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Unable To Get More Than -3.2° Camber w/Vorshlag Plates.

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Widened the strut tower holes and took it in to be aligned this am. The tech said all he could get was -3.2 left and -3.4 right. It’s my understanding that -4.0° is possible with these plates, but he said the bolts are all the way to the ends of the slots. Nowhere left to go.

No clue what’s going on. The car is a 2017 GT, base model, with the following mods:

Vorshlag S550 Caster/Camber plates
Ford Shelby GT350R Springs
Ford Performance Pack Shocks & Struts (M-18000-F)
Eibach Sway Bars, front & rear (EIB-35145320)
25 mm front spacers
ARP Extended Wheel Stud Kit
Gorilla Lug Nuts
19x11 Apex EC-7 Wheels, ET52
Falken RT660 Tires, 315/30r19

So is the tech missing something simple? Is my set-up the problem somehow? Plates installed incorrectly? I’m clueless. Any help will be much appreciated, as usual.
 
Jason at Vorshlag replied to my email quickly. His answer:

“it's most likely that there is positive camber at the strut to spindle interface. Check the two bolts that hold the strut to the spindle. You can remove one of the bolts”

Right over my head with that. I replied to tell him I’m an ignoramus mechanically, and have zero spare time to learn. I think I know where the two bolts are, but how to do it, how it will be effective, which bolt to remove etc? I’ll need to inform the tech of what to do if it isn’t super-obvious.
 
I realize you have an S550 but I ran into the same issue when I switched to Vorshlag camber plates on my S197. Even though I was using a special strut housing from Cortex that altered the strut-to-spindle position to allow a wider wheel, I had no problem getting -4.0+ camber with the previous camber plates. I know this is not likely something you will do but I took the Vorshlag plates apart and elongated the slots in the base to allow max movement. I also slightly enlarged the lower strut bolt hole (like adding a camber bolt) that also added some negative camber. It was tedious but not that difficult. I can now get close to -4.0.
 

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Jason at Vorshlag replied to my email quickly. His answer:“it's most likely that there is positive camber at the strut to spindle interface. Check the two bolts that hold the strut to the spindle. You can remove one of the bolts”Right over my head with that. I replied to tell him I’m an ignoramus mechanically, and have zero spare time to learn. I think I know where the two bolts are, but how to do it, how it will be effective, which bolt to remove etc? I’ll need to inform the tech of what to do if it isn’t super-obvious.


So I've got an MCS strut and those bolts with the chalk/grease marks are the bolts he is talking about, which attach it to the front spindle / knuckle. They're not perfectly straight circle holes either, somewhat more of an oval which allows you to slide to where you need to be when the bolt and nut are loosened a touch, with the majority of your movement being on the top bolt, but I believe the bottom has a little bit of play as well. I'm not Jason, but I'm going to assume that he meant to remove the top bolt, and with that out, you can see what he means. If you have the C/C plates like \ and the spindle like \, you are going to likely scrape the inside of your wheel against the strut, so do back off from that just a touch, and it's somewhat of a work to get the sizing just right. I had a similar issue that I was working out with Jason and Terry like a year ago, and found out that I had to use their stuff to just give the adjustability and trust the alignment machine (or strings) measurements, which was kinda weird, because they don't look even. Turns out that my K-Member isn't entirely perfectly straight because the previous owner was a f'n idiot. To some degree (seldom, but possible) they can be off slightly as well. I'm at about -3.6 or so and that's honestly good enough for me. My alignment took a bit, because we'd do it at the top, and then go back down, and then do a wheel to wheel sweep, and went back to where the toe, caster, and camber where exactly where we wanted it, all that fine tuning is a pain in the tuchus.

Here's hoping your tech figures it out, but in my experiences, they're not all created equal either. I went to a shop about 3 miles away from me which had high scores on Yelp and random people talking about how great they were, so not having any connections early into the Stripper life, I took a chance and ... it was terrible. I had every excuse and reason for why it wasn't possible, and a simple request of the stock GT350 (r?) track alignment was deemed impossible. I spent the night googling, took my jacks, grabbed some fishing wire and weights and did my own string alignment which a magnetic angle tool said came pretty close to where I wanted it. Decided to not chance it, hit up one of my race buddies, and ... absolute night and day difference, it handles like an absolute dream. I know you're much farther away, and it's not you'd ship it cross country, but it'd be worth paying the extra money for a trusted shop to put their hands on it, one race centric and semi-known for their ability to do so, perhaps ask one of the faster or built up Mustangs at your next track day for some names or people. You'll probably pay double what it'd be at an alignment place, but it's huge, and @67GTA had a similar experience.

