Dryslick13

What type of driving or situation would it be desirable to have camber plates? Can you accurately adjust them on the fly? Does a lowered car need more camber than a stock set up? Do they require more maintanance?

krystar

stock suspension can be adjusted to -3.0degrees. no street car should need more than that.

Potomac-Greg

Unless you're driving on track or autocross, you don't need them. They give you the ability to dial in more negative camber and that allows tires to be better planted in turns and last longer (less likely to wear out the outside edges). Nobody drives hard enough, long enough, to need them on the street.

They do not require maintenance.

It's generally not a great idea to adjust them without an alignment. A tiny deviation can mean a lot of camber.

PS: The extra camber you can get from camber plates may let you run wider tires (or greater offset) and avoid fender interference.

944Fest (aka Dan P)

For me, I had to add camber plates to my 89 944 T when running Hoosier tires at a DE. I was wearing out the outer edge and could not get more than -2.5 degrees neg camber. Hoosier recommends -3 IIRC. After, or at the same time, I upgraded the sways to the 968 Mo30 stuff. It turns out the sways flattened out the setup enough at -2.5 I would have been fine. You can adjust them "at the track" by lifting the front end. Unfortunately when you just adjust those back and forth between street and track settings, if not adjusted, the toe will be off. No maint unless you count changing the settings as maint.

Techno Duck

Main reason is you want to run more camber than what the stock suspension geometry allows for.

Another is to allow you to switch between a track / street camber setting relatively easily. This is an iffy area because as you change camber with the camber plates, you are also effectively adjusting toe, so it is a compromise setup.

Other reasons include not wanting to pay the $400 or whatever it is each for new OEM top mounts, wanting to remove rubber from the suspension and bragging rights when you pop your hood..

chris_v

in addition to the camber and caster adjustment they are also a solid mount, replacing the squishy rubber.

M758

If you never track the car you don't need camber plates. If you track it hard enough to wear down the outside edge of the front tires you need more camber. Stock works to about 2.5 to 3.0. However each particuar car varries and going much past 2.0 degrees is hit or miss. I have hear of cars getting 2.75 from one side of the car and only 2.1 on the other. Balance then forces 2.1 for both sides. With camber platest you can 6" degrees with ease, but that is too much camber for most and you can ajust camber in 10 mintues at the track. Very easy.

Potomac-Greg

This is true. Nobody in their right might would pay more (much more) for a stock mount, when an adjustable camber plate is available.

Coincidentally, just today I bit the bullet and bought a set of Ground Control camber plates. The ones that are not offset (to preserve stock ride height) are $299. I've tolerated the Ebay "Mookeh" ones long enough.

FRporscheman

Greg, I followed your whole experience and review of the mookeh / monkey plates; congrats on buying the GC plates. It's good to know if I want to buy camber plates I shouldn't bother with the junk.

944CS

The only reason you need camber plates is if you don't have much roll stiffness (spring rate + sway bar). But you band-aiding the real problem with camber plates.

If your car is a compromise (street + track) first pick the maximum spring stiffness that you are comfortable with on the street. There are a lot of things you can optimize first before having to resort to running 3 degrees of negative camber. Remember this is not ideal, any time your car is not cornering hard you are giving up contact patch area, not to mention you are reducing the effectiveness of the inside tires running more negative camber.

I would much rather run the KLA solid mounts. You cannot change just camber without it affecting your front toe, which will alter the handling for the worse.

Potomac-Greg

Stuff like camber plates don't circulate on the "pre-owned" market, so you have to buy them new. And they're not going to get any cheaper so no reason to wait. Last Fall I "improved" the way the Mookeh plates work by inserting a washer under the pillow bearing and it restored SOME movement, but still not optimum.

I've never regretted investing in a better quality (either Porsche parts or recognized aftermark name), and it will theoretically pay off if/when I am ready to move on.

M758

I don't agree with that at all. Camber plates are of great value on 944 spec cars. I run 3 to 3.5 deg of negative camber on my 944 and I can't get that on stock struts. I can also use them as a tuning tool. 0.5 deg does not impact toe very much and can help fine tune the balance or tune the right tire temp spread across the tire.

xschop

Hey Poto-G, do you have a pic or link to what you modded on the MOOkehs?

Potomac-Greg

See link below -- not perfect but I think I can describe it. From the bottom up, you have the strut shaft (#2) (that goes through the camber plate and bolts at the top). The strut shaft has a "rim" near the top where it supports the weight of the car, but the "hat" (#8) sits on the shaft, and a small "cuff" (Part #9) sits on top of the "hat" and contacts the bottom of the bushing (basically a ball with a hole through it). The "cuff" separates the hat from the bearing and bears the weight of the car between the hat and the bearing.

After about a year, I took my suspension apart and noticed that the top edge of the cuff (where it contacted the bearing) was all chewed up. Clearly, the motion of the suspension was jamming the cuff around the bearing. By putting a hardened steel washer above the cuff and below the bearing, I was able to free up that joint. But the washer has to be small enough in diameter that it doesn't restrict the movement of the strut shaft. I had to dremel it down. This also raised the suspension by the thickness of the washer, but a turn or two on the coilover fixed that.

https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=...MmI4Y2Nk&hl=en

xschop

I can't get on there. Guess I need to sign up at another spot.
I do understand the spherical heim binding and the washer fix. A better solution would be to use a needle thrust bearing on the mookehs, but that still does not solve the binding within the spherical contact area that is made worse by adding the load of the car. I am looking into a different approach and using a self-aligning spherical roller bearing. What I need to know is the full range of motion in degrees that the 944 shock shaft articulates throughout its full extension and compression?