Plate Shift
Installing BMR Suspension’s caster/camber plates for the S550
By Steve Turner
Photos by Steve Turner and courtesy of BMR Suspension
From the jump, the crew at BMR Suspension took the S550 platform and started developing parts. Despite the platform maturing and other development cars coming along, the company hasn’t slowed its pace in designing new parts to sharpen the performance of the latest Mustangs.
Case in point is the company’s new caster/camber plates for the 2015+ Mustang (PN CP001; $279.95), which BMR recently announced over on our forum. If you are new to the Mustang platform, you might not realize that these parts provide the kind of adjustability you need to dial your car’s suspension geometry after lowering springs join the party.
“The factory strut mount is non-adjustable. It has a rubber bushing mounting the upper strut,” BMR’s Ford specialist, Kelly Aiken, explained. “The biggest advantage to upgrading is to adjust your caster and your camber for tire-wear purposes or performance purposes.”
While some might just be concerned about tire wear, the main goal for BMR was to improve the performance of a lowered Mustang. As such, the company’s reps took to the road course in BMR’s in-house 2015 Mustang GT development car to make sure the plates offered enough adjustability and durability.
You can hear more from Kelly here…
[video=youtube;14E1qcw3lb4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14E1qcw3lb4 [/video]
“…That’s what we have on our 2015 development car. We use our handling springs with the Koni Yellows and these plates,” Kelly said. “We’ve been beating on the car pretty hard to ensure parts hold up. It’s one thing to simulate the parts in testing, but it‘s another thing putting them out on the road course—especially on some Hoosier slicks. That really tells you if the part can hold up to the abuse.”
While you always want to test parts in the real world to make sure they are good enough for a customer’s car, BMR had a strong feeling they would be up to the task. These plates are built from robust materials so they should hold up even in extreme conditions.
“We make this plate using heavy-duty steel. We use a ¾-inch spherical bearing,” he said. “Most companies use a 5/8 bearing. The larger bearing promotes a longer longer life, less noise, more durability and the load rating is stronger.”
Besides the obvious benefits of a more robust bearing, BMR’s warranty on these plates includes the bearings, so using quality parts helps reduce claims down the road. Clearly, the company had users in mind when building the plates, and that extends to their adjustment.
“Everything about this plate was designed with the user in mind. To keep it simple and lightweight, we actually have the camber and caster adjustment that is done simultaneously,” Kelly said. “So when you slide the top of your tire in or out, it also has the ability to move the strut fore or aft for your caster adjustment. It’s kinda like having one setting instead of multiple settings.”
With the benefits of the BMR plates in mind, we headed over to the company’s headquarters in Seffner, Florida to document their installation on the company’s in-house S550. (Yes, they were nice enough to pull them off and put them back on just for our cameras.)
BMR Suspension’s caster/camber plates for the 2015+ Ford Mustang are built with rugged steel and Teflon-lined spherical bearings for durability. These bolt-on plates allow owners of lowered Mustang adjust caster and camber to restore the proper suspension geometry on lower vehicles. They are available in the company’s signature red or hammertone finishes.
BMR’s Colt Mills started the operation by lifting the 2015 Mustang and removing the front wheel.
With the wheel out of the way, Colt zips off the lower strut fasteners to free the damper from the spindle. He also detaches the brake sensor wiring so the strut body is totally free.
Up top Colt uses an impact to removes the three factory strut nuts.
With the strut free from the chassis, Colt wriggles it out of the wheel well. As you can see the Koni dampers and BMR handling springs are compatible with the factory strut mount, but with this setup you don’t have any adjustability.
With the stock springs you’ll need to use a spring compressor to contain the spring during this operation. Using an impact Colt zips off the strut nut to free the factory strut mount.
The factory mount is actually quite a bit better than the similar unit on the S197 Mustangs, as it features a better bushing and a more robust construction.
After removing the strut mount, Colt frees the rubber spring isolator from the BMR handling spring.
He then transfers the factory rubber isolator to the BMR stud plate. These plates use the same type of fasteners as the factory plates. The studs are flanged to keep the nut from loosening.
He reinstalls the spring and strut boot before installing the BMR caster/camber plates.
Colt slides the stud plate and slightly compresses the spring before installing the bearing spacer and strut nut.
Here’s a look at the completed assembly. The BMR caster/camber plates have an camber adjustment range of up to 1.75 degrees which should allow you to set up your lowered Mustang for optimum street tire wear or cornering grip.
He slips the newly adjustable strut assembly into the wheel well and reinstalls the fasteners.
Colt drops the stud-retainer plate one before moving underneath.
Underneath he bolted up the endlink. You’ll want to torque these to 85 lb-ft.
Then he moved on to tighten the strut-to-spindle bolts. These should be torqued to 185 lb-ft.
Up top again, Colt installed the supplied washers and nuts. Torque these nuts to 46 lb-ft.
Here’s a look at the finished install from underneath. You can see how the strut plate and bearing plates sandwich together solidly to create a strong foundation inside the strut tower. With the installation completed, you’ll want to head directly to an alignment shop to make proper use of your new adjustable mounts.
