Norm Peterson

It's not at all clear what Eibach is trying to say with "Sportline springs can run at stock settings". But since they can be expected to lower the car by 1.5" or a little more, you can expect your cambers to be pushed at least 1° more negative.

So let's say that your particular car actually sits with the cambers at -0.8° right now (entirely possible, since the preferred setting is -0.75°). Another degree negative from the Sportline lowering is -1.8°, which is not only a very aggressive setting for street driving - it's 0.3° outside Ford's spec (which ends at -1.5°).

If you insist on running that much camber, at that point you pretty much HAVE TO drive the corners with more "enthusiasm" than most people you'll ever meet. On a consistent basis too, probably meaning more half the total number of corners you encounter. Taking one or two hard corners a week isn't going to be nearly enough.

I will not ever recommend the use of crash bolts except in extremely unusual and very temporary cases. New installations do not qualify under that exception, period. Spend the $300 - compared to your neck and the rest of the car and its mods, that's not even pocket change. If you don't have that last $300 in hand now, hold everything off until you do and can do it right.

Long story short on the bolts - they are smaller bolts that are not supposed to be tightened to anywhere near what the regular bolts are spec'ed to. You cannot develop the same clamping load with crash bolts at ~75 ft-lbs installation torque when the factory torque spec for the regular strut to knuckle bolts is over 160 ft-lbs. It's that clamping load and the friction developed from that clamping load that keeps the parts held firmly together and holds the alignment that was set.


Norm

06 Black Beauty

Ok so here is my question for everyone. I don't understand all of the suspension ins and outs but I've read a lot of threads on this subject. Something I almost never hear about is adjusting the Pinion angle and having to to get an adjustable upper or lower control arms. Everyone always mentions the camber and struts/shocks but I never hear about the other. So how important is it? the adjustable rear controls arms either upper or lower is needed for the adjustment of the pinion angle. Does this depend on the amount of lowering if it is needed or not. I've been thinking about lowering my car but it seems to do it right you need to buy more than just springs and camber plates and for some new struts/shocks.

Sam Strano

Nothing MUST be changed. You could drive a bone stock car forever. How do you want to split the hair? The stock dampers are poor from the get go. Put better dampers on a car with stock springs and it's better. It's just that much better again when you then add lowering springs to the mix.

Also, how smooth the streets are has no bearing on the the damper being able to control the mass of the car and keep it settled down. My '07 on Koni's rode WAY better than my ex-girlfriend's car on stock dampers (all else was stock, springs, bars, etc.). It pissed her off to know end, but she didn't have the money for the Koni's.

Norm Peterson

Pinion angle is mostly a dragstrip thing, so you aren't going to hear very much about pinion angle in any cornering and handling oriented forum.

What I know about it is that you use it to offset the amount of LCA and UCA bushing compression that happens under heavy acceleration, with the idea being to minimize the drivetrain losses through the U-joints by keeping them from operating at large angles. So it's mostly a WOT 1st & 2nd gear "fix" for bushings that are far less than rigid. Roughly, as you go from softer bushings to firmer bushings such as polyurethane to solid sphericals, your pinion angle requirements shift. Ditto as you stiffen up the overall combination in mixed bushing combinations (i.e. from OE upper/poly LCAs to all poly, or to OE upper with spherical LCAs).


In a street-driven, or autocrossed or road course raced or open-tracked car it's not particularly important as long as you aren't getting vibrations and the U-joint angles are reasonable. It's only at the dragstrip where the results might justify tinkering any more than getting it close.

A severely lowered car (Sportlines and lower), or a car that has had a different transmission installed (which moves the front U-joint point and changes the U-joint angles) are the street-driver situations where some pinion angle work is most likely to matter enough to be worth the bother. And I would expect some cars to need tweaking while others might not.


Norm

Hamhole

When you change any one thing, you can disrupt the balance Ford designed into the car.

For me, when I lowered my 2010 GT with Eibach Pro Street-S coilovers, the car was not "right" until I also added an adjustable Panhard rod, stiffer sway bars, a bumpsteer kit, replacement lower control arms and LCA relocation brackets.

The Panhard rod and sway bars went in the same time as the coilovers. After months of driving, I was inclined to add the remaining parts and now I am happy with the ride.

06 Black Beauty

Thanks Norm for a perfect explanation of this. I have taken my car to the strip but just once or twice to try it (very fun) but my car is a daily driver. So basically what i have gathered from your post is I basically don't need to worry about it and just getting new springs with camber plates and struts/shocks should be fine. I'm mostly going for the appearance side of lowering the car knowing I will achive better handling also. I have changed the lca's to spohn non adjustable and have plans on doing other pieces down the road. i'm only looking to drop it 1-1.5 at most.

scottybaccus

The 2011 Ford service manual details the use of "crash" bolts as part of the procedure. It's called a cam bolt by Ford. It does get torqued to 166 Lb/ft.

The procedure calls for removing the lower bolt and gringing the hole in the strut larger on the front and back sides. There are markings on the strut to show you how much to grind. Then you reassemble the strut to the spindle using the original bolt in the top hole and the cam bolt in the lower. Snug these up enough to allow adjustments using the cam bolt with the wheels back on the car, then fully torque both the original upper bolt and the cam bolt to 166 lb/ft.

This is pretty standard process on any strut suspension. The only risk I see is inferior aftermarket parts, so buy the cam bolts from Ford. Another might be an undersized cam bolt that might permit a wider range of adjustment. I don't see much value in that approach when a little more griding can yield the same results with better fasteners.

One thing to note in the whole camber adjustment discussion, Ford sells lowered springs and only recommends replacement of the upper strut mount for "improved" performance. I suspect they build extra camber into these mounts, but the final check and possible adjustment with cam bolts would be SOP on any car using any parts.

Sam Strano

And those bolts are about $100... and a big pain to put in. I know I've done it because that's how we get our camber on stock category autocross cars. The 166 spec is a function of the a bolt change when Ford discovered that folks like me were slipping the previous bolt design (and fwiw 166 isn't enough for anyone autocrossing either).

Now, that's the Ford Bolt. Aftermarket bolts don't require the filing/grinding... because they are much smaller. For instance Eibach's are to be torqued to 77 foot/lbs. which isn't nearly enough but they can't take 3 times that amount like the Ford bolts do.

Which is why I recommend stepping up to something like a Steeda HD mount. Yep, they cost more, but they don't slip. And they are easier to adjust. And they get rid of a known issue the Ford mounts have too.

And no, Ford does not sell any special mounts with camber adjustment or change built in. The GT500 mount simply uses harder rubber---which isn't any real help. And what's more they don't change the design and so the failure point is still there, just like a normal GT or V-6 mount.

scottybaccus

Sam,


Do the Steeda plates allow all camber adjustment at the top plate without any modification at the spindle? Seems logical to me.

Sam Strano

Yes, they adjust on top.