Pedders top hats and subaru camber bolts... results.

[Racecomp Engineering]

Looking at your first and latest alignment, I'm a little confused. Are your left and right tops oriented the same way?

- Andrew

[7 skulls]

Time for an update. I've had the car back on the road for about 6 weeks now (after winter) and am definitely getting accelerated wear on the inside of my MPSS. 2.5 neg camber might be too much for a daily driver it seems. It's a shame because the car responds beautifully with a ton of front grip.
How is everyone else doing as far as tire wear and camber?
Seems like I have 3 choices now: find another shop and check the original alignment, replace the pedders top hats with stock and keep the stock camber bolts or replace the stock camber bolts with regular ones and keep the pedders.

[churchx]

Sounds weird. Just 6 weeks of summer daily driving with -2.5 front camber enough to wear noticeably inside of tires? Unless you drove 10K miles, imho something is off. DD wears relatively very slow compared to track, and for many front camber upto similar numbers didn't produce significant camberwear.

[7 skulls]

Just checked my tires again. Easy to feel the feathering on the inside of the front tires.

[BlueWhelan]

Originally Posted by 7 skulls

Just checked my tires again. Easy to feel the feathering on the inside of the front tires.

That's more symptom of toe in, not camber. How many miles have you put on the tires since zeroing out the front toe?

Speaking of toe, the rear passenger side is slightly toed in, but the rear driver side is toed out. Does the car pull slightly to the right when you let go of the wheel?

[7 skulls]

Originally Posted by BlueWhelan

That's more symptom of toe in, not camber. How many miles have you put on the tires since zeroing out the front toe?

Speaking of toe, the rear passenger side is slightly toed in, but the rear driver side is toed out. Does the car pull slightly to the right when you let go of the wheel?

Yes, I agree. Less than 1500 miles since the last alignment.
The car tracks perfectly straight when I let go the wheel and perfect wear patterns on the rears.

[7 skulls]

OK. After some research on NASIOC, I decided 2.5 deg. negative camber was causing my tire wear. (If you are running high negative camber and have no wear problems, excellent.) So I pulled my subaru camber bolts and replaced then with the thicker stock bolts, leaving only the pedders top hats.
See todays alignment below. My toe was good so most of my wear came from camber. Yes the front camber side to side is not exact (still half the total allowable difference and better than what the car came with). For a street vehicle, can't see it making a difference.
No macpherson strut (stock) car will ever have zero toe on the highway (bushings, mounting points will flex). High negative camber will accentuate this. Add in, highway miles and abrasive, heavily worn pavement, I got inside tire wear real fast. If I lived closer to the capital and could auto-x every weekend in the provincial series, maybe more camber would be fine. As it was, no amount of back road carving would even out the wear. At -2.5 camber, I could never feel the front tires begin to roll, but now I can feel them begin to set deeper into their contact patch. Not like the stock 0 camber where the tire will roll over and push.
If you are looking for some more front camber and are worried about aftermarket camber bolts slipping, the subaru camber bolts (non-eccentric) will give you about -1 deg. It will be harder to exactly match camber side to side but there is no fear of slipping. The pedders top hats are good for -1.2-1.5 deg. Again not able to fine tune but again no worries about slippage.

[bhmax]

Thanks for all the info. I’m about to go from two sets of camber bolts to the Pedders mounts and one set of camber bolts. Being weird, I looked at the instructions. It says ensure the OE conical washer is installed between the top spring hat and strut mount. I don’t currently have a washer there, and the service manual doesn’t show one. Maybe being a WRX fitment also, those cars had one?

[Racecomp Engineering]

Originally Posted by bhmax

Thanks for all the info. I’m about to go from two sets of camber bolts to the Pedders mounts and one set of camber bolts. Being weird, I looked at the instructions. It says ensure the OE conical washer is installed between the top spring hat and strut mount. I don’t currently have a washer there, and the service manual doesn’t show one. Maybe being a WRX fitment also, those cars had one?

That is correct...our OE conical washer is built in to our OE upper spring perch.

- Andrew

[solidONE]

1.5* of camber eh? I wonder how much caster it gains when orientated north/south postition.

[botbs]

Anyone have issue on the pedders top hat? I am about to purchase one. Just want to see if it has issue like the Whiteline Comp C top hat.

I am currently using STI Group N (-0.9 camber) and was using Verus Top Hat (too much noise). I want my -2 or at least -1.5 back.

Thanks

[BlueWhelan]

Originally Posted by botbs

Anyone have issue on the pedders top hat? I am about to purchase one. Just want to see if it has issue like the Whiteline Comp C top hat.

I am currently using STI Group N (-0.9 camber) and was using Verus Top Hat (too much noise). I want my -2 or at least -1.5 back.

Thanks

You’ll be fine. It’s like the Comp C, but done properly. You’ll need two, obv.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[7 skulls]

Originally Posted by botbs

Anyone have issue on the pedders top hat? I am about to purchase one. Just want to see if it has issue like the Whiteline Comp C top hat.
Thanks

No problems here.

[churchx]

Same here (~15K km, 5 trackdays, 2 years. Yeah, driven less now due all that lockdown stuff). Pitty that WL botched. We could have had product of such type 7 years ago.