[SHG_EasyE]

Fantastic information here. This confirms a lot of my findings via my old school paper claculations and sketches haha.

Per my own work I also found that tie rod angle was crucial, and simply "flattening" them out made no sense at all. I have been working on fabricating a series of tie rod brackets in offsets of .125, .25, and .5 inches (in relation to Z axis). I always thought that the brackets we see offered here and there were way to agressive. Hopefully Ill be able to use one of my brackets to find that sweet spot that matches the arc of the tie rod and LCA as closely as possible.


For anyone lucky enough to afford a built to order suspension like Koni 2 ways or moton, it is very easy to tune this angle via the threaded tie rod arm. You are left with infinite options for tie rod placement.

 

[SHG_EasyE]

So the shop said your longer tie rod ends were too much? What longer ends are you referring to? If your tie rods are too long for the rest of your setup. If this is the case were they able to bring it back to 0*? if not and it is toed in that is most definitely a big part of your handling problem.

 

[SHG_EasyE]

I forget which parts I ordered, there was a thread on here that suggested them and I ordered a set from O'Reilies and when I went to the shop they were too long to bring it back to 0. So they put the busted stock ends back on it and brought it back to 0 and ordered a new set of ends and swapped them out for me and then installed and realigned.

The car seems to understeer pretty bad, as well I'm on the stock wheels currently and just some "decent all season tires" nothing sporty really. The toe is set to 0 front and rear. I was planning on getting a set of 17x9's and adding some 255's but that process has been delayed.

If I were to go to 1/32 out, would that really make a big difference?

Well if youre stock ends are at the point where they have play, that could most certainly affect handing, because now youre not only running 0 toe, but possibly +/- .1 in our out or both.

Also, what is your front camber like? A degree or more of negative front camber changes the turn in characteristics greatly, and gives a much more confident feel while cornering - as if you can "trust" the front of the car to stay planted.

I would recommend 1/32 out for a car that sees performance driving. I run my car at 1/32 out as well as alot of the cars i set up at work (some up to 1/16 out for certain tracks/drivers) The only side effect will be slightly increased toe wear, but if youre like me, thats a small price to pay for the added sharpness of turn in gained with the extra toe-out.

 

[SHG_EasyE]

Ah, seems as though Zzyzx called it with the frequencies!

 

[SHG_EasyE]

Bump for a thread with great info.

I have a question for you guys. I recently purchased the 0857 steering arm bracket and after reading the info I'm wondering if I should still install it or not. My car is just a daily but I would like it to handle as best as possible. After lowering the car on progress coilovers the steering became sluggish and unresponsive. I've also noticed a lot of tracking (steering wheel jerking towards the bumps in the road), especially after I put on the 255s. Will I benefit from installing the bracket? What can I do about the tracking problem?

What width and offset are your front wheels? Also how much camber are you running and is it added in via a camber plate or bolts? Like said before large tires, neg camber, and toe out will all make for a less than desireable highway feel, but scrub radius will enhance all of those effects greatly. Scrub radius is the distance between where the KPA intersects the ground and the tires centerline. If this distance it too large ie. a wheel that is too wide with too low an offset, it creates a moment arm at the wheel that amplifies any kind of tracking issues.

I am running 245's on 17x9 +35 wheels with -3.5 camber and 0 toe. No tracking issues here, unless the road is VERY rutted. if its a reasonably smooth road the car tracks well, even with stock caster. Before I learned most of what I know now I had made a custom tie rod relocation bracket. As soon as I installed it bump steer was atrocious. I immediately took it out and let my tie rods sit at their natural angle, with very little bump steer.

 

[SHG_EasyE]

Hm, everything seems to jive with your setup, its very similar to mine. Only difference that I can see affecting the steering feel is that you have much less camber therefore a larger contact patch and more frictional resistance. Also, are you positive your toe is straight? Toe in, especially with wide tires can contribute to increased steering effort.

 

[SHG_EasyE]

i was thinking of relocating the whole steering rack to the bottom front of the engine bay and installing a Mustang rack/pinion , relocate the steering arms and knuckles to the front of the wheel hub. rack level with the front LCA's, shorter tie rods. now how do i do this???

I was thinking of something similar, but trying to use an 06+ Civic Si electric power steering setup, mounted behinds the front axle but down low as on the 8th gen, then use the 8th gen knuckles and front struts. Just brainstorming crazy projects lol but I doubt I will ever attempt it in my car as Ive sorted out the front end pretty well now and am happy with how it behaves. Who knows maybe some day way down the road!

It's funny...I didn't really notice it too much until 1.) I got to Buttonwillow and felt like I was wrestling a juiced up grizzly bear and 2.) my teammate who has won H1 and run in Speed World Challenge was completely blown away with how he had to fight the car. It's weird, it's not torque steer really, but the car just pulls and fights with every surface discrepancy.

The car is great under trail braking (as long as the braking zone isn't bumpy), and sometimes understeers mid-corner, but is fairly neutral for an FF car...but throttle on corner exit is rough. As much as I'd like to try to get on the throttle early, it's difficult with the understeer on corner exit, so instead I brake incredibly late, upset the car and try to minimize any coasting, thus rotating immediately before understeering.

I'm going to see what I can do to mitigate it, but from what it seems like, it's a bit of a problem that even the top teams had to compromise with to some extent.

While my teammate disagrees that it could be much of a possibility, I do sort of feel like it got worse once I didn't have to adhere to the Redline ride height rule. That said, I watched a bunch of my old videos and I always had a bit of bump steer. Hopefully I can resolve it before Super Lap. The car is pretty dialed in otherwise.

I think the revelation was a result of a decent amount of seat time at a new track that's really smooth (Thunderhill) and then going to a brand new track (Buttonwillow) that I wasn't used to. The bumps, especially in the higher speed stuff, were pretty unsettling when my first time out I was attempting to run close to 2-min.

After the weekend my arms were actually tired...something I've never experienced save for my first karting enduro. Kinda weird.

I'm trying to see if I can get some data from Realtime to see what they did with their RSX (rear suspension nonwithstanding), but so far no luck.

I'm not running any inverted tie rods, but I am running the J's steering arms (tie rods), RCAs and the Racing Gear/J's suspension has the flat, level bracket for the steering arms. I wonder if I need bigger RCA/ball joints to compensate for the lower roll center? Toe is neutral in front, maxxed out in the rear. I just don't know how to measure what the difference would be.

What lower ball joints are you using? also what is your KPI? Sounds like when the front unloads under corner exit your arms are flattening out a bit, pushing out the back side of the wheel causing toe in, which would definitely cause your symptoms. An easy way of trying to reduce the affect is to prevent weight transfer to the rear which can only help in these cars. You can do that with either stiffer spring rates and or more compression damping in the rear which will slow the transfer of weight.

I didnt have these issues in my EP even with the crappy EPS. The car was a dream to drive around the track (granted it was fairly smooth). Daily and highway driving with that EPS was a nightmare though, so Im excited to see how the car does on the track now with my 06 DC5 power steering retrofit.