I have had some R Package track rod ends in my stash for a few years and have now found some time to fit them.
But first I am measuring the Bump steer curve with the oem one’s then the R Package ones so I can actually see if they indeed help with bump steer.
The equipment I will be using is a Hunter system running win align 11.1
The car is a Mk1 lemans lowered slightly with ride height around 325mm.
These tie rod ends were introduced in 1993 on the LE model, to compensate for the lowered suspension on that car. They were also used for the 1994-97 R package cars. The stud is about 3/16" longer than the tie rod end used on other Miatas.
I will update the thread as I go along, obviously if someone can direct me to a graph where this has already been documented I will not need to do this🤔
no longer communicate with each other as the Lemans spoiler is getting in the way.
I tried my proclamps and some dropping attachments for my sensors but still had issues.
Bumper off and 2nd attempt after a cuppa, also removed the shockers as compressing past 30mm was getting very hard and I need to compress and raise at least 60mm each way.
Well there is definitely a difference between the standard and R Package track rod ends.
The solid lines are R Package rod ends and the dotted lines are standard rod ends for comparison.
Any thoughts?
I have a set of these in my spares pile, ( Just in Case they are needed )
The angle of the track control arm is changed when you fit these which is why they help with bump steer, they are set for the stock Bilstein Shock and Spring height.
My cars have these fitted as they are Both R package.
One of the cars has rebuilt suspension with brand new shocks springs and bushes and with Ns2r tyres fitted it has no sign of bump steer when pushed hard. ( Airfield Sprint Hard on a bumpy surface )
I suspect that these rod ends will only work within a small deviation from the R package ride height.
The bump steer test should be done with the wheels at various amounts of lock.
The Hunter wheel alignment machine cannot do bump steer at different amounts of lock, the steering wheel has to be locked in place.
My shocks are konis and its got Bilstein springs from an import and is running pretty much the same ride height as a car with a Bilstein kit from standard so should be close for the R Package rod ends.
I will scan in the actual figures from the exercise as they are in degrees and minutes, they might make more sense to someone?
At the moment I can see there is a difference on the graph but not sure if its good or bad
With the S-Spec (whch some here keep calling R-Package ), the height drop is mostly achieved using lower spring perches (~10mm), not shorter springs. Depending whch Koni you have, it should have a spring perch that can be repositioned to one of 3 positions.
That’s exactly what I did with my konis I matched the perch heights to some bilsteins I had.
All though we are talking 10 years ago.
I knew my wheel aligner had this bump steer function so thought I would test it out on this experiment, just not sure what i achieved apart from I know there is a difference in the rod ends.
In hindsight should have just fitted them and test drove it.
Saz,looking at the graph you posted it seems like the the s-spec rod ends show more bump steer than oe and my graphs showing similar results, or am I reading them wrong and missing the obvious?
Saz Do you have a link to where your graph came from?
