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-

[Mueller]

Just call Ira and ask him....from what I understand, the main benifit of the parts is the removal of the rubber bushing which can cause the alignment to change while driving.....

as far as I know, they are not advertised to gain you more camber....

[J P Stein]

I got another -1 deg from mine.
They should look like this when installed.
They are advertised to give more negative camber.
I did have to do some grinding to get 6 deg caster.

[J P Stein]

caster
I also had to remove the dust cover from the strut.
The mount should be hard up against the body (inner fender).

[Joe Ricard]

I think the Welt units I bought From JP have a smaller Diameter for the bearing to sit in. At least that what I see when looking at JP's new sexy red ones above.
I have like 1.7 both sides. You can always beat it just a little bit to get 1.5 from both sides. But to get that much and JP said you need to remove the metal dust cover from the strut.

[ottox914]

Tell me more about removing the dust cover- what does that do for me? I took the dust covers off of the front end when it had the 914-4 konis in it, and the top of the insert stuck up to far, hitting the underside of the front trunk. I sawzalled the body of the dust cover off, leaving just the top, like a giant washer. Leaving that in place in effect "shortened" the 914-4 konis, no more bumping on the trunk lid. When I did the short struts and 911 inserts, I just left the top of the dust cover where it was from before.

When I look at the top of the camber plates, the left one has maybe 1/8" before it hits the center hole, the rt one is fully up against the hole, like the one it J.P.'s photo. How would removing the remaining piece of dustcover allow more movement on the rt, when the center of the camber plate is already against the inside of the center hole?

[J P Stein]

The dust cover hits the inner wall when you have it in where it needs to be.

It's begining to sound like you are using the wrong holes for the bolts. Look underneath. How close is the edge of the mount to the inner wall? It should be hard up against it.
In the pic, note the air gap at the outside of the mount.

[ottox914]

I've got the same air gap going on... We've got a club test n tune today, and an event tomorrow. mon or tue I'll take the remaining piece of dust cover out and have a good look at the underside of the mount and comment. Thanks. Also, J.P., specifically what mods were needed to hit -2 on your car with those plates?