Camber plates

Who is making what?
Just trashed one of my Noltec's...

I won't be buying anything from Ben.

Why?

AJS said:

Who is making what?
Just trashed one of my Noltec's...

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not the awesome noltecs!!!

bens are the bees knees why wouldn't you want his?

I've looked at these, and communicated with somebody there named Peter (go figure, haha). They look nice to me. There's also somebody on here that was making camber plates too, I can't find the thread though. The only thing that bothers me about Bens camber plates is all the slotted holes, what are the chances of one of the bolts coming loose, let alone being able to center them perfectly. I get the idea of being able to rotate and kind of aid your camber/caster curve, but....


http://www.retroturbo.com/?product=vrs-7900-series-performance-camber-plates#!prettyPhoto

Mods clean the thread up if I say anything negative about Ben and the the months it took to get my stuff with me having to chase him. They also cleared up his comments about how it was my fault he didn't communicate with me.


Ben, Yes the same Noltec Patented design I stopped you copying. Funny enough you are happy to complain when people copy your stuff


The failure was due to a frozen bearing. Not a fault in the part. Quite a few years of hard use and I am happy with how they failed.

kendogg said:

I've looked at these, and communicated with somebody there named Peter (go figure, haha). They look nice to me. There's also somebody on here that was making camber plates too, I can't find the thread though. The only thing that bothers me about Bens camber plates is all the slotted holes, what are the chances of one of the bolts coming loose, let alone being able to center them perfectly. I get the idea of being able to rotate and kind of aid your camber/caster curve, but....


http://www.retroturbo.com/?product=vrs-7900-series-performance-camber-plates#!prettyPhoto

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I think you only have so many choices if you don't want to break a Patent
I had looked at the Retro turbo ones before. Odds are that they can get them to me quickly which is good. I would like weld in's but it's going to take too long to get them done. At least with these I can weld them in later. Noise is a factor though but I guess the only "quiet" design was the Noltec.
It's Sunday so my supplier is closed. I doubt unpopular fittings like Volvo are still being made after the buy out.

I know we had a couple of guys making them on here too but couldn't find the posts.

The other option is to put standards back in and get my adjust ability another way.
Sellholm control arms are on my list and camber can be found in other ways.

kendogg said:

The only thing that bothers me about Bens camber plates is all the slotted holes, what are the chances of one of the bolts coming loose, let alone being able to center them perfectly. I get the idea of being able to rotate and kind of aid your camber/caster curve, but....

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If you use the supplied nylon lock nuts and hardware they won't come loose.

You don't need to worry about "Centering them perfectly" You adjust them based on what you read when your aligning the car, It's really not that big of deal.


a proper alignment takes a little time to do properly, especially if you aren't using fancy laser alignment scales and angle finders. You can do a good enough alignment with some strings, an angle finder, a few taper measures, and some aluminum sheet. It's really not rocket science.



I have some of the old ones left on the shelf too, like ones that retro turbo copied, if your interested shoot me a pm.

blkaplan said:

a proper alignment takes a little time to do properly, especially if you aren't using fancy laser alignment scales and angle finders. You can do a good enough alignment with some strings, an angle finder, a few taper measures, and some aluminum sheet. It's really not rocket science.

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I understand that, I've string aligned a couple vehicles before, and done hundreds on a real rack. Mostly standard, consumer alignments, but have done some specialty work as well. How does it not matter if they're perfectly aligned? From looking at the pictures at least it appears they can be installed in any orientation possible, full 360* rotation. If they aren't perfectly centered, or at least both turned at the exact same angle, then as the strut is moved in for a camber change (or as the wheel moves up in compression), the caster is going to change with it a disproportional amount, is it not? Or is this expected to be able to be set on the rack, hope it doens't loosen up, and it should be ok?

Any alignment related device should be installed and then aligned, it can be on a rack or at the track with strings.

those bolts don't loosen up, the form of the plate perfectly matches the form of the factory sheet metal, so there is a very high surface area of contact which means its not going to slip. Do you find you have bolts falling off your cars? A properly designed bolted joint will never come undone from normal use.

