding right on the center of the strut tower, which would be the weak point. I could be wrong.

However, thinking back, when I put my Koni's in, I think my strut bearing thing was a little bent. But I think my shock towers are OK. Maybe I should change that strut bearing Soon

 

Is that so? Wanna see some pictures of my bent M7 plates?

Yes, I believe the M7 works fine with most airboxes. PM M7 for a definitive answer.

 

I recently installed the m7 bar, and it definitely causes the bonnet to raise up about a half inch. There are several ways posted on NAM to remedy this, but there will be some extra work involved beyond the install of the bar.

I have the ALTA box with it, and that fits just fine underneath the bar. I just cut two slits into the rubber moulding that goes along the top of the ALTA box, where the bar overlaps it, so it can squish the moulding down just where the bar overlaps it.

As far as the bonnet, I've had to get out the razor blade to my insulation. It doesn't look satisfactory to me, but at least the bonnet shuts completely flush again...

Long story short, the strut plates would help with the mushrooming, (maybe not prevent it totally). Whether you get the full strut bar is up to you.

 

Wow, well, if the plates are bent, they're apparently not stiff enough for whatever is happening to your car

They look like they're billet aluminum. Maybe they should be steel or forged aluminum or something stiffer. Also, if your strut towers were mushroomed when you put them on, I don't think they'd work like they're supposed to.

Or maybe I'm just totally wrong! Although that sure doesn't jive with the material science classes I took like 10 years ago when I was an undergraduate

 

Wow. I just got off the phone with the body shop (dealer).

Not only did one of my wheels have a bent rim, 3 of them did.

They couldn't remount one of the tires (the one that alerted me that I had serious alignment issues) so they are replacing it - also covered by insurance.

That's very cool, since I thought I was going to have to buy 4 new tires because of this.... now I can run on the same tires for a little while longer.

 

Camber plates...

Personally, I think the Ireland street/race plates are a great value. I've tried to kill mine...