more fds...

sorry to hear bout the motor.. im kinda in the same boat.. only that i have a fresh rebuilt cosmo sitting in my room. but i still need a turbo and haltech to get my **** running.. the waiting sucks..

also planning to get my knuckles real soon.,, so ill let every one know how that goes

 

For the only one lap I've done with the knuckles + 3mm spacers with stock tie rods /end I can tell there is a "weird" feeling just before the full lock. I was expecting this as the tie rod is perfectly aligned with the rack.
It's not so hard to manage, but it's not comfortable as it's right before (and wow, it's VERY comfortable before !!!)

 

More FD's for sure.

I would really like to see more FD's at the grassroots level. I understand why there isn't tho.

Battle Cat keep us updated on your knuckles, I plan on sending mine out and having them done b4 next season. So any knowledge is helpful

 

I have the knuckle mod from parts shop max, they did a prototype for my FD. Their mod definitely works really well insteering angle. There are two mounting points (as well as their other knuckle mods for other cars I think) for the outer tie rod. I have the tie rods mounted on the further back mounting point because I wanted to see what kind of angle the mod could achieve. As of now, I feel the same "weird" feeling as some others have said right before lock. The feeling is an agressive "pulling" feeling. It also hits on something, maybe the control arms, not sure yet. With it hitting and this "agressive pulling" happening, im not so sure it is safe to be swinging back and fourth. I am going to mount the tie rods on the further up mounting point to see if this reduces steering angle and this weird feeling. But if not, then it has to do with how low the tie rod is mounted vs. how far back the tie rod is mounted compared to factory. If I have any update, I will let you guys know.

 

When you say pulling effect do u mean that the steering wheel is getting pulled from your hand "like binding issues" or that the wheels is getting sucked into full lock and then u have 2 force it out.

Also if you could kinda tell us your setup like if your aftermarket tie rods, inner tie rod spacers how much camber that will give us an idea of what might be causing it other than just the knuckles.

Sorry just trying to understand what your saying

 

+1


i was told you would need to run s14 tie rod spacers, and some other stuff... but im very interested to see what the wheel actually does... as far as the binding issue goes..

 

here are the once I made. I took off like 1.25" off the end of the knuckle. Car should be rolling out very soon. Im also gonna modify the rack to fix binding issues if i run into problems. Im also running superangle tie-rod with spacers. i will be running a 17x9 -3 wheel upfront. Car should be on the ground later this week.

 

awesome, let me know if and what binding issues you run into, and how to go about it... i wanna try to avoid that as much as possible myself.. since i am still in the middle of finishing my fd..

 

For what I've felt on mine :

When you're near from the full lock (say 3/4), the wheel is harder to turn. I don't ran it that much (one lap, hun, yeah... it's light), but this is the weird part. It's hard to push, hard to pull. But it's again very smooth after this point, a few degrees before full lock.

And my mods :

Stock, stock, stock ... 3 milimeters spacers + shortened knuckles.
205/45/17 on 8" ET20 + 25mm spacers.
Coilovers but we don't care as it's not really changing this feeling.

 

Man, thats way to much, your going to slam into everything before you even hit lock on the rack.

*sigh* so much I want to say, but it seems like everyone has it all figured out already. Drifting is 80% mental anyways, so if you think somethings working for you, more then likely it is.

That feeling you get right before "lock" is either you rubbing something up front, or your tie rods might need to be a longer.

 

I only thought about that after reading this thread. Tomorrow I will bolt up the calipers and start grinding for clearance.....lol. As far as the rack i have no plans to modify it yet. I wanna test out the car first and see how I like it. I hate pointless mods.

 

Knuckle mod helps, for sure it helps.

My only point to people when they cut their own knuckles is, there will always be something stopping you from getting more angle. So why cut so much out, at full lock it just slams into stuff, and rub the **** out of stuff it doesn't need too.

I also dont understand why people want like 60+ degrees of steering angle. Sure, backward entries are cool, but other then your entry, when do you ever use that much steering angle? I have personally never seen someone drive "lock-lock" a whole run, and even if someone did, all your really doing is slowing down, making it really easy to fallow.

