Ball joint extenders (REVIEW)

anyone know the tie rod theard size?

 

On the mk1 I think it's M14 (off the top of my head)...

 

Ideally the tie rods want to be at the same angle as the wishbones and travel in the same arc for minimal bump steer

 

correctomundo

 

m14 x 2mm?

 

M14 x 1.5 I think...

 

thats whats on Mk2/3's

 

I think you will find that the tie rods will sit pointing up when the wishbones are level. Even the standard geometry mk1/2 sits like this.

Later mk1's also use M14x1.5 too.

Gurds

 

So do these work? I want some as my wishbone bushes are under a lot of stress from the angle of them due to been quite low

Everything here seems to say they just mess other geometry up (Castor, wishbone sweep) Surly this isn't an improvement

Anyone set them up properly leading to an improvement?

 

they work but just require a bit of work to get other aspects of your sus geometrey perfect.

 

I have got an improvement now with the geometry setup but I still haven't managed to eliminate all of the bump steer. Its hardly noticable now though. It will do for now but I will be looking at extending the joint further to get it just right.

Gurds

 

Hi Gurds, are you willing to share what setup your running now?

 

If you mean tracking setup then its;

50mm wider front track
-2.5 degress camber
toe'd out track
level wishbones (still haven't measured actual chassis height)

The hardware is listed in my build thread.

 

I guess you guys run quite soft suspension? Only reason i said is because im about 110mm low but with rock solid cheep coilovers and ive never felt bump steer. Ive put this down to the fact the wishbone/ track rod arn't moving up and down a lot


I have found that since ive wound it further down the handling isn't as good as it used to be when it was around 6cm heighter

I was hopping that these ball joint extenders would let me be low while keeping the handling of when it was a bit higher (as we all know that when a cars to low it destroys its ability to go round corners)

Is this what there for or is it simply to reduce bump steer

I get the feeling that slightly softer / good coil overs would improve my handling as rock solid suspension leaves me with no body roll making it worse

Am i along the right line or getting confused somewhere?

 

These balljoint extenders move the roll centre of the car back towards where it should be as on a lowered car it falls too low and destroys the handling as you say.

They are not to cure bump steer as the standard car has little noticeable bump steer. These extenders do induce more bump steer though, hence the discussion to try to minimise the effects of this with flipped track rod ends.

 

Fitting these extenders will improve your handling if you're running very low as it'll raise your front roll axis, also if you're running very low you won't feel the effects of bumpsteer so bad because you're getting bump toe out, some of the guys on here are suffering because fitting the extenders has given them bump toe in

 

Does the rack need to be raised or lowered to really get the benefit?

 

I wouldn't say so, moving the rack in reality only brings small gains, done wrong it would make things worse.

Eliminating bumpsteer has to be done on a case by case basis, there isn't a magic solution that will eleviate problems on every application.. there's just too many variables..

 

Has anyone considered drawing a scale model of each associated suspension component and then looking at the tracing arcs with bump and droop?

Better than guessing positions.

 

I was hoping to input my data into a string computer, but weathers keeping me inside!