Camber plates + camber bolts = tire clearance?

The goal is to fit the following SQUARE setup on a 2017 Mustang GT PP:

MRR M600 19"x11" +50 wheels
305/35R19 Nitto NT555 G2 tires
CJPP 1" spacers (which are true at 25.4mm)

The tires measure out to 27.2" tall and 12" wide (actual real-world measurements, tiresize.com says 27.4" tall which is incorrect for my specific tire but they got the width exactly right at 12"). Measurements taken with tires mounted on the wheels, inflated to 35psi, with no load placed on them. The sidewalls of the tire are dead straight vertically speaking, meaning there is no measurable stretch (as in a tire too narrow for a given wheel) nor is there any bulge (as in a tire too wide for a given wheel).

Stock performance pack suspension currently. I want to know if it's possible to use camber plates to bring the struts in towards the center of the car (as much as the plates allow, usually they're maxed out in the neighborhood of -2.4° to -2.8°) and then in addition to the plates also use camber bolts to push the spindle back out away from the center of the car, effectively reducing some of the negative camber the plates are providing. The end result would be increasing the clearance between the backside of my wheel/tire assembly and the strut body, without having to rely on ever-thicker spacers to do the task. Another benefit would be the loads of adjustment for alignments.

A different route would be finding aftermarket struts or coilovers that increase clearance. The factory struts have a small amount of 'flat' squashed into them on the wheel side to aide clearance, but it's nothing major (might gain you 1-2mm over a perfectly round strut/damper body, but hey I'm not complaining!). I've heard Cortex's JRi coilovers are offset, anyone know of any others?

Thanks

Would use full strength strut to knuckle bolts and not the funky camber bolts.
If you need more adjustability on strut/knuckle interface, slot strut hole but use full strength bolt. OEM Ford, Grade 10.9, or higher with corrosion protection zinc automotive grade finish.
Yes you can combine plates and slot strut to maximize wheel/strut clearance.

There is a thread on here were 2 guys did a lot of fitment testing and were able to get the fit with just a little poke on stock style strut (not coil overs) They have 19x11 +50 with 20mm spacers. at -2.8 camber there is just a little poke.

To directly answer your question, yes it will work, however I agree with Signitel on slotting the strut and using the OE bolt as I have friends who have done this. The reason he went this route was due to some of the auto cross guys in town having broken the camber bolts trying to do the same thing

I'm not sure you are going to get the clearance doing that or not. It will be tight. Honestly, you are wasting good money on camber plates for a job that can be done with spacers and extended studs. 20mm spacers ought to do it.

NvrFinished said:

I'm not sure you are going to get the clearance doing that or not. It will be tight. Honestly, you are wasting good money on camber plates for a job that can be done with spacers and extended studs. 20mm spacers ought to do it.

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[MENTION=18488]NvrFinished[/MENTION] Thank you sir, I actually do have extended wheel studs (ARP 100-7733 kit - 1" over stock) along with 25.4mm wheel spacers (CJ Pony Parts 1"). I have also picked up the Steeda camber plates, so I'll be able to experiment with this theory now.

I don't like the idea of slotting the strut holes because although the full diameter of the OEM bolt may be retained, a round bolt in a slotted hole is still subject to moving within the slot under extreme forces. The shank of the bolt is no longer using its inherent strength working in full shear load (in all angles at least) and you're now relying on the clamp load to resist the bolt from sliding within the slotted hole. This is why even though the camber bolts are a overall a smaller OD, the lobe and shank are designed that there will be contact all the way across this jointed assembly with no air gap for things to slide within.

Please update when you get this set up. I was thinking about doing the same thing for the same reasons. I'm not sure why everyone gets their panties in a bunch about camber bolts. Every single car I've owned that had mac struts in the front has had camber bolts from the factory. I understand the bolts need to be a smaller diameter, but they are still plenty strong. If they provide a benefit, I would use them without thinking twice.

Also, most bolted connections work in clamp load. Slotting the strut should not weaken the connection in any way. At least, that is how they are supposed to be engineered.....you never want to rely on the shear stress of the bolt, as it is far less than the tensile. In short, if it moves within the slot, you didn't have it torqued properly.

sigintel said:

Would use full strength strut to knuckle bolts and not the funky camber bolts.

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What issues have you had/seen to say that non OEM camber bolts are not strong enough?

EFI said:

What issues have you had/seen to say that non OEM camber bolts are not strong enough?

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Personal experience:
seen siezed ones from non OEM grade corrosion protection, stress corrosion at eccentric machined section since the stress is all carried in the surfce and the modulus gradient makes for a massive stress riser, and totalled street cars (complete failure from just hitting a minor pothole) from legal support work.

Indirect experience:
Heard of these failing on track and some tech inspectors will flag.
Not gonna search web and aggregate results for everyone as this example should suffice:
http://www.allfordmustangs.com/foru...mber-plates-instead-bolts.html#/topics/696450

Trakhor said:

To directly answer your question, yes it will work, however I agree with Signitel on slotting the strut and using the OE bolt as I have friends who have done this. The reason he went this route was due to some of the auto cross guys in town having broken the camber bolts trying to do the same thing

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Google:
broken camber bolt mustang
Broken strut bolt
Broke track strut
Technical inspection strut bolt
There is a reason SCCA class only allows slotting strut and not running compromised funky eccentrics.

Funky eccentric means bolt shaft has non contiguous step to allow offsetting strut to knuckle mount. Always use full strength uniform bolt.

