I'm reading and searching and learning all I can about camber, and there are, of course, fixed and adjustable camber plates of all kinds out there. A mechanic asked me, "Why don't you put on some adjustable control arms?".
Now, maybe that's a dumb question, so I start searching away, and I found the front control arms from MINI-Madness, but they aren't adjustable.

Wouldn't adjustable lower control arms be a reasonable approach to adding camber? Why isn't anyone making some?

 

Never heard of control arms for a macpherson strut front suspension.

 

Cars with Macstruts dont have upper control arms, just lower ones. Depending on the car and design, they can be adapted to allowing camber and caster adjustments.

 

Indeed, this mechanic either has never seen a MINI up close or isn't ASE certified.

 

No, this mechanic is right. Though no one makes this type of ajustable lower arm for the Mini, let alone most cars out there, it has ben done on some race BMWs. It's something we may do for next season.
The two problems with this, though not a huge deal, is that you stretch the driveshafts when adding negative camber. The other is that it's very easy to be adjusting (screwing up) castor when adjusting camber if they are not built right.


Click on pic for more info

 

I'm not explaining this very well, excuse my ignorance.

The mechanic is ASE cert, but he is a general mechanic, not MINI specific. He's actually very good. He was referring to the lower control arms.

Madness ---


Camber plates move the top of the strut in to achieve more neg camber, could not the same results be achieved by moving the bottom of the strut out? If you look at Madness' control arms and imagine that they had some adjustablility, it would seem like that might be an alternative to camber plates. No one seems to make them, I was just wondering why. It would be more expensive, of course, than a camber plate, but it seems to me it might work better.

Not for MINI's, but you get the idea:


Or it could be that it couldn't have the necessary strength. I don't know, and I warned you it was a dumb question, but it seemed reasonable to me at the time.

Edit - Onasled got here before I did, I type slow. I didn't think of the driveshaft issue, good point.

 

Also, if the top of the strut is still securly mounted and you flex out the bottom, wouldn't that put undue stress onto the top mounts? Camber plates are good for adding camber and for helping to prevent mushrooming. Why NOT get them?

 

The company I work for is always having these seminars to try to teach us how to "think outside the box". Then my boss always calls me in to tell me how, in my case, they'd really like to try to get me back IN the box.

Just crazy, I guess. It was just a thought. 90% of my ideas go down in flames immediately, but every once in a while I hit on one.

 

...kind of like a boss who says "I have an open door policy"...nothing worse than experiencing a closed mind behind an open door.

Adjusting camber via the top of a mac strut is more effective.

And technically, every modern suspension system has five points of control and at least one control arm if it is independent. A Mac strut has a lower control arm whereas a SLA - Short and Long Arm has an upper and lower control arm. FYI

 

man, i'd hate to run those solid bushing'ed front control arms on the street. can you say NVH...

 

I agree with this statement. Most camber plates are designed to articulate to accomodate the angle changes. The stock upper strut plates were designed for a specific finite range of tilt. By changing the strut angle via the lower joint you will certainly add more stress at the top strut plate. Who knows, maybe this stress is not that big a deal, but MINI's OEM rubber strut bearing doesn't have a very good track record to begin with.

Furthermore, most of the lateral loads during cornering are transmitting through the lower control arm (LCA), so it might not be the best place to have an adjustable part there. I suppose fixed geometry LCA's might be a solution.

I'm not saying that modified LCA's are bad. For a race car, you could have camber plates and a modifed LCA to achieve the suspension geometry you desire, but this type of modification may not be suited for the mainstream market.

In any case, it's always good to think outside the box.

Cheers!

 

So how about the above with these from Alta ?



adjustable bearings ....

 

I just finished installing the Madness frnt control arms.
Picked up the Alta PSRS to 'complete' the project.
The Madness arms already have basically the same bushing included (silver).
I now have a New in the box Alta PSRS 4sale in the market place ~ $200