[rwalker]

Originally Posted by MyM235i

So is the consensus of all this that for street, LCA and TS trumps plates due to lack of NVH and plates are the ideal for track due to adjustability?

LCA and TS have their own merits, among them is the ability to maintain camber under load, owing to the more robust inner bushing on the LCA.

Originally Posted by MyM235i

Due to ease of install and cost are plates still a viable street option?

What are the reasons you think plates are easier to install than LCA/TS combo? IMHO, they're about the same difficulty, assuming you have the tools.

[MyM235i]

Originally Posted by rwalker

LCA and TS have their own merits, among them is the ability to maintain camber under load, owing to the more robust inner bushing on the LCA.

What are the reasons you think plates are easier to install than LCA/TS combo? IMHO, they're about the same difficulty, assuming you have the tools.

Plates come as a kit. It's really only one part. Lca/TS You need to fabricate or source spacers and more has to come off the car. I suppose once you have everything they are comparable as far a labor goes. You can manage a much further drive before an alignment with just the plates. Also you indicated a greater expense with the LCA/TS parts. I'm just doing cost benefit. Its mostly a street car with the odd chance of a trackday.

[HP Autosport]

Originally Posted by rwalker

LCA and TS have their own merits, among them is the ability to maintain camber under load, owing to the more robust inner bushing on the LCA.

What are the reasons you think plates are easier to install than LCA/TS combo? IMHO, they're about the same difficulty, assuming you have the tools.

That is one of the reasons to upgrade the lower control arm. The deflection under load will take away the camber you just gained.

[HP Autosport]

If you have Ohlins R&T, Vorshlag has confirmed fitment on them so you are good to go.

Bilstein strut profile should be close as soon as Vorshlag is able to get there hands on one to measure and test.

[casper83]

Recently did a track day at Milwaukee Mile and Blackhawk farms. I'm happy with these plates so far (previously had Dinan & KMAC). They have a little noise around town, but no where near as bad as the rocks in a can rattling the Dinan product had. My tire wear is great compared to stock. I'm no longer eating the outside edges of the front tires. So far, so good...

[HP Autosport]

Originally Posted by casper83

Recently did a track day at Milwaukee Mile and Blackhawk farms. I'm happy with these plates so far (previously had Dinan & KMAC). They have a little noise around town, but no where near as bad as the rocks in a can rattling the Dinan product had. My tire wear is great compared to stock. I'm no longer eating the outside edges of the front tires. So far, so good...

Thank you for the feedback.

[XutvJet]

Originally Posted by casper83

They have a little noise around town..

Damn. I could handle some noise is a track car, but not in a car like this. What exactly causes the rattling? Outside of the OEM spring isolator that some aren't running, is there some other rubber piece of rubber missing from these camber plates? Is there some level of play in the bearings that causes the rattle?

I really someone would just a make an OEM style top hat with the strut hole offset inwards to get 1 degree more camber. It would be so easy.

For now, I'm running my front tires at 37-38psi and it's made quite a nice improvement in feel. The tires don't feel like they roll over near as much and there's minimal shoulder wear after 7K miles. I feel like a can coax the more out of the rear as well as the front feels to be gripping a bit harder.

[Liquidpaper]

Originally Posted by XutvJet

Damn. I could handle some noise is a track car, but not in a car like this. What exactly causes the rattling? Outside of the OEM spring isolator that some aren't running, is there some other rubber piece of rubber missing from these camber plates? Is there some level of play in the bearings that causes the rattle?

I really someone would just a make an OEM style top hat with the strut hole offset inwards to get 1 degree more camber. It would be so easy.

For now, I'm running my front tires at 37-38psi and it's made quite a nice improvement in feel. The tires don't feel like they roll over near as much and there's minimal shoulder wear after 7K miles. I feel like a can coax the more out of the rear as well as the front feels to be gripping a bit harder.

It's mostly just road noise that travels into the chassis because of the removal of the rubber top mount -- an increase in NVH is impossible to avoid with adjustable camber plates. That's the trade off . . .

[rwalker]

Originally Posted by Liquidpaper

It's mostly just road noise that travels into the chassis because of the removal of the rubber top mount -- an increase in NVH is impossible to avoid with adjustable camber plates. That's the trade off . . .

It's unavoidable in the current designs, which all use a spherical bearing top mount, but a rubber or urethane top mount (a la the original GC design) would fix it. Too bad the GC urethane design broke the studs off...

[rwalker]

Originally Posted by modernbeat

We've installed them both with and without the rubber isolator. I prefer it without, as we designed it to be used without. But if you want to try to keep it, you can pull it over the perch and use it.

TL;DR: These are still the best plates available for our car today, but be aware they're not without compromises. They're so, soooo close. This makes me think maybe you'd be justified in waiting until this last niggle is addressed before pulling the trigger on 'em. The spring perch nose is too large for a perfect fit.

Full story: After some extensive debate and discussion with Vorshlag, I've gone ahead and done the "don't do" from my original post. I have re-installed the stock isolators along with the Vorshlag plates, following Vorshlag's (newly revised) recommendation.

The reason for the change is that without the stock rubber isolator in place, the spring and perch end up in direct contact, and the loop closest to the perch rubs/binds because the Vorshlag perch has no support ramp as included on the stock isolator. This makes some seriously raunchy noises (metal on metal, grunching). I'd been living with this for 2k miles.

Now that noise is gone.

But: because the spring is 96mm inner diameter, and the Vorshlag perch nose is also 96mm in diameter, the 2mm of rubber isolator each side prevents the spring from seating correctly. It has nowhere to go. The result is a little additional ride height, and (for me) a torn isolator. I think the isolator tore pretty much as soon as I let the car down on its wheels, but I didn't notice until after a run around the block (less than one mile at sub-neighborhood speeds, testing for noise).