Steering angle does help you from spinning though. That's one nice thing about it. This it not a rant btw, just me giving my opinion.

 

My point is simple : my bimmer was not so bad with the steering lock. But I was on full lock for a lot of corner on many tracks. Plus don't forget in some countries the weather give a lot of rain... More angle = more help

Here in France we have a very good driver with an FD. He has a poor steering angle so when he fails something in his turn, the end is always a spin. And I repeat, he is very very good, very constant, ... but the car doesn't help him. I don't want the same for me ! The car is the tool, not the ennemy, you don't want to fight against.

 

No one take offense to this but modded knuckles are a total cheater mod. And When I say that I mean they help u get out of of situations that bad driving got you into. We all know that FD's have weak angle and that if your going to try and get 60 degrees (or anywhere close) your going to change every Arm and do a lot of unnecessary work.

All im saying is I would rather see everybody that wants Knuckles or plans on doing them get more angle than stock like say (46 degrees for example) and have them work well, not binding, not doing funny **** to the steering wheel, Just working well. And helping all of us become better drivers not screwing us.

Ive drivin S chassis with extreme knuckles and they usually feel like **** unless done %100 right and then I've driven cars with mild knuckles and helper mods and NOTHING beats a car that flows through transitions.

My goal for the FD is to increase over factory angle while maintaining the closes possible feel to factory steering inputs.

 

Take a look for somes crappy japanese cars with poor steering and what they are doing with...

I think you don't even imagine how many cars have a bad feeling like that. (ie look the MSC challenge cars)

 

I do understand how many cars have sketchy set ups, thats why i don't want my **** 2 be like that.

Japan or where ever wrestling ur steering wheel is not fun

 

I agree with mostly everything said after my last post.

Drifting should be enjoyed though, and if you enjoy "driving" the car, and ripping the wheel around to make the car do what you want it too, then hey, more power to that guy lol.

 

I would have to disagree with a few things. Cheater mod? I dont really think so when its parts of the judging format. The stock angle on an FD is way less than 46*. I started drifting mine in stock form and it was spin happy. I then added some inner spacers and new tierods and the car had about the same steering angle as a stock s14. I just put my knuckles on the car and full lock to full lock Im not hitting anything. Ill put up picks today.

 

I've forgot something... With the knuckles only, without inner spacers, there wasn't any trouble.

So it's definately a "must have".

 

As far as "Cheater Mod" i wasn't being serious, Alot of the people i slide with call nucks that because S chassis guys can throw them on and its hard to match their angle during Tandem.

Just from street sliding my FD i can tell that the angle is weak.

Knuckles are a must even if your kinda serious about sliding a FD, I was more trying to make the point that we all don't NEED 60+ degrees

 

As for the PBM nuckles, they suggested that I use s14 inner and outer tie rods. So, Not sure if there is a different combination to try but I suppose it could have to do with this "pulling effect." To me, the feeling feels more like a feeling as if either the steering rack or suspension geometry was not intended to have that much steering angle.

Obviously a mod like this on an Rx7 would need some testing before making the product open to the market. PBM did mine as a test, so as far as them doing any others, they may be hessitant because of the problems that occur to everyone who modify the knuckles.

These need to be tested more on the track to fiugure out the best solution.

 

It's simple, and well know from the S chassis guys.

When you got a lot of steering angle, there is a point where everything "steering" related is "over centered". That's a bad thing for two reasons :

1 - It's a "blur" area, as the wheels can slighty turn when the steering wheel don't move.
2 - It's hard and asks for more efforts to move the steering wheel in this area

The solution for the S chassis is to move the steering rack, or using some special offset rack spacers : http://www.driftworks.com/shop/p820/...duct_info.html

(plus there's a better description of the problem in the page ^^)


If you are used to watch some crazy japanese videos, you'll see the wheel going crazy.
This is the same effect as in this video, even if it's a crashuu ^^

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDl-M_VNqmw


So, same problems, same solutions ....

 

now this is some angle

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rlv0dtXB4Iw&feature=sub

 

lol u didn waste any time with posting that jaime

 

anyway it's a good one