Drilling suspension turrets to enable camber adjustment.

[pothole]

So, a guy from the UK Boxanet forum has been discussing how a specialist geo shop has drilled his front strut turrets to allow for camber adjustment on the cheap.

Basically, you drill out the holes for the top mounts a bit to allow for a little lateral adjustment.

Anyone round here done this? Sounds like an attractive idea - could be done for very little money. You'd want to know what you're doing, obviously...

[AndyA6]

Yep, heard of. Done (not my car) on an Audi A6, works!

[woodsman]

common low tech/cost technique

[pothole]

Does anyone have any experience and thus a rough idea of how much drilling translates into how much camber?

IIRC from my old E36 BMW roughly a cm gave about 2 degrees neg camber.

Also, would adding a little castor be a good idea? I seem to recall adding castor gave my old BMW a little extra meat to the steering feel...

[southernstar]

Increased caster will give you increased 'return' on the steering - i.e., the tendancy for the steering to want to center itself.

Brad

[The Radium King]

there is info on this board - I was searching this exact topic a few weeks ago. from what I recall you should change washers to ensure adequate grip so that the shock doesn't adjust itself, and the most you can get is about an additional -0.5 degrees (dependent on how much you have lowered your ride height).

after much deliberation I ended up buying ksport coilovers - just a bit more than half the cost of pss9's and come with front camber plates and rear adjustment built-in.

[edc]

... :wave: ...

[pothole]

[pothole]

Originally Posted by The Radium King

there is info on this board - I was searching this exact topic a few weeks ago. from what I recall you should change washers to ensure adequate grip so that the shock doesn't adjust itself, and the most you can get is about an additional -0.5 degrees (dependent on how much you have lowered your ride height).

after much deliberation I ended up buying ksport coilovers - just a bit more than half the cost of pss9's and come with front camber plates and rear adjustment built-in.

Only an extra 0.5 degrees? Bummer.

I've been reading around as well, saw that thing re the washers...

[woodsman]

I would think that the limiting factor would be that the shock tower has little room for travel in the tower 'bucket'. I wonder if something could be done at the other end- locating stops and an eccentric...? I'm installing ROW 030 right now and have done some tweeking so that I get .75" lower in the FR and .625" in the RR. I've read here that this will also increase my camber F-R. Are you getting new struts Pothole?

[edc]

http://www.boxa.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=53075&&page=7

Of course there is only so much you can move the top mount before it will hit the inner arch, but you'd have a similar scenario with eccentric mounts.

[pothole]

Yeah, I have an M030 kit to go on which I want to combine with H&R springs, so am looking for cheap ways to tweak the camber. Also looking into adjustable track arm bushes...

[thstone]

Do it right:

Cheap camber: Camber plates
Expensive camber: Lower adjustable a-arms

[pothole]

I've never seen camber plates for a Box at a price I would describe as cheap.

[woodsman]

How much camber do you want Pothole? Anything beyond -.5 is going to diminish your braking ability and wear your tires out faster.

[pothole]

Disagree. -0.5 is very, very mild and won't make the slightest bit of difference to braking, you'd have to have very, very extreme camber to compromise braking.

I've run miles more than that on the road before and not noticed any loss of braking performance whatsoever. Wear does go up a bit, but in my experience, I would draw the line at -2.5 for the road. Even at -2.5, the wear rate wasn't that bad.

[woodsman]

yea my experience is with showroom stock racing civics! I'm not sure what specs I'm going with on my street-only car. As it is, I have to drive at crazy speeds to get any serious slip (FUN) going.

[thstone]

Originally Posted by pothole

I've never seen camber plates for a Box at a price I would describe as cheap.

Sorry, I should have taken a bit more time to explain my position; I didn't mean cheap/expensive in terms of affordability. I was simply comparing the relative cost of camber plates ($300 used, $500 new) to the cost of adj lower control arms ($800 and up).

[edc]

The drill is free. In the UK it would be almost impossible to find second hand eccentric top mounts. They are £300 here at least.

I haven't maxed out the camber and I'm not that low on M030. Lower and with a drill I would expect over -2 to be achievable maybe -2.5.

[thstone]

I would also suggest considering the possible impact on resale value - buyers may not consider a car that has aftermarket holes (or enlarged stock holes) in the upper shock mount area.