Modify steering arms for better control when sideways

[BLSTIC]

Just thought I would let you know about a non-adjustable (normally...) angle that has a LOT to do with driving sideways

Ackerman is basically toe out on turns. Meaning that as you turn harder the inside wheel points more towards the inside of the turn than the outside (inside wheel turns 20*, outside turns 15*). What this means for drifting is that with the wheels pointed in the direction you are moving, there is a massive amount of toe out happening. When that occurs the front of the car has both less traction and more drag than is ideal for trying to drive sideways (ie the front slows the car down, leading to a spin). Making the front wheels parrallel should in theory make the car easier to control when sideways.

We have made an XD falcon have zero ackerman for speedway purposes, and it made the car way easier to control. As this was the only change made, and the races were two weeks apart, it's not possible to blame anything else.

The method was simple, cut the steering arm off the hub, and weld it on so that the joint was directly behind the bottom pivot point of the hub. The steering arm is now parrallel to the wheel when viewed from the top.

It worked fine on a speedway car, you drift boys should give it a shot.

Note that this is likely to be illegal for road use (cutting and welding of a major safety component), and the car will scrub the front tires in pretty much any turning manuver that isn't taken sidways with countersteer.

Have a think, and someone try it on a drift car.

cya
Ben

[Rollin]

Did the XD have custom hubs already? The e-series ones are cast iron, which isn't the best stuff to weld

It is a good idea though....EB, EF and AU uprights would all give different amounts of ackerman, so you'd figure out which gives the least and use that for a small improvement.

[bentls]

dunno if anyone knows him or not but john dreyer the dude with the what was red xf ute turbo drift car has 0 ackerman angle... he has modified front spindles to acheive this too.... works real good... hes working on a setup now where he can have 60* of steering angle at full lock......

[BLSTIC]

Nope, standard hubs. Well, they were until then anyway...

Incedentally the longer a car's wheelbase the less ackerman it normally has. The steering arm joint normally sits on a line between the pivot point for the front wheels and the centre of the rear axle. So longer cars naturally have less angle.

Someone with both a fairlane and a falcon needs to look at their front uprights and tell us if the part numbers are different. It's not a massive change in ackerman (with the small change in wheelbase), but it's there and legal, if they are different.

[impraven]

Interesting concept! Could you please get some pictures of your setup so we can see how you did it? I would be interested in giving it a hit in the lane!

[BLSTIC]

No pics, car was sold last season. Didn't take any happy snaps

Oh, and while cutting the arms you can shorten them too. Take the 3 turns lock to lock down to about 2 (or 2.4 in an XD-G down to 1.8 or so).

Read this article for a breif description of ackerman about half way down. In the second picture in the ackerman section, the highlighted arms would be pointed straight up for zero ackerman.

[BLSTIC]

Just need to watch out when shortening the steering. I forgot that it's possible to get the arms on some cars to have a nearly straight line between the joint on the rack/box, the end of the steering arm, and the pivot point of the hub. When that happens it becomes quite difficult to straighten the wheel from full lock, especially if you need to do it quickly. If it goes over centre (ie past a straight line) it can become almost impossible to straighten.

[TUFED6]

Rather than cut/weld, you could try heating them up and bending them.

Then you could get them heat treated and you shouldn't lose any strength. Wouldn't be able to get as much angle, but it might be an option.

[Kenaz]

dunno if anyone knows him or not but john dreyer the dude with the what was red xf ute turbo drift car

It's bright blue now That thing is bloody sick!

[bentls]

yeh looks awesome in the blue... he said something about getting a few mates of his all painted up the same n starting a team... all fords hopefully hehe... mackie wont be doing it i dont think lol

[Brendan]

my mate has done this to his KE70, he has nissan silvia suspension (S13) and cut the spindles up himself...

he works with boiler makers so hes getting them to weld them.

bending would be a bad option i believe, as to get a better result you should really shorten the arm aswell so that from lock to lock becomes less turns of the steering wheel and you can get more oversteer as well...

apparently the trick to welding cast is to heat the metal up first, like using your oven to heam them, then to weld them with a mig to get good penetrationg.




i am going to attempt this with my shitbox ive just picked up as its my temporary drifter whilst my quad cam V8 KE70 is still in the build