Camber plates and noise

[Ken Park]

I am running Tein camber plates with a spring and shock combo, Koni's and RS*R race springs. I installed them yesterday.

The problem I had initially was that I could not install the front assemblies with the metal spacer between the spring top hats (stock ones btw) and the camber plates, it was too tall and would not allow the strut brackets to line up with the knuckles. It was almost an inch of difference. I thought about it for a minute, and realized that if I removed those spacers, it was the same height as the old setup I took off of the car.

With that done, I was able to install them. Went for a test drive after doing the rears. Immediately I noticed that when going over any kind of bumps a some what loud knocking noise from the fronts. But, I also am not running the spacer between the top hats and camber plates. There are no noises when turning, everything is normal there.

I took the front springs and struts back off again today. In between the camber plates and top perches I added in a metal washer and a rubber washer to take up some space and eliminate any metal on metal contact. Before I put these in, I was moving the camber plates up and down while the springs were compressed, I could see that there was some play there without an kind of spacer.

After I installed the washers, I did the same thing and there was no play. I could even see where the camber plates had marks from contact with the upper perches. With these in place the assemblies still seemed to not allow the knuckles and strut bolt holes to line up, but I disconnected the front sway bar end links so I could push the knuckles down to get the bolts in. I got them reinstalled and drove it. The knocking noise was still there, but happened less than before. I wonder what it is I need to do to get rid of this noise. I thought for sure that it would have gone away.

[Ken Park]

What the problem was, was not using the supplied spacer. When I first put the fronts up with the spacer installed, the whole assemblies seemed way to tall to fit. After experimenting with shorter spacers, it was still tall, but I could get everything to bolt up by disconnecting the sway bar endlinks and pushing down on the hubs. The shorter spacers didn't help, and made noise. I might have had success installing the spacers that came with the plates again, but it was the fourth time so I just installed the stock mounts. I just decided to post for the sake of someone else with the same issue searching and finding this thread would get some insight.

[IanS]

It is normal for the control arm bushings to keep the lower control arms at an angle close to that of ride height. The easiest way to get the struts bolted up is to pull the whole assembly out so you can get only the lower bolt in. Then you can push everything back in to install the upper bolt. If that doesnt work, you can always use a prybar to force the lower control arm down.