Camber Plate to Spring Top Hat Room

[cdl723]

So i'm in the middle of building some custom coilovers using GC adjusters, MR2 rear struts, custom top hats and IE spec camber plates. I'm having an issue with the spacing between the camber plate and top hat as well as an issue with threading the nut on all the way.

Does anyone know how much articulation there is in the camber plates/strut mounts compared to the spring top hat?

Currently it can move about 10 degrees relative to the spring top hat and I am concerned with contact being made between the top hat and camber plate.

[cdl723]

Here are some pictures

[cdl723]

I ended up tapering the washer a little and this allowed me to get roughly 9-10 degrees of angle. It appears that it will work when installed on the car with the camber maxed out and a lot of caster. I jacked the wheel up and it does not appear to bind yet.

[moatilliatta]

That camber plate is eating up a lot of your stacked high leaving 1 inch of shock travel on the table. Can you flip the bearing plate?

Note the design of GC or vorshlag plates.

[cdl723]

I don't think i can because then i wouldn't be able to get the correct angle for additional camber/caster. I know the design is over 15yrs old by Ireland Engineering designed for the old Spec E30 setup. Ive considered shortening the strut ~1" for more travel, but i don't really want to do this as i'm just getting the car together.

[Northern]

I think this is a common problem with all camber plates, because the spherical bearing is going to be thicker than the original ball bearing, and the spring perch for most is going to be thicker than the stock stamped steel spring perch.

How much thicker it is depends on the camber plate/spring perch combo.
Camber plates that use the spherical bearing to transfer the spring load to the chassis are going to need to be much larger than a setup that transfers spring load via a separate bearing à la Ground Control.

[cdl723]

I think this is a common problem with all camber plates, because the spherical bearing is going to be thicker than the original ball bearing, and the spring perch for most is going to be thicker than the stock stamped steel spring perch.

How much thicker it is depends on the camber plate/spring perch combo.
Camber plates that use the spherical bearing to transfer the spring load to the chassis are going to need to be much larger than a setup that transfers spring load via a separate bearing à la Ground Control.

After looking at different designs I have come to this conclusion for camber plates. I may pick up a set that have taper bearings on the bottom side of the camber plate so the spring loads do not go through the spherical bearing like my current camber plates. From what I have also seen, the camber plates with taper bearings look to be 0.5-1" thinner in stack height. This would also free up some damper travel.

This set up drives pretty well, but I think it is hitting the bump stops over high speed bumps. I need to do the zip tie trick to measure the damper travel and verify this.

[cdl723]

I decided to pull the struts and cut them around 1.5" out, so I did not need a spacer. It feels as though it rides a little better and there is no longer a harshness associated with medium/large bumps. The first picture is with strut tube spacers and the second is with the tubes cut and lowered another 0.25" from before.