20220322_194801.jpg


I am looking at the possibility of adding camber with SPL tension rods and lower arms.
https://www.splparts.com/products/gt350-mustang-front-tension-rods.html

Have you looked at this option?

Has anyone had positive results with this option?
I also have the SPL torsion rod and front control arm, because the stock ones were bent, and additionally to save some weight, and also allow a little more tweaking to get the geometry right where we wanted it. After that, holy f'n moly, it's a brand new car and the thing just goes. I'd love to think that it's the driver, but ... yeah, no, it's not. Don't quote me on it, but I want to say it saves about 20-25# off the front, because the front control arm is f'n yuuuge.
 
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Without camber plates you can adjust at the crash bolts at spindle to strut interface. If you do that is negatively effects scrub radius. Sometimes that compromise you have to take. Roll center correction arms will steal some camber too. Crash bolts must be activated sometimes to get clearance for bigger wheel tire.
 
So I've got an MCS strut and those bolts with the chalk/grease marks are the bolts he is talking about, which attach it to the front spindle / knuckle. They're not perfectly straight circle holes either, somewhat more of an oval which allows you to slide to where you need to be when the bolt and nut are loosened a touch, with the majority of your movement being on the top bolt, but I believe the bottom has a little bit of play as well. I'm not Jason, but I'm going to assume that he meant to remove the top bolt, and with that out, you can see what he means. If you have the C/C plates like \ and the spindle like \, you are going to likely scrape the inside of your wheel against the strut, so do back off from that just a touch, and it's somewhat of a work to get the sizing just right. I had a similar issue that I was working out with Jason and Terry like a year ago, and found out that I had to use their stuff to just give the adjustability and trust the alignment machine (or strings) measurements, which was kinda weird, because they don't look even. Turns out that my K-Member isn't entirely perfectly straight because the previous owner was a f'n idiot. To some degree (seldom, but possible) they can be off slightly as well. I'm at about -3.6 or so and that's honestly good enough for me. My alignment took a bit, because we'd do it at the top, and then go back down, and then do a wheel to wheel sweep, and went back to where the toe, caster, and camber where exactly where we wanted it, all that fine tuning is a pain in the tuchus.

Here's hoping your tech figures it out, but in my experiences, they're not all created equal either. I went to a shop about 3 miles away from me which had high scores on Yelp and random people talking about how great they were, so not having any connections early into the Stripper life, I took a chance and ... it was terrible. I had every excuse and reason for why it wasn't possible, and a simple request of the stock GT350 (r?) track alignment was deemed impossible. I spent the night googling, took my jacks, grabbed some fishing wire and weights and did my own string alignment which a magnetic angle tool said came pretty close to where I wanted it. Decided to not chance it, hit up one of my race buddies, and ... absolute night and day difference, it handles like an absolute dream. I know you're much farther away, and it's not you'd ship it cross country, but it'd be worth paying the extra money for a trusted shop to put their hands on it, one race centric and semi-known for their ability to do so, perhaps ask one of the faster or built up Mustangs at your next track day for some names or people. You'll probably pay double what it'd be at an alignment place, but it's huge, and @67GTA had a similar experience.

View attachment 73775



I also have the SPL torsion rod and front control arm, because the stock ones were bent, and additionally to save some weight, and also allow a little more tweaking to get the geometry right where we wanted it. After that, holy f'n moly, it's a brand new car and the thing just goes. I'd love to think that it's the driver, but ... yeah, no, it's not. Don't quote me on it, but I want to say it saves about 20-25# off the front, because the front control arm is f'n yuuuge.
Man, thanks for that. I couldn’t understand how or why there would be “play” at that connection, how that would be stable, or how running with a bolt removed would be safe.
 
Without camber plates you can adjust at the crash bolts at spindle to strut interface. If you do that is negatively effects scrub radius. Sometimes that compromise you have to take. Roll center correction arms will steal some camber too. Crash bolts must be activated sometimes to get clearance for bigger wheel tire.
So this brings a trade-off with scrub radius. Not sure it’s worth the effort and cost to get another -0.3°. Though I suppose it will be a very small change in scrub radius to get such a little bit of camber.
 

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