Camber & Stock Strut Mounts

[Cali HP Addict]

Hey,
I just installed a set of tires and realized that my old tires have significant wear on the very inside. Car is lowered with no camber adjusting mods currently. Thanks to this community I see that I can rotate my stock upper strut mounts 180 deg to help mediate this issue. I do have a couple of questions that you may be able to help me with.
1- Does anyone know how much positive camber does rotating the upper mounts add?
2- Can I just pull the 4 top bolts, jack up the car, and rotate the mount? Or do I need to do a more extensive removal and re-install including removing the shock bolt and clocking the mount?
Thanks in advance, this community is great!

 

[Derf08]

Where did you get the information about rotating the upper strut bearing plate to get camber? If you have factory plates, there is no built-in adjustment. The mount studs are equal distance from the center and the center is centered, not offset. Rotating does nothing unless you have aftermarket strut bearing plates where the strut rod nut is off-center.

I found the best and safest way is to get camber/caster plates. The ones I used on my '08 were these.
https://www.maximummotorsports.com/2005-2014-Mustang-Camber-Plates-C652.aspx

 

[JC SSP]

I have heard you could rotate GT500 strut mounts but I used Moog adjustable camber bolts and those worked perfectly. My car is barely 1” lower than stock and have no irregular tire wear.

 

[Cali HP Addict]

This isn't where I got the info but I just found it.

 

[Midlife Crises]

Yes you can remove the 4 nuts that hold the strut mount to the tower. Jack the body up carefully until the studs slip out of the strut holes and rotate the strut mount 180*. Do not loosen or remove the center nut. I did this on my 2010 GT using Steeda sport springs and also Steeda Competition springs. I have 1* negative camber on each side give or take 0.1* and a very low nose do to the 100 lbs of supercharger and support equipment. Check your toe alignment if tire ware is a problem. When I ran Steeda adjustable strut mounts I used 1.3 to 1.5 negative camber. Cornering was awesome and tire ware was not a problem.

 

[dark steed]

When I lowered using the FRPP K springs (1.5” drop), I used the GT500 strut mounts, rotated them 180°. That was about 100,000 miles ago and I’ve never had uneven wear on my tires.
It works…


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[86GT351]

Why not just do a Camber Bolt?

 

[Pentalab]

Why not just do a Camber Bolt?

Camber bolt...aka...'crash bolt'. They are just eccentric bolts. They will work, but would not be my 1st choice. I would not be slotting A arm mounts nor strut holes. Hit a few good bumps, and the bolts will shift on the slots.

I installed the steeda adjustable strut mounts. Then tweaked each one for max negative camber. Like -1.6 degs on each side. Zero inside tire wear.

 

[DieHarder]

Yes you can remove the 4 nuts that hold the strut mount to the tower. Jack the body up carefully until the studs slip out of the strut holes and rotate the strut mount 180*. Do not loosen or remove the center nut. I did this on my 2010 GT using Steeda sport springs and also Steeda Competition springs. I have 1* negative camber on each side give or take 0.1* and a very low nose do to the 100 lbs of supercharger and support equipment. Check your toe alignment if tire ware is a problem. When I ran Steeda adjustable strut mounts I used 1.3 to 1.5 negative camber. Cornering was awesome and tire ware was not a problem.

This ^^

I have the nearly the same setup. Rousch springs; Bilstein B-6 struts/shocks; GT-500 strut mounts; 100 lbs of blower. Flipped the strut mounts 180. Camber at -0.7*/-0.8* each side. No tire wear... excellent handling.

 

[07 Boss]

You know inside tire wear can be caused be a number of problems besides camber.
Worn suspension, ball joints, toe setting, bad shocks...

Clocking strut mounts work to a certain degree but can also lead to premature mount failure.

I like the extra camber. I'm just out of factory spec but I always liked the way the car felt a little better on initial turn in. Maybe because I don't have a front sway bar it feels different than most but I don't have any issue with abnormal tire wear and I run like 2.125* on one side and 2* on the other. But I also have the tire shop swap my front tires every year (staggered set up). I had to argue with them a bit at first because I'm supposed to get free tire rotation and the only way to do it is to take off and remount the tires and they didn't want to do that, but they finally agreed that there was no exclusion for particular wheel set ups.

