Im building a set of knuckles for my drift/occasional street driven (when I cant ride my motorcycle) FC.

I am toying with the idea of running less ackerman, but im not aure if it will be horrid on the street. So what say you, experienced knuckle modders? Stock, a little less, or ***** deep 0?

 

I know what ackerman is, and how to adjust it. What I need to know is if anyone drives their modded knuckles with less ackerman on the street and how it affects daily duties.

 

do it. dont be a *****.

 

Your front end will rotate the car way more easily, once you're nearing the limit. Just my $.02.

 

if it's going on the streets occasionally then just setup the knuckles for drifting. everyone likes a different feel. my setup is really close to zero and has been for a few years. it works awesome and the car is fun to drive. i would like to try slightly more ackerman though. maybe 3-5º of separation to see what that feels like and how it compares.

 

Wondering if there is a way to make it adjustable just because. Who knows maybe I'd like a specific amount more than 0.

 

I screwed around with a lot of this stuff when I was designing the steering system for my college Formula SAE car. I'm no pro, but I have done a lot of research on the matter. Drifting applications and Grip oriented racing are two completely different worlds, but the engineering principles are generally same.

From a basic standpoint, all of these things play into ackermann behavior:
Wheelbase
Kingpin axis displacement (basically the distance between your right and left LowerBallJoints).
Outer tie-rod pickup location (on the knuckle).
Inner Tie-rod length.
Steering rack length.
Steering rack placement (aka, moving it forward/backward in the car).
Probably something else I'm missing.

You can "adjust" ackermann by running different combinations of those parameters. But to know HOW it affects it, or to strive for "x" degrees of wheel spread at full lock, that's a bit more complicated. I could dig up my old line drawings in solidworks and fit a specific FC layout and run the numbers... but who really has the time for that. And I highly doubt any of theses knuckle-modifying companies do that anyway. Except for maybe the GKTech knuckles. Their stuff looks legit.

 

Learn how to weld... or start from scratch and machine something modular.