moochman4life

So, what EXACTLY do upper strut mounts do? What do they prevent? How are they beneficial?

Now that I got my first track day out of the way, and am insane about getting back, I'm paying a lil more attention to the Handling section road race crew's signatures. Most of your sigs all have upper strut mounts in them.

This thread is awesome:

https://mustangforums.com/forum/4-6l...ion-guide.html

However, there is no mention of upper strut mounts.

A search for threads turns up things like, "Dude, you need strut mounts," with little further dialogue.

Just curious. Thanks in advance!

Argonaut

Your car has upper strut mounts now. They are the pieces that mount the top of the front struts to the car.

What I think you are really asking about is adjustable upper strut mounts, otherwise known as camber plates. For example Steeda Upper Strut Mounts. The stock units are not adjustable, the camber plates are. This gives you the ability to increase the negative camber of the front tires. Why is the good? because it puts more rubber on the road when turning. More rubber means more grip. In other words, your car will handle better.

Norm Peterson

What the upper strut mount in this chassis also does is allow the strut to turn as you steer without trying to twist the spring. There is a bearing in the strut mount that allows this, and some strut mount designs cope with lowering better than others. The OE mount is OK, maybe even fine at stock ride height, but not so good with cars that have been lowered much.

As mentioned, the Steeda heavy duty strut mount also incorporates a means of significant camber adjustment (that is not present in the OE mount). This either lets you recover from camber that's too negative from lowering or lets you go more negative than the factory range to better suit track day use or hard cornering in general if that's the way you drive. Autocross too, but not in the Stock classes (I think that they are class-legal in ESP and ST, though).


Norm

moochman4life

Hey guys, thanks. Yup, I think I was a little confusing with my thread, but copy all. Aftermarket camber plates (ie., strut mounts) will (depending on the make/model) allow me to add positive camber, thus increasing the amount of rubber on the ground....say....during cornering at the track.

Check.

See, I'm all educated, now.

The stock ones are "plastic", right? So, a set of aftermarkets (from Steeda, maybe?) would be more durable if one tracks fairly regularly?

Thanks again.

Sleeper_08

Small correction - you actually want more negative camber if you are tracking the car - i. e. the tops of the wheels should be closer to to the center of the car than the bottoms, then as the body rolls in the corner the wheel becomes more vertical;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_camber

moochman4life

Understood. I guess what I was saying was is if someone had a 2" drop, their car would produce a ridiculous amount of negative camber. Because of this, camber plates would be in order to straighten them out some without overdoing it.

So, basically, because I have a 1" drop and it hasn't produced a serious amount of camber, I should be good?....unless I'm doing this regularly, and would then need stronger mounts.

Am I far off?

chrumck

Yes, basically you are right. AFAIK having 1" drop is actually beneficial for track driving and it should not introduce to much camber for street use.

One way or the other, I'd check the alignment after lowering the car with the springs. You will know this way what camber you end up with. I've been told -1.5 degrees is still fine for the street.

Norm Peterson

Sort of.

IMO at that setting you need to be consistently fairly aggressive about your cornering. Otherwise you won't roll the tires over far enough to wear the outside shoulders much.


Norm

chrumck

Yes, -1.5 might be aggressive. That's what a Hankook rep told seeing me at the track beating the hell out of my car. Stock -0.75 doesn't work for me anymore, I register consistently higher outer edge temps and have worn out the outer edge. BTW I run Dunlop Star Specs

2007CalSpec

I have the J&M camber plate/strut mount and I love it. It's a very well made and sturdy piece of equipment. It gives 1.8 degrees of camber adjustment. Took me 2 hrs to install.

http://www.hotpart.com/shop/index.ph...ct_detail&p=64