Caster Plates DIY

  Nothing fancy, but good enough for my budget.  Generic pillowball centers (the same bearings as used in my existing ebay camber plates) bolted to 3/8" aluminum plate.  The lower support ring is 1/8" steel with M10 hardware and steel standoffs -  similar design to the Hotchkis and Noltec plates.  Not intended to be slotted but it was easy enough to do while the tools were out.  The slotting is strictly front to rear for caster changes only and the camber is minimal and fixed at the plate.

Test fitting onto the Bilstein struts and there are minor clearance issues that will need to be sorted out before final assembly.  Some strut stem spacers are needed to move the upper spring perch down away from the tower, and the standoffs need to be about 1/8" taller to give room for the bearing assembly bolts to clear the raised lip on the strut tower hole.

The goal of these plates is to maximize caster and allow more strut travel.  I hope to gain almost an inch of strut travel and then reduce ride height by half that.  Caster will be improved a little, but by how much I am not sure as it depends on the tie rods and strut tower hole clearance.

Plans to have these installed and tested for last weekend's autox was a fail and time is ticking.  Future suspension development and tuning mostly relies on this project as I want to play with the ride height and rake before making another spring / swaybar change.