Do you under stand the basics of aligning a strut car? You move the strut in if you want negative camber and back if you want positive caster. So you bolt them up and eyeball it to what you think you might want. Check with measurements and adjust the plates to make your measurements match your targets.

blkaplan said:

Any alignment related device should be installed and then aligned, it can be on a rack or at the track with strings.

those bolts don't loosen up, the form of the plate perfectly matches the form of the factory sheet metal, so there is a very high surface area of contact which means its not going to slip. Do you find you have bolts falling off your cars? A properly designed bolted joint will never come undone from normal use.

Do you under stand the basics of aligning a strut car? You move the strut in if you want negative camber and back if you want positive caster. So you bolt them up and eyeball it to what you think you might want. Check with measurements and adjust the plates to make your measurements match your targets.

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Cut the attitude, ok? Those camber plates of yours can be installed in any rotation of 360*. If I installed them in a car, went and moved the strut in for a camber change on one side, then did the other side - if those camber plates aren't perfecly oriented at the exact same angle, the caster is going to end up being different on both sides. Most camber plates, the plate itself is adhered to the car, and you can move the bearing part to wherever you need it to match your camber & caster needs (first pic below). Your camber plates, (2nd pic below) have a camber slider, and the only method of caster adjustment is by loosening & rotating the entire camber plate, thereby probably needing to re-set your camber. So, not much caster adjustment then?

blkaplan said:

I have some of the old ones left on the shelf too, like ones that retro turbo copied, if your interested shoot me a pm.

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Ben, why are you making a habit of trolling and baiting in any suspension thread I post?
At the end of the day you know you let me down, you know you lied to me and blamed me for your failings. You know you actively ignored a customer but had time to post on here.
Your excuse was I wanted a "custom" part but you did not communicate the fact you were having issues making a threaded spacer. Something I make with basic hand tools yet you couldn't do in weeks. I had to push a refund through Google before you replied to me.

No trust = no money from me. So why are you here?

The thing with copying part, YOU have done it. Why was that ok but it's not ok for people to do it to you?

Mods, my apologizes for you having to clean up again.

blkaplan said:

those bolts don't loosen up, the form of the plate perfectly matches the form of the factory sheet metal, so there is a very high surface area of contact which means its not going to slip. Do you find you have bolts falling off your cars? A properly designed bolted joint will never come undone from normal use.

What's "normal" use? I have to double bolt because under "normal" use things come undone. You are missing something here.... Know what it is?

Do you under stand the basics of aligning a strut car? You move the strut in if you want negative camber and back if you want positive caster. So you bolt them up and eyeball it to what you think you might want. Check with measurements and adjust the plates to make your measurements match your targets.

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Ben, that's condescending. Really not warranted.

kendogg said:

Cut the attitude, ok? Those camber plates of yours can be installed in any rotation of 360*. If I installed them in a car, went and moved the strut in for a camber change on one side, then did the other side - if those camber plates aren't perfecly oriented at the exact same angle, the caster is going to end up being different on both sides. Most camber plates, the plate itself is adhered to the car, and you can move the bearing part to wherever you need it to match your camber & caster needs (first pic below). Your camber plates, (2nd pic below) have a camber slider, and the only method of caster adjustment is by loosening & rotating the entire camber plate, thereby probably needing to re-set your camber. So, not much caster adjustment then?

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If you think I am giving you attitude, I apologize but I am not and it was not my intention. I am just trying to help and explain the process of setting alignment.

An answer for your question first, If you change the angle that it slides yes, the camber and caster is adjusted. So lets so you get your camber set to -1 degrees at each side and you see that your caster is off by .5 degrees low on one side. You loosen the two outer bolts, rotate the plates to line up to be able to move the strut back to get the correct caster angle. If you overshoot/undershoot slightly on your rotation and then reset the camber you will be good.

Now a question for you, What tolerance are you aiming for when setting the alignment on your car?

A couple observations:
If you're worried about the slots on my parts coming loose, you can say the same for the vorshlag plates, it has a slot too.

What if you want some caster angle in between what the large bolt hole adjustment has? You're SOL. Now how will you align it?