 

[AHaze]

Lots of ways to skin this cat as you can see. When I first lowered my car, I slotted the holes in the strut ears to get camber in factory spec using stock mounting bolts as I wasn't aware of the "spin the upper mounts around" trick. I wasn't happy with the understeer I still had so I dialed the camber back to -2°. The same struts with the slotted mounting holes are still on the car 30000+ km of frost heaved and pothole filled Alberta roads later and the camber hasn't budged.

 

[GlassTop09]

Lots of ways to skin this cat as you can see. When I first lowered my car, I slotted the holes in the strut ears to get camber in factory spec using stock mounting bolts as I wasn't aware of the "spin the upper mounts around" trick. I wasn't happy with the understeer I still had so I dialed the camber back to -2°. The same struts with the slotted mounting holes are still on the car 30000+ km of frost heaved and pothole filled Alberta roads later and the camber hasn't budged.

I did the same thing as you did but I used the Ford Performance Caster\Camber bolt kit that Ford designed for this S197 chassis. I slotted out the 1 hole in the K-menber FLCA rear hydro bushing mount that was designed for the caster bolt eccentric (slot dimension is imprinted into the K-member & the other hole is already slotted) & the lower strut hole that was designed for the camber bolt eccentric. So, my car's frt end is fully adjustable to +- 1.5*. All came in handy when I swapped out the stock 09 GT springs for the 08-09 Bullitt take-off springs after also installing the GT500 FLCA's to realign all back to factory specs. I went w\ this kit due to me not wanting to get rid of my GT500 upper strut mounts that I had installed prior (didn't occur to me at the time that you could rotate these 180* to make a camber correction) & it is a Ford designed & built product.

I've read all the postings where folks said these bolts will not hold their settings.......been running them for the past 5 yrs w\o issues at all running over some very rough sections of roadway in NM from time to time as well. Have put actual alignment reference marks on them after every frt end alignment done to see if they move.......have yet to see 1 slip out of alignment. The key to this being successful is IMHO how well\accurate the slots are cut so the slots fit the bolt shanks as well as the original hole would have across the full caster\camber adjustment arc range......this maintains the proper strut to spindle load transfer\FLCA hydro bushing to K-member alignment arc.

But I will say this.........if I was gonna be doing any autoX or autocross\HPDE or road racing, I definitely would have used caster\camber plates w\ degree markings on them for ease of adjustment\correction at track as well as to get extended camber adjustment range.

 

[86GT351]

Camber bolt...aka...'crash bolt'. They are just eccentric bolts. They will work, but would not be my 1st choice. I would not be slotting A arm mounts nor strut holes. Hit a few good bumps, and the bolts will shift on the slots.

I installed the steeda adjustable strut mounts. Then tweaked each one for max negative camber. Like -1.6 degs on each side. Zero inside tire wear.

Your statement is correct. The best way would be to install Plates. However for the budget minded the bolt is the most efficient.

 

[dark steed]

I guess I got lucky and got 100,000 miles out of the clocked strut mounts with no failure…


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[Reloader]

FWIW, my alignment shop got -2.5 from the Eibach camber bolts. No modification was necessary. I have the FRPP M-FR3A-MGTAA Handling Pack with 1" lowering springs and Dynamic Suspension Adjustable Front Struts (made by Tokico).

 

[rocknrod]

I guess I got lucky and got 100,000 miles out of the clocked strut mounts with no failure…


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They only clock 180 right?

 

[DieHarder]

They only clock 180 right?

Yes. Either 'in' or 'out'. There is no in-between. On the upper strut mounts there's a cutout that should be pointing out (towards the wheels) if the car is stock. If you installed lowering springs re-clock the upper strut mounts "in" (towards the engine). As long as you're not lower than an inch or so camber should be within/close to specs.

 

[fast Ed]

Where does the camber end up typically if the mounts are put back in the factory orientation with a 1 to 1.25” drop?

Thanks,
Ed