GC Street camber plates Help: how to adjust after install?

[Obioban]

What did you switch too for your Ohlins?

Turner hybrids.

[timmo]

I have a used set of Ground Control Street plates for sale, if you’re in the market.

Appreciate the offer but they'll be going on my ZHP, so non-M fitment

[0-60motorsports]

How much mileage do you have on your set? There are surprisingly not too many reviews I can find on the street plates - I guess that could be a good thing, since I haven't heard of any bearing failures or complaints about NVH. I found a good deal on a set of used ones online and want to pick those up.

Sorry for the lat reply due to non working forum notifications.

I have ahd mine for more than 10 years and recently got a rebuild kit for them after snapping a stud lol. GC easily supplied the rebuild kit and it was so easy to put together. I know i can only adjust camber but if it can help with a tiny bit of caster which my car is asking for now, thats great, they will stay. Otherwise i'll be going to Turner Street Camber plates or Fortune Auto coilovers.

[timmo]

Sorry for the lat reply due to non working forum notifications.

I have ahd mine for more than 10 years and recently got a rebuild kit for them after snapping a stud lol. GC easily supplied the rebuild kit and it was so easy to put together. I know i can only adjust camber but if it can help with a tiny bit of caster which my car is asking for now, thats great, they will stay. Otherwise i'll be going to Turner Street Camber plates or Fortune Auto coilovers.

Thanks for the response, that's great to hear that they've lasted that long! Just picked up my GC street camber plates. I carefully checked it over prior to the purchase, and it was a good deal even if I have to replace the axial bearing.

For people with these plates, does the spring top hat and strut top easily disassemble? Just by hand, I was able to easily pull apart the two, which pulls apart the bearing. The bearing looks okay, and the self-aligning features in the bearing mean it pushes together fine. It also rotates relatively smoothly, though I may re-grease since there's a hint of "crunchiness" which I suspect is just some dirt. Just want to be sure I'm not missing any parts here.






EDIT: Well I just answered my own questions by calling Ground Control. Yes, the two halves are supposed to come apart by hand. They also said to use Marine Grease for regreasing. There is limited caster adjustment, as the slots in the billet piece are wider than the studs.

[r4dr]

Definitely looking forward to hearing your experience with these. There are literally no good product photos on GC’s website and the product info is pretty lacking.

[timmo]

Definitely looking forward to hearing your experience with these. There are literally no good product photos on GC’s website and the product info is pretty lacking.

Yeah, I was a bit hesitant after not seeing a whole lot of info or reviews, but GC is a reputable company. Hoping to get them on this weekend, happy to check back in after a few miles

[timmo]

Definitely looking forward to hearing your experience with these. There are literally no good product photos on GC’s website and the product info is pretty lacking.

Well, I got them in earlier today and drove about 50 km, mostly on the highway. So far so good. Some feedback is below, mine are non-Ms for my ZHP but I believe the M street plates are of similar design.

First thing I did on Friday was regreased the bearings:





Then got them in:





You do have to jack the car up to a point where the wheels are still touching the ground, but just barely. If you get it right, you can reach in and easily move the plate back and forth by grabbing the spring. It is a bit frustrating at times where the slots in the strut tower also allow the entire plate to move, in addition to the adjustment in the plate - I think other camber plates that have a divorced camber adjustment from stock would be a bit easier. So I just decided to run max stock camber adjust, and just move the plates for consistency.

Also, don't expect to be able to use this mount and adjust camber back and forth between a street/track setting, without something else changing (like I have). My plan was to swap settings before & after every event, but when doing my alignment found that toe was being very inconsistent. I still don't regret buying the plates because they were only a few bucks more than TMS fixed plates, and the ease of adjustment is still there. But I will likely re-align next weekend to something like -2.3 deg camber, and near-zero toe and leave it at that. Unless maybe I was doing something wrong, perhaps others with these plates can chime in on how consistent toe stays when you slide the plate back and forth a bunch of times?

Also as seen by my pics, the bearings are quite different than stock (which uses a radial ball bearing) or other camber plates (which use a spherical). It's a thrust ball bearing that is pretty beefy, and given the large diameter those suckers must've cost something like $60-80 a piece (assuming they are coming from a high-quality supplier like SKF or NSK). The only caveat with having a thrust ball bearing is that the axial compression on the bearing is entirely dependent on the torque of the top nut. Unlike a radial or spherical bearing where you're basically compressing solid metal, torquing the nut actually squeezes the bearing races against the balls. I suspect that it is because of this, that the bearing is quite hard to turn once assembled onto the strut. The stock upper mount rotates very freely, the GC plates still rotate smoothly but require moderate effort to turn by hand, and won't "glide" like if you spun the stock mount, and let go. I wonder if anyone else with these plates can comment if they've had similar experiences?

Regardless, my 50 km drive revealed no difference in NVH or steering effort, it's as if the stock strut mount was still installed. I guess time will tell if the bearing will last, as I am a bit concerned about what I mentioned above.