Added camber plates- lost ground!!! Options

[ottox914]

First of all, this is not a slam on any person, company, product- just looking for experience from others who have been there, done that. The plates are the Tarrott (sp?) plates, and the install was a breeze. My front inserts are a Koni 8610-1149, which is a shorter body, oil dampened, single adjustable unit intended for early 911's. I installed these last yr into strut housings I cut down about 1 5/8" to fit the shorter strut. This allows more lowering of the suspension, (but not to much, keeping an eye on those "A" arms" while maintaining some suspension travel. The shaft diameter on these inserts is SLIGHTLY smaller than the "factory" strut, so a thin bushing, about the thickness of a business card was made to fit into the bushing supplied with the camber plate. I froze the new bushing, it slipped into the camber plate, warmed up and stays put. A perfect fit. (thanks to Jason at Paragon Products for the bushings, and the Konis). The shaft of the insert now fits into the camber plate with only the slightest of slop. Installed the camber plates, they were not labled "L" or "R", but just took a long look to be sure the offset of the center bushing was correct. Put the car togather, positioned the camber plates so the center bushing is against the fender, and took it 2 miles into the shop for the allignment.

Using the same shop, same rack, same allignment tech as last year, we recorded NO change in camber. Last season with the factory set up, we could get 1.0 on the rt, 1.2 on the left. Now we can get 1.0 rt and 1.5 left. Thats it. No more. Caster got worse. Last yr the we could equalize caster at 5.9 both sides, now the best we can do is 5.4.

Any ideas? Any other experience with this product? I did not expect to be able to get -3.0 or something wild like that with the stock center hole and stock adjustment slots, but was hoping for -2.0 if possible. For the auto cross class I run in, center hole can not be changed, but slots can be ground out, although this would do me no good, as the center bearing is at the fender already.

I plan a note to the retailer, (not jason, but he's been a big help even though he did not sell the product) and plan on measuring the narrowest point of the factory plates, and the O.D. of the current plates, just for kicks.

The quality of the plates is first rate, install a breeze. Just giving no useful benefits on my car. I know there are variences from car to car, but, hmmmmmmm. And yes, the chassis is square and all 4 wheels align up just fine.

thanks-