jdmcbride

Anyone know how to adjust camber on Steeda HD Strut Mounts?

Both of my front tires are wearing badly on the insides. The Ford dealer said my camber was -1.5 for both front tires. I thought that the Steeda HD Strut Mounts allowed for adjustment for this?

I am not lowered as I still have the factory springs. I did replace my struts/shocks with Koni STR.T shocks and the strut mounts with the Steeda HD mounts about 20k miles ago. I also had an alignment done after all of the above was installed.

Any help would be appreciated.

6-Speed

Spec for camber is 0 to -1.5 deg so you're right at the limit. Great for the road course, but as you observed will put uneven wear on the inner treads of your tires. I had mine set to -0.9 deg and you should be able to do the same with the Steeda camber plates. You should have an alignment shop dial them in for you.

danzcool

Ford's target from the factor is -1°.
the adjustments for camber are on the bottom side of the strut mount. instri=uctions for the dtrut mounts are here: http://www.steeda.com/store/uploads/...-mounts--1.pdf

jdmcbride

I saw the instructions from Steeda, but it doesn't show how to make the adjustment for camber. My Ford dealership tried to sell me on some camber kit that was $200+ per side! LOL I just wanted to have something for them to go by the next time I'm at the dealership.

tj@steeda

Hello,

What is your email address? I will put you in contact with one of our installers that can work with you in regards to adjusting and obtaining the correct specs.

You can reach me at tim@steeda.com.

Best Regards,

TJ

danzcool

Yeah, I had a tire dealer try to do that also, I had them look at the part description (talking about camber adjustment) and the instructions and they figured it out. Unfortunately the installation instructions don't talk about camber adjustment... Although anyone familiar with suspension can figure it out when they look at the blowup of parts.

TJ can you have the technical writing guys add a paragraph to the HD strut mount instructions to address camber adjustment?

smittybat

Aren't you just supposed to loosen the nuts at the strut tower and shift the unit over (away from the engine to get rid of the negative camber). Is the logo on the outside side opposite the engine?

smittybat

I was looking this up tonight actually and just found the link. I'm investigating this for an install Id like to do myself. http://forums.themustangsource.com/f...mounts-485138/

Norm Peterson

First, make sure that you don't have a toe error. Bad toe will cause similar wear, though in this case the worn region may have a sort of sideways-scuffed appearance.

On the matter of adjusting camber . . .

Find a place to set up on that is level at least side to side.

Loosen but do not remove the four nuts. Don't touch the big nut in the center.

If you look through the two small holes in the strut tower you should be able to see the little points that are part of the HD mount. Pry the points outward to take out negative camber. If you can't see them, you can probably jack that corner off the ground and slide the top of the strut shaft outward.

On a DIY basis, even prying the points will be easier to do with the car at least partially jacked up anyway to take some of the load off the strut. This will require you to roll the car back and forth to settle the suspension so that your camber measurement will be with the wheel in its true static position.

Measure the new camber, repeat as necessary until you hit your desired camber value. This is why you need setup area flatness side to side, otherwise you'll need to consider the sideways slope in determining the true cambers. FWIW, Ford's preferred setting for the 2008 is -0.75°, presumably chosen to suit the more mildly driven cars.

This is not as hard to do as it sounds.

A digital angle finder held up against the wheel flange will allow you to take measurements to within 0.1° of actual, which is entirely accurate enough for street driving and even most performance driving as well. There are other DIY methods.


FWIW:
As your static camber setting goes beyond about -1° you start having to take corners increasingly harder in order to balance the tire wear across the tread (you have to lean it that extra fraction of a degree further in order to ever use the outer shoulder region, which requires harder cornering to achieve).

The flip side is that as your static setting goes closer to zero than Ford's preferred -0.75°, your driving through the corners would need to be increasingly slower/milder so that you don't then start beating up the outer shoulder region and wearing it faster instead.


Norm

tj@steeda

I have notified the Engineers/Technical guys regarding your request.

Thank you for bringing it to our attention.

Best Regards,

TJ