camber plate issue?

**I fixed the problem with the help of Kelly at BMR, ill leave the evidence of my stupidity in case anyone decides to make the same mistake and stumbles upon this thread.


2016 mustang gt pp

I installed the frpp track handling pack, drove around for a week with no issues.

Installed maximum motorsports camber/caster plates (correctly per instructions) before taking it in for alignment, had it aligned to ford performance alignment settings

Front camber -1.2 L -1.3 R (they said they couldnt get any more negative camber which was odd or they were just lazy)
Toe -0.03 L 0.01 R
Caster 7.1 L 7.3 R

for a little over a week now after the alignment I get a thud, thunk, clank, bang noise like something is moving or shifting when I slowly go forward or reverse a full rack left or right, or turning after a steep elevation change that flexes the body. it also seems to be coming from driver side.

The car also seems to be get knocked out of alignment each time as it steers left or right for a while after

I checked the torque on the strut mounts and nothing was loose

I marked the strut nut to the shaft with sharpie before alignment and it hasnt loosened at all, I also tried hitting them with my impact again and they didnt move at all

Any thoughts? anything I can check without having to remove the struts again ( I just want to leave that for a last resort because then I am forced to take it in for an alignment)

Sway bar end links?

Anybody who can't get more than -1.3 camber with camber plates is incompetent. Stock is -1.5. FR recomended Track Pack spec is around -1.7. Steeda plates get me to -2.5. A little grinding could easily add another 1/2 to 1 degree.

Smells like an installation issue to me. Or maybe the alignment guy goofed them up somehow when he loosened things to adjust camber. But my Steeda plates get me to -2.8 on one side of my car (other side it'll go a we bit less, tolerances...). Not saying "you should have gotten Steeda plates" just saying this ain't right.

They were probably just lazy because it's not a fun process to adjust camber on these cars.

I will double check every nut and bolt, but the only thing I can think of is the strut nut, not being tight enough allowing play of the camber plate. here is a few pictures of the nut incase you see something odd.

https://imgur.com/a/aewHW

Blauplow said:

I will double check every nut and bolt, but the only thing I can think of is the strut nut, not being tight enough allowing play of the camber plate. here is a few pictures of the nut incase you see something odd.

https://imgur.com/a/aewHW

Click to expand...

I am going to go out on a limb here and say you either A: have the plates installed on incorrectly, or B: you simply do not have them adjusted properly.

You could also have an issue as you mentioned as well. Simply put a wrench on the nut, and a wrench on the strut shaft with the car parked on its weight and turn the nut and see if it tightens. You will know instantly.

As for the installation / adjustment - your strut shafts are in the factory position....so no wonder why the camber is "factoryish"

Jack the car up, loosen the 3 nuts on the plates and force the strut shaft inward/back as far as they will go....the nut you have pictured should be really close to contacting the strut tower opening.

See pic. The nut needs to move back towards the strut tower where the yellow is.

BMR Tech said:

I am going to go out on a limb here and say you either A: have the plates installed on incorrectly, or B: you simply do not have them adjusted properly.

You could also have an issue as you mentioned as well. Simply put a wrench on the nut, and a wrench on the strut shaft with the car parked on its weight and turn the nut and see if it tightens. You will know instantly.

Click to expand...

I tried this right after installing and it, and it felt like I was going to break the strut shaft before getting the nut to move, so its definitely tight.

BMR Tech said:

Jack the car up, loosen the 3 nuts on the plates and force the strut shaft inward/back as far as they will go....the nut you have pictured should be really close to contacting the strut tower opening.

Click to expand...

Do I do this with ONLY loosening the 3 nuts? and if I get no movement is the assumption the plates are installed incorrectly?

Gotcha. Well I would still recommend loosening the stud nuts and shifting the assembly inboard.

If you loosen the 3 nuts, you should be able to shove the strut assembly inward relatively easily. The sway bar connection may make that difficult and it's not like it's just a one-finger shove to make these adjustments with any kind of precision. Just don't let it crash into the edge of the hole the strut comes through up top.

so i think i found the smoking gun?

https://imgur.com/a/eVWLu

both sides look like this, the part thats hitting is towards the front of the car

That'll do it. You didn't use a spring compressor when assembling it, did you?

BMR Tech said:

That'll do it. You didn't use a spring compressor when assembling it, did you?

Click to expand...

I did, how else can you get the nut on?

Blauplow said:

I did, how else can you get the nut on?

Click to expand...

You would be surprised. :cheers:

So it appears the lower factory perch lost its alignment with the upper plate assembly.

Tear it apart, check it all over twice and re-do them.

That should do it.

Looks like the inner lip of the spring seat might have broke off or wasn't seated properly during the install. That's the exact reason we machine our camber plates to retain that spring seat like factory with the outer edge as well as the inner bore.

BMR Tech said:

You would be surprised. :cheers:

So it appears the lower factory perch lost its alignment with the upper plate assembly.

Tear it apart, check it all over twice and re-do them.

That should do it.

Click to expand...

With a spring compressor tho right? Not sure how else do to it