Do I NEED camber plates?

[gramicci101]

If you want the ability to adjust your camber for better handling, you need some sort of adjustment mechanism; whether that's bolts or plates. Bolts are much cheaper and have no added NVH, but they have a limited adjustment range. Plates have a greater adjustment range, but they're much more expensive and add NVH because they replace the OEM rubber top mount. It's a question of which trade-off you would rather have to achieve more negative camber. Additional tire wear isn't really a concern unless you have a lot of negative camber or unless your toe is off.

I have bolts on mine and they're maxed out at -1.7. I'd like more, but it's not worth the added expense of plates. -1.7 is fine for a daily driver; I have nice sharp handling without it being twitchy.

[churchx]

BTW, with stock shocks (with larger diameter coils) that range was not drastically wider with camberplates. At -2.5 shock spring cap already started to rub for me, not that much more of neg. camber then -2.2 with cambolts in both holes.
And one shouldn't underestimate increase in NVH at daily driving on subpar state public roads. It was bad enough to decide switching to bolts & stock mounts after having tried camberplates for few months. It might be not that bad with higher spring rates with some aftermarket coilovers, and thus maybe less bottoming out to bumpstops, but not so with softer sprung stock ones.

[renfield90]

Bolts aren't a bad idea. Again, not necessary, but at max adjustment most bolts will provide a reasonable amount of camber so your risk of having too much camber is small.

I'd recommend the OEM crash bolts over others and just set to max camber. Keep it simple...

[strat61caster]

Originally Posted by churchx

BTW, with stock shocks (with larger diameter coils) that range was not drastically wider with camberplates. At -2.5 shock spring cap already started to rub for me, not that much more of neg. camber then -2.2 with cambolts in both holes.
And one shouldn't underestimate increase in NVH at daily driving on subpar state public roads. It was bad enough to decide switching to bolts & stock mounts after having tried camberplates for few months. It might be not that bad with higher spring rates with some aftermarket coilovers, and thus maybe less bottoming out to bumpstops, but not so with softer sprung stock ones.

Probably depends on the plates, I had no problem getting over -3 degrees on stock suspension + plates.

And the NVH increase was nearly indiscernible, I was the only person who could tell.

[churchx]

strat61caster: probably depends on roads. Was fine on good ones/on track/on some of uneventies. And was like loud hard hits on other ones, that subjectively sounded like if any harder, then it will start to break/bend parts/suspension/wheels. Liked extra grip from negative camber on track and more to my liking changed grip balance (due less camber in rear), but given bad average road state here + me daily driving 99%, not on track, i gave up plates and installed bolts instead. And let me tell you that immediately felt big relief. Like some say - to make human happy first you rob him of something, then return how it was. I could simply drive normally again, not maneuver around many of those road holes that made me feel like breaking car/suspension, even if it just "sounded" like breaking. And it sounded/felt that way too to others i had as passengers when still had plates on.
It's very probably not so on better roads, very probably with several aftermarket coilovers, some of which even have camplates in set yet still are reviewed as more comfortable/compliant as stock. Not so for me, with stock, on roads here.

[continuecrushing]

Just get camber plates, I wish I did the first time around. I had ST coilovers which were decent, but I reused the factory top hats and only ended up with -1.5 and -1.8 I think up front. Not horrible, but I just switched coilovers and picked up Velox camber plates to go on the new setup-here's an unboxing video, and I have more stuff coming shortly. @VeloxEric

When/if you decide to go with different coilovers, you can either re-use the Velox plates (they work with a handful of coilovers) or sell them if your new ones come with camber plates. They are absolutely a bargain and well worth the money.

Bolts are okay, but I've never been a fan since they aren't really easily adjustable and I was always worried about potential slippage.

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NA_E36uJy44"]Velox Motorsport Camber Plates FRS/BRZ Unboxing and First Look - YouTube[/ame]

[strat61caster]

Originally Posted by churchx

strat61caster: probably depends on roads. Was fine on good ones/on track/on some of uneventies. And was like loud hard hits on other ones, that subjectively sounded like if any harder, then it will start to break/bend parts/suspension/wheels.

Out of curiosity, what plates did you have which were such a bad experience? I've only had experience with one brand (Raceseng), but I've driven it on some of the worst roads in this country and camber plates + stock dampers/springs were totally equal with fully stock.

I have no doubt your roads are worse than mine

[churchx]

Also raceseng + spring perches for stockers. They were no doubt quality product that i very probably may put back when/if i'll upgrade to aftermarket shocks/coilovers (seem better then many native camber plates), but replacing rubber mount with pillow ball there with soft sprung stockers impacted NVH on bad local roads way more then i expected/was willing to live with (mostly on road holes/bumps of sharp height change). For now it's group n mounts (as bearing in one stock mount binded, so if replacing, why not experiment. Didn't feel difference vs stock to handling but also no change to NVH)+ bolts for me (+rea lca of course).

[redlined600]

Originally Posted by churchx

I don't get though why Com-Cs failed on one platform (ours) and worked fine in others. If anything else, STI has even more mass/load in front, so should fail quicker? :/
Even greater pitty to com-c fail is that there seems nobody else considering making rubber mounts with extra camber, only other choices for extra camber at top mounts being camberplates with mentioned NVH issues.

I'd be willing to bet that either the strut axis didn't line up with the axis of the bearing or when it went through its range of motion while turning the axes went too far out of alignment excessively side loading the bearing.