What did you do for your ZHP/ BMW / MINI today? #2

[JPMo]

I've just been without mine for over a year now. Couldn't bring myself to buy another one at $70 and my original was torn and hanging. I think my car is a little louder now. Not sure.

[webster]

more detailing today. yesterday i hit it with a coat of CG Hybrid V07 quick detailer/sealant (my go-to) and then went for a drive. well of course it rained on me, so today i went back with the CG Speed Wipe to lightly clean and restore the high gloss. i think i'm finally happy with it. until it gets dirty on the next drive of course...











also cleaned up the engine bay

[Vas]

more detailing today. yesterday i hit it with a coat of CG Hybrid V07 quick detailer/sealant (my go-to) and then went for a drive. well of course it rained on me, so today i went back with the CG Speed Wipe to lightly clean and restore the high gloss. i think i'm finally happy with it. until it gets dirty on the next drive of course...











also cleaned up the engine bay

If you ever decide to sell it, send me a dm.

My desire for a green bmw is rather high

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[Will]

Damn, that looks fantastic!!

[t.er]

Jesus, that paint, and engine bay... its so niiiiiice



On my end I got my GC street camber plates in:





Then did a DIY alignment:

[28firefighter]

A little late sharing this small upgrade (the grilles). Special thanks to [mention]av8drvr [/mention] for passing these along!




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[JPMo]

https://i.imgur.com/j1oMUYyl.jpg[/IMG]



Then did a DIY alignment:

Please share your thoughts, I’m lowered on H&R sport springs and have these as a potential option. Definitely do not want more harshness though

[t.er]

Please share your thoughts, I’m lowered on H&R sport springs and have these as a potential option. Definitely do not want more harshness though

Yeah, I was quite surprised myself that there isn't a whole lot of info online on these. But GC is a pretty reputable company, and the deal was there for me so I decided to snag them. Here's my small review:

Adjustment:
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. I'm not sure, maybe I'm doing something wrong with my alignment, but toe just kept on changing whenever I'd change between street/track camber.

Installation:
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?

Driving:
I've only put about 50 km on the plates, most of it highway miles. That small drive revealed no difference in NVH or steering effort, it's as if the stock strut mount was still installed (there is an integrated poly bushing within the plate). I guess time will tell if the bearing will last, as I am a bit concerned about what I mentioned above.

[704sw]

Please share your thoughts, I’m lowered on H&R sport springs and have these as a potential option. Definitely do not want more harshness though

I didn’t have GC but I did have TCK camber plates and thought I’d share something unrelated to your question: some camber plates aren’t as tall as stock strut mounts, so you’re going to lower the front even more. And since the H&R Sport already lowers the front more than the rear, that uneven rake can be even more accentuated with camber plates. Just food for thought.

[t.er]

I didn’t have GC but I did have TCK camber plates and thought I’d share something unrelated to your question: camber plates aren’t as tall as stock strut mounts, so you’re going to lower the front even more. And since the H&R Sport already lowers the front more than the rear, that uneven rake is even more accentuated with camber plates. Just food for thought.

I guess I should also add this info too - It seems that GC plates have the same stack height as OE. Front ride height for me was unchanged