Now a tip,

If you're really paranoid about having it "centered" left to right, just max out the adjustment at the edge of one of the slots, that way it's symmetrical. Even though having it the same left to right most likely won't give you the alignment that you really need.

AJS said:

Ben, why are you making a habit of trolling and baiting in any suspension thread I post?
At the end of the day you know you let me down, you know you lied to me and blamed me for your failings. You know you actively ignored a customer but had time to post on here.
Your excuse was I wanted a "custom" part but you did not communicate the fact you were having issues making a threaded spacer. Something I make with basic hand tools yet you couldn't do in weeks. I had to push a refund through Google before you replied to me.

No trust = no money from me. So why are you here?

The thing with copying part, YOU have done it. Why was that ok but it's not ok for people to do it to you?

Mods, my apologizes for you having to clean up again.

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Trying to get in contact with me at 3 AM local time is a good way to have your attempts at communication "ignored" You do realize we are in different continents. Right?

First of all, I never copied the noltec design. I heavily improved on the concept dimensions and tolerances so they would acutally work in a 240 without having to get your grinder our or add a **** load of ride height.

At that time I was young student and it was just a hobby, did the parts have similar design features to the noltec? It had couple.

Although it was a good exercise to help point out what design failing those plates had. Would I do something like that as a business today? Absolutely not.

blkaplan said:

Trying to get in contact with me at 3 AM local time is a good way to have your attempts at communication "ignored" You do realize we are in different continents. Right?

Did you forget this was AFTER multiple emails over weeks which were ignored? This was a last ditch effort before a refund. Again, since you were ignoring email what choice did I have? You had other contact asking you to respond to me and ignore that too didn't you?

First of all, I never copied the noltec design. I heavily improved on the concept dimensions and tolerances so they would acutally work in a 240 without having to get your grinder our or add a **** load of ride height.

I have the original PM's Ben. You need to be accurate. If you have forgotten what really happened then don't contradict someone who KNOWS.

At that time I was young student and it was just a hobby, did the parts have similar design features to the noltec? It had couple.

Copied. Copied.

Although it was a good exercise to help point out what design failing those plates had. Would I do something like that as a business today? Absolutely not.

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You were selling them

AJS said:

You were selling them

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Damn, your like my australian stalker. Good thing theres an ocean between us or I would have to get a restraining order.

do you still have the packaging material from the roll correction spacers too? Next to the buckets of lotion?

blkaplan said:

A couple observations:
If you're worried about the slots on my parts coming loose, you can say the same for the vorshlag plates, it has a slot too.

Good point. I've just never seen a design like yours, in the Vorshlag plates (and most of the rest of them) the bolts are still attached to the plate.

What if you want some caster angle in between what the large bolt hole adjustment has? You're SOL. Now how will you align it?

I'm not sure what you mean here. What large bolt hole adjustment? Which plates are you referring to?

Now a tip,

If you're really paranoid about having it "centered" left to right, just max out the adjustment at the edge of one of the slots, that way it's symmetrical.

I guess that makes sense too.

Even though having it the same left to right most likely won't give you the alignment that you really need.

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Answered/questioned in red above. As for what tolerance - I have no earthly idea where we're going to go with alignment yet. Rear rotors & calipers are being machined and I should have them, hopefully, in the next month or so (Outlaw is moving their machineshop currently, and since I'm not in a super hurry, I told Todd as long as I have them by Christmas I'll be cool). I found 1 stock rear shock for the MKI trailing arms, need one more, and we'll start testing by spring. For my car, I'm still really back and forth on what to do about the lower control arm. I'm starting to wonder if a tubular subframe that relocated the inner control arm mounting point up an inch or so might be an easier endeavor than a tubular straight control arm. That big dip at the end of the stock control arm kills it, and ruins the camber curve. Lower the car, the arms are going to be pointed up, causing a loss of camber under compression. Also going to grab a controla rm off an early 2000's Grand Prix and see how comparable they are in size, and how hard it would be to adapt them into the chassis. At least they're straight, and the rear bushing has to be of higher quality (with aftermarket options as well).