My co-driver, Courtney, put them on for me two weeks ago. There was some debate as to where the top plate went but after measureing the total thickness of the factory strut tops and finding them to be at least 9/32" thicker than the K-Mac's we decided to put them completely under the strut tower and not to sandwich the tower tops. This will allow me to use any tower brace that fits the stock towers. Hopefully Courtney can post some pictures here he took with a friends camera. The 9/32" diff. in thickness gave me that much more room on my spring perch to tire clearance problem while maintaining the same ride height, -1.5", with my KW coilovers. Adj. range is said to be +/- 4 deg. on camber and we started with -2.6 and there's a fair amount more room to go if we wanted but we didn't check to see how much. I kept the caster at 4.85 deg.

 

Yo. This is Courtney's buddy with the pics.. sorry for the wait...took me awhile to make my way over...
at any rate here are te pics...

 

cool it worked..i will be poppin in and out..with picutres of the progress of Richards Mini..enjoy

 

I am very curious about the bearing and carrier (the thing the five screws hold in there). is is a solid unit, or does it use polyurethane? a spherical bearing?

 

Could you post a photo of the inside of the engine bay so we could see the top of the strut towers? Also where did you buy the plates? Price? Did I understand you correctly that you set the front to a negative 2.6 degrees camber? What is the rear set to? Any comments on performance difference with that much front camber?

 

>>I am very curious about the bearing and carrier (the thing the five screws hold in there). is is a solid unit, or does it use polyurethane? a spherical bearing?

I got the one with spherical bearings, which I believe is recommended for cars with coilovers or high rate springs, there is a poly version though for stock struts or low rate springs.

I ordered directly from K-Mac in Aus. after doing a net. search for either K-Mac or K-Mac Camber and then looking over what they had on their web site, including shiping costs to the U.S. My total was $523. the Poly version is a little less and though no one mentioned it, I also got a rear camber kit as well. The rear kit consists of 4 eccentric poly bushings for the lower control arms. Although the rear kit is not on the car yet, I see no reason why only one bushing could be put on all 4 arms, or two kits could be used if you wanted lots of range for toe and camber. Replacing the upper arm bushings in this way should give a little more precise rear toe control than the O.E. adjustment arrangement at the front of the trailing arms, which I had trouble with being not properly tightened from the factory anyway.

Court autocrossed the car last weekend with the Mac's up front, he was very pleased. We duked it out for PAX FTD, MCS vs. Subaru. I think he got me by a few hundredths of a sec. but I'm baseing that on our times to the nearest 1/10th. 53.6 vs. 54.7, STX vs. STS.

Sorry no engine bay pics yet, nothing to see anyway but the top of the camber plates down in the strut towers. Yes, front camber is at -2.6 and the rear is at -1.5.

There is a very minor noise increase with the spherical bearing front plates.

 

Thanks for the info Richard. After our conversation about them, I now have some on order for evaluation. I like the price comparatively. I forget if we talked about it, but do these have caster adjustment too?

Randy

 

Here's the link to K-Mac's site, http://www.K-Mac.com.au/

Yes, the caster is adjustable but I don't remember how much range they said it had, +/-2 deg I think.

Front kit w/spherical bearings #195116L $495, +/- 4 deg. camber I think.

Front kit w/poly #195116J $370 +/- ???

Rear kit +/- 3 deg adj. range #195026H $320, 4 bushings, You could use only one per arm and do all 4 arms or just do the loweres and sell the others and have adj. rear camber +/-1.5 deg. for just $160!

Shiping, F $23, R$18, or both for $34 to the U.S. in 7-8 working days!

WARNING! Tell your credit card company you are ordering something from Aus. or your order may get delayed and involve phone calls or letters from them.