About every 20 nano seconds, there's a thread about adding a stiffer rear bar to make the handling neutral. This is only half the eqation. If you need to handling neutral, you're in corners. If you're in corners, the front camber is too little.

Now a lot say "put on a rear bar to dial out the understeet". But I think this is backwards! I say "put on front camber plates, then tune out the remaining understeer with a bar."

The reason I say this is that you should optimize geometry, before tuning with bars. (This is the theory that you should work on the causes not the symptoms.) Adding more front camber (-1.5 to -2 for the street is GREAT!) will reduce understeer, though probably not eliminate it. But you will get many more miles per set of tires as the outside front tire has much better contact patch control with the plates installed.

Camber plates were my very first Mini mod. I and others kicked around the benefits of camber plates then. As time has gone by, and I'm finding that my mileage per set of tires is almost double what it was before plates, I'm more and more sure that camber plates are one of the most important parts of handling improvements for the Mini.

Matt

About every 20 nano seconds,


wow that's pretty fast

cool info thanks

Which camber plates do you thnk I should get there not cheap I will track the three times this year and i drive it like it is stolen and how hard is it to install my self I'm pretty handy did all my mods with friends
thanks

No offense man, but check into the use of a sentence tool called a "period." Works wonders for clarity.

Aside from that, I hear Ireland Engineering makes a nice fixed set if the budget is tight.

- Matt

you drop the struts, pop the nut off the top of the strut, and put it all back together with the new plate in. There's a "how-to" in Issue 7 of MC Squared. The only drag about camber plates is that camber and toe are coupled, so you need an alignement afterwords.

For an occational track day and street driving both Dinan and Ireland Engineering make fixed plates. I think the Dinan is a bit less agressive than the Ireland.

Ajustables will give your more negative camber, but they tend to not use rubber bushings, so the ride is a bit rougher. For the track, they're the way to go, for the street, with one or two track days, I like the fixed.

It's shockingly easy to install these, and the difference in tire life if you drive hard in turns is unbelievable. If you just do freeway driving, don't worry about them....

Matt

Thanks I drive very hard into turns and the the outside of my tires are wearing very fast I feel if I don't do somethng I will have to change my tires every 12 thousand miles
I also will have to change the setting on my swaybar

Camber plates are good.

A rear swaybar is cheaper.

A rear swaybar is easier to install.

A rear swaybar doesn't require you to get an alignment done afterwards.

If you're serious about things (whatever that means), get camber plates.

If you're not, a swaybar is cheaper / easier.

Helix camber plates seem to be the "gold standard". That's what I have on my car.

Don't buy into the hype that with adjustable plates you can dial in camber for the track, then take it away for daily driving. That doesn't happen. You'd need to get an alignment after each adjustment.

Adjustable camber plates are more so you can get the same camber on both sides of the car, as most MINIs do not have the same camber on both sides.

I agree with the good Dr. Get the camber plates first then the sway. Or as I did, do it all at once and feel like you just got a new car when it is all done!

Very good point snid.

I have a 19mm rear bar on the stiffer of two settings and plan to install fixed (1.25 neg.) camber plates. Do I immediately go to the softer setting, or just wait and see how it feels first?

+1 I got camber plates and love em.

Those are the ones I have. I bought them from Texas Speedwerks, vendor on NAM, and they were cheaper than form IE themselves.

Do you have a safe place to see how the car is going to handle? If so, I'd leave the swaybar alone and see what happens. If not, back the swaybar off to the softer setting.

I would definitely recommend camber plates. And I'd hardly say it is any more difficult to install than a rear sway bar. We did springs, control arms, sway bar and camber plates this past monday, everything went smooth and easy.

With the rear swaybar and an alignment offering -2.2 camber up front, the car feels amazing. It's been raining and snowing, so I'm still running snows and haven't pushed the car much.

Doing the two together, I can't offer much in the way of comparisons, but I feel comfortable saying that both are needed for a sublime drive! Plus I can't tell much more NVH with the adjustable plates (of course, again, changing the springs has also changed the ride, so it's hard to say either way).

No matter the steering, slight over, nuetral, or under, when you're in a turn, the car leans and the tire squishes a bit. Both of these make the wheel lean out relative to the ground, and next thing you know it, you're effectivly at posative camber and the outside of your tires wear. This is true if you have stock camber and neutral steering.

This isn't a what's better. It's pointing out that the deficiencies in handling for, shall we say, spirited driving, isn't nuetral steering via increased rear roll stiffness or insufficient front camber, its BOTH!