The pics below are of the perches and springs, where they ate each other over 2k miles of graunching, measurement of stock vs Vorshlag perch nose diameters, and finally the resulting isolator tear (yes, after less than one mile on the road).

I took a picture of the distance from the inner bearing surface to the outside of the nose (23mm below) to understand how much material is available for shaving off this version of the perch. The bearing in question is 12mm thick, which implies 11mm of material between the outer bearing ring and the outside of the perch nose. To accommodate the stock isolator properly, the nose needs to be machined 2mm smaller/thinner. I don't know if 2 out of 11 is a big deal here. The perch itself (on its load bearing surface) is a good bit thinner than 9mm though...

Some videos of the noise I experienced without the isolators installed:

And the pictures.

[gtmax500]

Quick picture of my front tire after the plates installed. The "deeper" wear is from about 4 autocross days and the lighter "shallower" (is that a word) wear is after an HPDE weekend. Its about a half inch difference. The plates almost completely eliminated the understeer that the f22 is plagued with and my car performed exceedingly well for my first track day. Just my thoughts.

[allthatisntnow]

Ive currently only got about 500 street miles on the plates and am loving them so far. Im getting noise of course but no major clunking or anything of that nature. It is very marginal and totally bearable (dust boots refitted). With the radio on you can't even tell. Well worth the trade off for the much improved feel and handling benefits imho. Cant wait to get them on track.

[Sypher]

Thanks for the detailed update rwalker. I'm looking to get a set of these plates myself in the future. Hopefully Vorshlag will listen to your recommendations and adjust the perch to allow the OEM rubber isolator to be used.

[modernbeat]

Rob was nice and didn't mention that the stud for the strut tower brace ended up threaded too far in, and causing it to be too short. We changed the stud length to fix that issue.

We've installed a few pair of these now, all with the isolator boot, and haven't had the same issues as Rob. If anyone else has problems with the spring seating on the perch, let us know about it.

[MyM235i]

Rwalker thanks for the continued review! It would be nice to see if it could be lathed down to accommodate the isolator. Has Vorshlag indicated it as a possibility?

[rwalker]

Originally Posted by MyM235i

Rwalker thanks for the continued review! It would be nice to see if it could be lathed down to accommodate the isolator. Has Vorshlag indicated it as a possibility?

Vorshlag's last response to me on this was that they don't want to reduce the wall thickness of the perch nose.

So you're left with 2 choices with these plates:

1. using isolator: improper seating of the spring, resulting in slighty higher ride height and (most likely) torn isolators
2. leaving out isolator: spring on perch grunching

[rwalker]

Originally Posted by modernbeat

Rob was nice and didn't mention that the stud for the strut tower brace ended up threaded too far in, and causing it to be too short. We changed the stud length to fix that issue.

Actually, I did mention that in my OP, but you were already looking into that .

Originally Posted by modernbeat

We've installed a few pair of these now, all with the isolator boot, and haven't had the same issues as Rob. If anyone else has problems with the spring seating on the perch, let us know about it.

I'd love to see anyone's installation for comparison.

In particular, I'd like to see pics of a 96mm inner diameter spring seated properly over a 96mm perch nose with 2mm of rubber in between .

[Anthony235]

Originally Posted by rwalker

Vorshlag's last response to me on this was that they don't want to reduce the wall thickness of the perch nose.

So you're left with 2 choices with these plates:

1. using isolator: improper seating of the spring, resulting in slighty higher ride height and (most likely) torn isolators
2. leaving out isolator: spring on perch grunching

Hmmm, the other option would be to shave down the spring where it meets the isolator. Got a dremmel handy?

Then sand down the spot really well to get rid of any burs and spray paint it to protect it from the elements.

I would actually feel more comfortable doing that over narrowing the perch. It should not require you to take that much material off.

[rwalker]

Originally Posted by Anthony235

Hmmm, the other option would be to shave down the spring where it meets the isolator. Got a dremmel handy?

Then sand down the spot really well to get rid of any burs and spray paint it to protect it from the elements.

I would actually feel more comfortable doing that over narrowing the perch. It should not require you to take that much material off.

Can you clarify what you mean by that? The spring meets the isolator for some 180 degrees or so of the first loop, with an inner diameter of 96mm.

I don't understand how shaving 2mm of the inside of that 180 degrees of the first loop of the spring would be safer/better than machining down the perch nose, but maybe I'm missing something.

[zipphreak]

Not to hijack, but i have been avidly watching the Dinan and Vorshlag Camber Plate threads... I bought the GC v2 plates right around when they were re-released. I've had them in for about 10 HDPE's and roughly 8000 street miles. Outside of some minor slow speed (sub 20 mph) rattling, these things have been good so far. OEM struts/and springs, OEM isolators, very little noise, no clunking or clanging.

I'm amazed at how difficult it is to do proper R&D and testing on a product before it is released.

[Dog Face Pony Soldier]

Originally Posted by gtmax500

Quick picture of my front tire after the plates installed. The "deeper" wear is from about 4 autocross days and the lighter "shallower" (is that a word) wear is after an HPDE weekend. Its about a half inch difference. The plates almost completely eliminated the understeer that the f22 is plagued with and my car performed exceedingly well for my first track day. Just my thoughts.

Thanks for the pics! Please don't read this as overly critical, but I have a request.

At periodic points along the side of the PSS there is a tiny Michelin Man pointing to the corner of the tire. Next time you capture images it would tell us more if you choose the section with the Michelin Man pointing to this reference point.

Rock on.

[Dog Face Pony Soldier]

Went out and captured an image of what I described in the post above.