Who has experience with the SPL Pro V2 adjustable camber arms on roadcourses? (mid-ohio) I'm headed to add adjustable front camber arms and I'm wondering how many people have tried these out and what are the good / bad experiences to date? Here's a few questions;
1) How easy is it to adjust these at the track? Is it as simple as having the tire off and then dial in the setting you want at the track?
2) Who's run these control arms on the most track events? Are they durable or have any issues?
3) Where did you buy them from?
4) Any other suggestions for a good durable adjustable camber arm for the track?
5) Any special tools needed for the install?

Thanks.

 

I used these last year on my 08 Nismo with brembo brakes. I did not use them at Mid-Ohio, but tried them at Grattan and they are awesome. It helps alot during turns. I have answered your questions inline (above).

I would also recommend you read the following threads that I started last year when I was researching on these arms for track/street usage. These threads also have settings that various people use. After using them I posted my settings as well.

https://my350z.com/forum/autocross-r...-08-nismo.html
https://my350z.com/forum/wheels-and-...50z-nismo.html

The SPL camber kit uses solid shims because of which the camber settings will be very accurate even after repeated usage. Atleast that's the theory

 

1) very simple to adjust at the track or at home before/after an event. Takes as much time to jack up the car and pull the wheel as it does to adjust the camber.
2) I've been racing on mine for a while now and have had zero durability issues. Car hits 1.8+ cornering G's and has gone off road multiple times with no problems. Due to the design these will never slip and are very stout arms.
3) direct from SPL
4) I'm probably biased but I think the SPL's are the best design and a great deal for the money.
5) Installation instructions found here - http://www.splparts.com/doc/SPLFUAZ33v2.pdf

 

great info... from actual track users

 

The SPL arms are fantastic. A shim design is the only way to go to ensure there will be no flex or movement of the slider.

Remember, when you adjust your camber you will have a large impact on the front toe. If you change your camber at the track you'll have to re-set the toe or else your testing will result in nothing more than confusion.

Good luck,

 

The downside compared to v1 is that they adjust only to +1 from stock, which means if you're lowered, you cannot actually get back into stock. I'm near max height on my Tein Monoflex (back and front, but still a good bit lower than stock), and I can get to -1.8 camber in the front with the v2 arms. With the v1, I could go anywhere (part of the problem with those arms)! It's not a huge complaint as -1.8 isn't horrible but I would've liked another 1/2 degree so I could have the option of dropping the car without increasing camber...

 

I have had ZERO issues with the camber arms and I often abuse the car. ( Pro Drift ) These SPL arms are probably the single most important arm for making the car handle better.

 

It doesn't necessarily mean that - it will all depend on where the car starts out to begin with spec wise. So it will vary car to car. They can go +1 relative to the stock arm. What that translates into degree wise differs on everyones car and setup.

 

Just to toss in my $0.02--

I bought mine direct from SPL about 10 months ago for autocross. I run them at -3 deg front and -2.5 rear all the time. I really need to back the rears off to -1.7 or -1.8 to help improve forward bite a bit, but man, this thing is as balanced and easy to adjust in any turn, high speed or low, as any front-engine car I've driven. I'm afraid backing off the rear camber will change this balance for the worse.

As for your other questions: yes, it's easy to adjust *camber* on the fly--you just loosen a few screws/bolts, thonk in (or take out) a shim or two, and bam, instant and precise camber adjustment. It's trickier, as noted above, keeping toe in line. You could overcome this if you threw the whole car on an alignment rack, swapped back and forth between various settings, and painstakingly recorded, repeated, recorded, etc the adjustments needed to bring toe back in line for each camber setting. Then you have a manual for trackside settings--as long as you can precisely repeat the recorded settings in that environment.

Issues with them/durability: Mine are still holding strong, no visible wear/cracking/bending anywhere. The spherical bearings do quickly go from silky and silent to noise/clunky, especially after the first time you get them good and wet while driving. Not much you can do besides 1) replace the bushing ends with modified OEM-type bushings, or 2) replace them regularly, as the supplied bushings aren't meant to be serviced from what I can tell.

Another member on this board bought some used, and had a terrible experience: the flanges on the channel where the ball joint block slides into the arm were bent slightly upward, making adjustments tough and adding a degree of worry that they might fail (bent aluminum is bad bad bad). But those were probably abused heavily in their former life, so no telling what had to be done to beat them up so badly.

I drive mine everywhere, over F'ed up Arkansas, Texas, and other mid-south highways and streets, and so far, I'm far more worried about my SSRs than about the arms. They squeak and squawk a bit, especially when cold, but it's a small price to pay for the wicked negative camber you can get without having to go ridiculously low, imo.

Another note on durability for track events: in autocross I've pulled a measured, sustained 1.6g on them without any issues, many times. On street tires, I've pulled 1.4gs on them literally hundreds of times over the past year (like 5+ times per run at 100+ autocross runs). It seems unlikely that you'd experience any higher cornering loads than these on a typical road course, even with race tires. Rovals might be another story, especially at the transition back to flat, though.

What I'd be worried about on a road course are the curbs, but even the beefiest control arms can fail if you nick one of those the wrong way, or going to fast.

 

I can attest to their beefiness. I ended up putting the Z up on two wheels after I spun offroad just after the 12a kink at Thunderhill. It was wet and slid up the hill off to the left, eventually my right wheels dug into mud and tipped up and almost over the left side of the car. Fun. She went to the alignment shop last week and amazingly enough, the alignment didn't budge. Awesome.

Those bushings sound like they are crushing gerbils after a dirty wet day of racing but a shot of spray lube quites them down like new.

SPL parts are one of the reasons I was able to drive home from the track that day.

 

Thanks for all the input. I'm going to give SPL a call and ask a few questions on the durability of the spherical bearings. The concept looks good but it's not clear to me how the design keeps lubrication in the joint and debris out. I'm interested to see if the spherical bearing joint is salvagable if there is an issue.

Also, SGSASH...how much camber did you run and how much toe adjustment did you have to make to compensate? I'm thinking 1-2 deg of Negative camber to start. How bad will toe be out? What did you use to set toe at the track? Thanks.

Headed to place an order after I speak to SPL on the spherical joints...