g_dripht-alex

best solution ever.

scathcart

Ted, reread my post. According to what has been described, this does NOT move the tie rod position at all, so suspension setting is not changed.



The steering rack travel is limited by bumpstops on either end, not by gearing on the inside. If it were limited by gearing, you would never by able to dissassemble the rack and pinion. So if you move the bumpstops outswards on both ends, the rack gets more travel, and yes, more than 2.5 turns from lock to lock.



You are keeping the length between the ball joints constant, so toe is unaffected. You are only spacing out the points that limit the rack travel.







Here is a prefect example.



Take a one foot pipe and take a 6 foot piece of threaded rod into it. Make sure the rod is just slightly smaller than the diameter of the pipe. Now thread two nuts onto each end of the rod so that on each side of the rod there is 2 feet separating each nut. The pipe, then will be able to slide allong the road for a travel of 1 foot.



Now, spin the nuts off of the rod 6 " on each end, so there is 3" between each nut. The pipe can now travel a total of 2 feet befroe each end of the pipe hits the nut.

The total length of the rod has not changed.



Now, the threaded rod is the tie rods and the gears in the rack. The "nuts" are the steering rack bumpstops. So if we move the bumpstops out, the total length is unchanged, and but the rack travel is.



Get it?

scathcart

To clarify: The spacers move inside the rack when you turn the wheel, so the bumpstops are just moved outwards, but the tie rods are not moved at all.



You are adding more turns from lock to lock by decreasing the travel limit of the rack.

neevosh

Adding spacers will change your toe settings. The bumpstops are parts of the tie rod, so adding spacers will increase toe out. Click on the GP Sports link I posted earlier. It has pictures of everything.

RETed

Oh ****, the damn light bulb just went on!



After you mentioned this, I had to go look at the pics...



YOU'RE RIGHT!

I had assumed the limiter was inboard of the spacer, so my responses were all WRONG - DOH!



**** man, ignore all my replies - you guys are right.

After finally getting this hammered into my thick skull, I finally see the correct relation between all the components and the spacer. DOH









As a side note, what was thoroughly confusing me was that some Japan shop was selling "spacers" that went in between the rack and the ball joint. They look exactly like the inside portion of the ball joint, and it just threaded onto the rack and allowed the ball joint to thread right into the spacer. I guess I had this pic in my head this whole time, so it caused my confusion on the whole matter.





-Ted

d_UNLTD

Nice explanation, thanks for that

mazdized

Ahh Mista Koseki san I can not belive you had difficulty turning on the light bulb regarding the tie rod spasa..... It is just like a cutting off bumpstop rubber on strut when you lowa car. But you kno now. How eva FC/FD lack can only be shimmed about 300/1000th in after whish the lack runs out of teesue, and tie rod only has about 3 thread into the lack. S13/14 can go as much 1/2 inchi.



Docta Ho

RETed

I didn't really think about it cause we're rewelding the tie rod connecting points on the hub. We get the faster steering response (which I think is more desirable) *and* the greater steering angle. I think there is a limit when you shim the rack - like 40 degrees? We're getting 45 degrees + with the reweld. In fact, we needed to cut the tie rod end down *and* cut the threaded part off about 1/4" just so we could realign everything back.



NY Times biatch?

Going big time?





-Ted

mazdized

YEAHzz Big time... hope so. But you know I will always be ghetto. As usual I am wacked, I like the slow ration rack better than the faster GTUs ones.



Docta Ho