ST XTA Coilover and Cutting a New Car?

[Chuckable]

Anyone have pics of the driver's side strut tower after installing the ST XTA coilovers? The thought of taking a hole saw to the strut towers in order to access camber adjustment has me concerned

 

[airjor13]

Nope nope nope lol

 

[KKaWing]

You don't "have" to. Remember the strut bolt slot is... slotted. Set the rough angle you want with the top mount then fine tune with the bolt

 

[DHM1]

Nope nope nope lol

Russ

 

[Chuckable]

You don't "have" to. Remember the strut bolt slot is... slotted. Set the rough angle you want with the top mount then fine tune with the bolt

Yup, that makes sense, and was what I was thinking. I always pictured the ability to adjust the top of the strut as being useful for when going to a track day or autocross, for extra negative camber versus a street setting. But then what's the point of having the camber adjustment on top of the strut if you can't get to it?

I guess what I'm saying is why go with the XTA version if you're not going to cut the strut tower, and you're going to end up adjusting the camber at the knuckle anyway?

 

[KKaWing]

There's still the ability to get more camber than with just the slots alone.

 

[Hwy9FiST]

Has anyone done this? One of my XTA's is bent. My left is set at -1.7 and the right is -2.5 with the camber plates matching exactly.

The quick fix I believe would be to cut those holes so my alignment shop can get them matched... but.

With the size of the hole MotoIQ cut... it looks like you still couldn't access every Torx bit if you wanted to max out the camber. Like there isn't much wiggle room for adjustment.

 

[XuperXero]

I just take off mine and readjust the nut then go to alignment shop and adjust from the slot again...

 

[RAAMaudio]

I have no problem cutting up cars to do whatever mods I want but not many willing do some of the things I do

I would dial in all the negative camber at the bolt then move the top the final amount you want and see where you can cut just enough to allow access to reduce it a bit as needed, street, autocross, track, etc....it is better to gain negative camber at the bolt than the top of the strut.

In my particular case I could not use the bolts, had to go full positive there to clear the 9" wide wheels so I set that, wedges used so prevent slip then drilled new mounting holes for the strut tops and slotted the hole so the camber adjusters fit and I can turn them. I just run one setting but my car does not get a lot of miles, no commuting, etc so -2.5 front camber is a nice all around street/track/autocross setup I can just leave as is.

I do not like to much front camber on a FWD car as it can reduce grip, acceleration and braking and lead to instability under braking as well.

I was considering camber plates for fine tuning but my setup is right on for both sides so leaving as is since camber plates generally means running shorter springs for the same ride height, depending on the design of the struts. I have 8k front swifts on BC and only about 1/4" on height adjustment, if I wanted a really low height, which I never do as it does not work well on most cars for handling and a hassle on the street, I would have to get shorter springs as the 8k are stiff enough to cause using up almost all the BC height adjustment. On the rear I had to pull one lock ring off the adjusters to get low enough.

--------

OK, back to the story line here, if you want to be able to adjust them but not drill a big hole perhaps there is enough material to make slots for the adjustment bolts. That would take much more time to mark, drill the ends of the slots then cut out the rest but might work out and would look cooler