How to make the steering feel lighter

[Dorio86]

Overcoming the problem of having more up-front weight and lowered car which gave more steering effort I found this interesting. On club4ag forum thread about camber plates. This is with coilovers.



"The pivot makes it easier to turn on non power steering cars.

Without the pivot all the tension goes to the spring, then down the strut, then to the rim and to the wheels.
THUS making the steering feel heavier (On Manual steering 86)

W/ the pivot point it doesnt bind up the spring and the tension is not transferred down the suspension. THUS Manual steering feels like power steering when sitting still.

We have a few examples 2 friends swapped cars at a drift even
SR5 Steve and Devo (lookoutdrift.com) Devo has pivots Steve didn't. Steve wonder why Devo's car was so much easier to drive. Didn't realize till later on that it was the spacers that made the difference. (both has manual steering)

Few months later Devo bought another 86, Devo put some JIC camber plates in, and it was so hard to turn w/ manual steering. Took it apart and made some more space pivots. Now the steering wheel feels like power steering and I can turn it with one hand while the car is parked (I'm freakin weak too LOL)

Nothing is wrong with the plates, but modified it will feel and drive better."

Taken from:http://forums.club4ag.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=126253


Anyone else has any info on lightning the steering.

[DRFTAE86]

I have 1 this to say to that.....












Ur sig is HUGE! http://www.ae86drivingclub.com.au/forums/emoticons/laugh.gif

[slide86]

Originally posted by DRFTAE86@Dec 28 2005, 11:20 AM
I have 1 this to say to that.....



Ur sig is HUGE! http://www.ae86drivingclub.com.au/forums/emoticons/laugh.gif
not any more http://www.ae86drivingclub.com.au/forums/emoticons/smile.gif

[.wolfwood]

i want more info on this

[Gilly]

yeah i'd be keen for a little more info on this possibly pics too as i'm buying camber tops soon!

[Monster]

Ummm camber tops (ie the rose joints in the center) has nothing to do with it, becasue even the standard struts have precision bearings in the strut tops which have the same resistance, if not less than a rose joint. Ive found that swapping to 15's helps, but other than that, I guess go to the gym and wok thos arms http://www.ae86drivingclub.com.au/forums/emoticons/tongue.gif http://www.ae86drivingclub.com.au/forums/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Jonny Rochester]

The discription in the first post is not quite right, and hard to understand.

The normal strut top has a ball bearing (thrust bearing) in it. The shock is tightened onto the inner part of the bearing. The bearing takes the whole 1/4 load of the weight of the car.

With a simple adjustable stut top with spherical joint (like my Cusco ones), you throw the normal strut top away. The spherical joint then takes all the load. Some people say the bearing has more friction. With new parts it is hardly noticeable.

...so, you can also by thrust bearings (ball bearing race) to put under the adjustable strut top. There are different setups, but generally the spherical ball joint only deals with camber movement, and the ball bearing deals with steering. Mostly this is not needed. Its nice, but more complicated. But I can't belive it will make the car feel like powersteering when stopped.

If you want light steering use skinny tyres (185, not 205), pump them up a bit more. Use wheels of the propper offset so as not too have too much scrub radius.(Don't use wheel spacers if you don't have to). Negative camber blocks will also upset scrub radius.

And (this makes the most difference) reduce the caster setting back to stock, like back to 2 degrees, not 6 degrees.

Also steering ratio and steering wheel diameter make a big difference. "Powersteering arms" with the manual rack make the steering quicker, but heavier. Also a "quick rack" makes steering heavy.

[Gilly]

he be smart that one http://www.ae86drivingclub.com.au/forums/emoticons/wink.gif

thanks dude

[Monster]

Sounds cool, just one thing, the bearing in the top of the standard strut is not a thrust bearing!!! It is a simple 6000 series which does not have a very high axial/radial load.
Not to start an argument, but i think that all the load of the car is spread over the spring/shock assembly, the bearing in the top serves as a pivot point for the strut.

[Dorio86]

I trying to understand it, maybe this pic explains it better.

http://www.ae86drivingclub.com.au/dcimages/4/8/4/3/87734.jpg
"Had to make a pivot between the upper hat and camber plate."

[RobertoX]

Sounds cool, just one thing, the bearing in the top of the standard strut is not a thrust bearing!!! It is a simple 6000 series which does not have a very high axial/radial load.
Not to start an argument, but i think that all the load of the car is spread over the spring/shock assembly, the bearing in the top serves as a pivot point for the strut.[/b]

But this bearing is the single point where all this load that is "spread over the spring/shock assembly" is fed through. Hence it takes all of this load and due to its configuration it is being used as a thrust bearing.
A little 6001 will take about 130kg axial (in a Fa>Fr application seen in the strut top) according to the NSK catalogue, I don't know the PN of the bearing in the strut top but it is a fair bit bigger than an 6001. Shock loads arent too bad also due to the rubber mount. 6000 series are deep groove also which has reasonable axial load capability.


These pics may also help explain what happens with the addition of a thrust bearing between a top hat and the camber plate:

http://www.tekcities.com/robert_ae86/coilover7.jpg
http://www.tekcities.com/robert_ae86/coilover11.jpg

I always thought that the thrust brg was added to prolong the life of the spherical. They will wear out and give a clunky feel to to the front suspension due particularly to the big shock loads put through them as they are solid mounted rather than rubber mounted like the stock arrangement.

I had thought that this arrangement would infact make the steering heavier because the spring is taking up the angular missalignment between the top hat and the bottom hat (ie the top hat is parallel to the strut top and the bottom mount is perpendicular to the shock body, hence the spring is skewed). In steering the car you are skewing the spring. However in a discussion a while ago on toymods the person who had posted these pics ^^ said that it wasn't too heavy.

On a personal note, when I installed my T3 strut tops the sperical was very stiff in rotation and the steering was quite heavy. After about a week of use the steering felt ok afain and when I pulled the struts out the bearing was very much easier to turn. I may have just gotten used to the heavy steering though!

Also on sphericals, I know of people in racing who use spherical rod ends on all suspension joints who losen them up before use by attaching the ball to a drill and spinning it until it moves very freely, this eliminates a lot of the so called "stiction" in the suspension.

[Monster]

Pffft yeah what the hell would I know about bearings!?

[RobertoX]

Don't know? Are you our resident bearing expert? I was just reading out of the catalog