Sure you have to get an alignment after plates, no argument with that. And sure, few, if any, actually change settings on adjustables often once set. But you can "dial out" factory assymetry, and you can zero in on your camber setting (I'm happy after two changes).

Fixed plates are a GREAT improvement in cornering. Having an improved front contact patch requires LESS rear bar than before, and the tires last longer! With a pretty expensive alignment, tire savings will pay for them by the end of the second set of tires, maybe third.

Doing the rear bar without the camber plate will put MORE weight on the outside front, making the bad camber even worse.

But whatever. My point is to get people to think about this. If you're getting great mileage out of your tires, then this isn't an issue for you. If you are wearing the outside front of your tires much faster than the inside, then this is a way that you can help reduce this, and reduce the need for as much rear bar.

Matt

I'm fully on the camber plate bandwagon. I was just pointing out some reasons why the rear swaybar camp is larger than the camber plate camp.

As far as ease of install goes, my story may be unusual... I was able to install a rear swaybar in the driveway with a friend's help, so it was a zero cost thing.

The camber plates were done by a shop, and since my car is a year round daily driver in the northeast, all the fasteners under the car were rusted. It wound up taking a whole day of work to get the install done. The pinch bolts on the struts were rusted solid. The swaybar endlinks were falling apart. I guess with a non-rusted car you would avoid these problems. But with my car, the camber plate install (plus alignment) wound up costing over $400 (not including the parts).

So, around $1000 for adjustable camber plates installed, or around $200 for a rear swaybar installed. In my case, anyway.

got the fixed camber plates and wondering if they're not a bit overkill...

2.0 and 1.78 neg. camber is how they ended up being.

would that wear out my inside tires prematurely?
I'm thinking about going with adj. ones and only dialing in 1.5 neg. camber or so...



got the upper/lower control arms and KW1 co's, gonna install the tubular 25mm rear sway bar at the softest setting and see how it goes...as it is, the car sticks pretty damn good, wondering how much better it 'could' be with the bigger rear sway...?

and my tires are getting a lot more mileage than they used to. But I think it depends on where and how you drive. I live in hills so am in turns a lot.

Matt

Does Ireland's adjustable camber plates increase the ride height? I've been thinking about getting plates as well and they're with in a few miles of me.

I just had 'em intalled and I don't think the ride height has increased. I am experiencing some new noises, though. I'm going to keep listening and get it checked out if it's not normal.

mb

I think your opening thread is spot on Doc!

yeah i have the same question about the fixed camber plates. so do the fixed ones change ride height at all? in a perfect world i would install the fixed plates before i would upgrade my suspension with c/o next year.

ireland's fixed plates will not change your ride height.

Common wisdom on the boards says up to -2 you should be getting even, good treadwear across the front tires.

If the noise you're hearing sounds like a hollow thump while going over bumps, I'd say that's characteristic of the Ireland's and the use of urethane bearing mountings, which less resilient than the rubber compound in the stock upper strut mounts. On my car, the noise was less noticeable with 15" winter tires/rims, than it was with the S-Lites and run-flats. I had these on my car only for a couple of months.

I spoke with Don last week and he mentioned that he was installing the Ireland's for 'someone'. I suggested to Don that he liberally coat the bolts with Anti-seize paste. When I had them removed along with the after-market springs and FSD's that had failed after just two months, two of the four bolts on each camber plate, that hold the two halves of the bearing block together, had seized. There was no alternative except to cut the blocks apart to get access to the top strut nut, to disassemble things. When I called Ireland, Jeff Ireland's comments were "Most enthusiasts don't drive their cars in the winter." Metric grade 10 bolts attached to aluminum blocks in an assembly that's exposed to winter driving elements -- what a marginal design, IMO. Of course what would a company like Ireland, located in SoCal, know about winter driving, anyway?

I'd suggest that you make any tweaks to the front suspension that you intend to. A couple months exposure to winter driving/salt and you may be out of luck taking these apart, as I was.

The noise? I adapted to it after a short time and really didn't notice it after a week, or so, of driving.

Thank you very much for that information. I like the setup of the front suspension as it is right now, so if I'm going to have trouble with the bolts seizing, it's in a good spot. Also, winter seems to be over here, so I still may be OK.

I certainly would have loved to know this beforehand, but it is what it is. Is there an adj. camber plate not prone to this in the winter? The reason I went with the IE's was to cut costs - Don recommended the h-sport comps, but at 450$, I saved 60$ and got the two front endlinks by getting the IE. I wasn't enthused about people who reported rusting on their h-sports, too.

You describe the sound well - a hollow thump that just doesn't sound right after 50,000 miles on the stock suspension. The winter tires are coming off soon, so I'll have to get used to it.

mb