Not to open (another) can of worms on bolts vs. slotting, though I appreciate the data. I'd like to see a shim/plug like this to take up the unused space in the slot: ((((

With sufficient clamp load the OEM bolt might resist slippage under 97% of conditions. For the other 3%...flying off-track sideways at high speed hitting rumble strips along the way, or a drift event meets an unfortunate date with a curb perhaps.

My original question stems from the idea: Can I use BOTH camber plates to shift the strut inboard IN ADDITION TO camber bolts/slotting for the sole purpose of increased tire clearance.

I'm also curious, must the slotting be performed on the upper bolt only? Can the lower hole be slotted instead?

If upper hole, I'd be slotting it outwards to reduce camber.
If lower hole, I'd be slotting it inwards to reduce camber.

Wolverine said:

Can I use BOTH camber plates to shift the strut inboard IN ADDITION TO camber bolts/slotting for the sole purpose of increased tire clearance.

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YES

Important also curious, must the slotting be performed on the upper bolt only? Can the lower hole be slotted instead?

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Maybe, but check clearances and geometry and the FORD tech note and figure out if there might be a reason Ford picked either top or bottom to slot.

If upper hole, I'd be slotting it outwards to reduce camber.
Correct
If lower hole, I'd be slotting it inwards to reduce camber.
Correct

Re: filing slot:
No, highly undesirable.
#1 reason: the bolt should NEVER have any shear force other than for unloaded alignment during assembly.

#2: You have to design the failure mode for suspension assemblies. If a bolt is loose, what happens?
The safest solution is have a really loud and clunky assembly stay together long enough to get stopped even if control is marginal PRIOR to catastrophic failure. You must maximize the amount of noise you make before disaster.
Adding filler to try and support the assembly after the bolt is loose is the exact opposite. That might diminish noise and force unexpected catastrophic failure due to cyclic shear loading.

#3: OEM bolt is engineered to handle 100% of driving conditions including substantial damage to tire, wheel, strut. It is engineered to provide an expected range of strength in catastrophic front impacts. If strut bolt fails, expect substantial damage to suspension, strut, kmember, wheel and tire. The bolts are designed strong enough that strut failure is likely before strut bolt failure.

Re: failure mode

I had a nut come off my upper strut to spindle bolt. The top hole was slotted, and the bolt was full-size stock (no camber bolt nonsense ). While the nut was long gone, the splined bolt stayed in place. (I guess they spline them for a reason, huh?) Without the clamping force of the fastener to support it, the bracket on the shock was bent at bit.

After that experience, I'd be very hesitant to use any bolt that isn't splined like the factory bolts, because its the spline that kept the bolt in place and saved my ass. Also, you're not supposed to reuse these bolts, as they don't clamp as well once you loosen/tighten them (someone else can explain the physics behind that for me), so if you're planning on adjusting things a bunch, buy spare bolts.

In my case, the bolt either came loose due to insufficient torque on the nut (I had a shop work on the car and IDK what torque they used), OR the bolt was reused too many times, or both. Handling was a bit 'unpredictable' with the nut off and the car was making clunking sounds at odd times. I'm pretty sure I did an entire autox without that nut in place, whoops.

NightmareMoon said:

Re: failure mode

I had a nut come off my upper strut to spindle bolt. The top hole was slotted, and the bolt was full-size stock (no camber bolt nonsense ). While the nut was long gone, the splined bolt stayed in place. (I guess they spline them for a reason, huh?) Without the clamping force of the fastener to support it, the bracket on the shock was bent at bit.

After that experience, I'd be very hesitant to use any bolt that isn't splined like the factory bolts, because its the spline that kept the bolt in place and saved my ass. Also, you're not supposed to reuse these bolts, as they don't clamp as well once you loosen/tighten them (someone else can explain the physics behind that for me), so if you're planning on adjusting things a bunch, buy spare bolts.

In my case, the bolt either came loose due to insufficient torque on the nut (I had a shop work on the car and IDK what torque they used), OR the bolt was reused too many times, or both. Handling was a bit 'unpredictable' with the nut off and the car was making clunking sounds at odd times. I'm pretty sure I did an entire autox without that nut in place, whoops.

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Dude... damn...
Could you imagine if front outside corner suspension collapsed at max lateral?

sigintel said:

Dude... damn...
Could you imagine if front outside corner suspension collapsed at max lateral?

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Yeah, it would be bad.
Before I realized something was actually wrong, I did had a couple 'close calls' , including one good 180 spin at an autox, (luckily nothing to hit other than cones in a big empty parking lot) and another close call accelerating onto an onramp where the car did some unexpected porposing, but I avoided the tank slapper.

Both times I just blamed the loose nut behind the wheel.

The nut coming off could have happened to any type of bolt I suppose, but thankfully the full diameter and splines kept it in place. Glad you caught it before it got worse!

I am curious to see whether either hole can be slotted, or if it must be the upper one only (which I assume is the one most guys are slotting?)

Does anyone have the link to the Ford official slotting procedure?

The official procedure has changed a couple of times. There used to be images of the factory service manual here in this thread, but that was before Photobucket kicked the internet off it's lawn. https://www.mustang6g.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22975&highlight=camber+fsm

Basically you would elongate the upper bolt hole on the strut no more than 2mm, then reassemble as usual with the normal bolts.

Later they changed it to slotting the hole 1mm and using ford's crash bolts.