Gibbo_UK

Hi there

Installed Tokico D-Spec suspension all round with Saleen springs. Tokico left on factory settings all round.
Steeda front sway bar (installed through middle hole)
Steeda X5 ball joints.


Now the car feels sloppy, the steering response seems much slower and the car seems to pull heavy to one side, infact it feels scary to drive at any past 50mph in case it all of a sudden pulls to one side and steering feels much much lighter.

Now I don't think its the struts/shocks as not hearing any knocks or vibrations. So am putting it down to either swaybar installation or the X5 ball joints.

Any help appreciated or ideas.

Could something have been knocked out to cause this or have I done something wrong, had no instructions so when it came to like which hole on the front struts to connect tie rod ends too just went with the hole closer to rear of the car. Am guessing an installation error or something has been knocked out of allignment badly.

Please help guys.

Gibbo_UK

Hi there

Just to re-confirm the car actually feels unsafe to drive, steering feel and and response is very poor compared to before and it just feels sloppy resulting in no confidence to push and well it feels unsafe too.

Mr. Ugly

You removed the control arms to install the ball joints?

Did you tighten all the steering rack mounting bolts? Sounds like the rack is floating.

SoundGuyDave

Did you have the car aligned after the parts install?

From the description, the swaybar mounting is correct.

For the Tokicos, I would start by going full-hard on all four corners, then back off 2-1/2 turns on the adjusters. That will get you a medium-firm feeling, and should be pretty close for most street spring rates. I don't remember if Tokico ships the struts set to full firm or full soft, but either would make the car feel "odd" at best.

Just to recap and make sure I'm up to speed: The car drove fine prior to install, excepting the traditional Mustang understeer and soft turn-in, correct? You installed dampers, springs, and ball joints, and now the car pulls to one side (always, or intermittantly?), and steering response is "darty"?

Off the cuff guess is that the alignement angles are significantly off now. A pull to one side is usually caster or camber related, and I bet you're running a BUNCH of toe-out, which would account for the car darting at higher speeds. Also, if the ball joints weren't installed properly, fully pressed into the control arm, or the control arm socket was distorted during the installation, that will REALLY mess with your angles up front, or allow the angles to be variable.

Do you know how to do a "string alignment?" If you do, knock it out and see what your angles look like. If not PM me, or Google it, and try to get it done. If you haven't aligned after the install, immediately do so!

RRRoamer

Given everything you replace (ESPECIALLY the ball joints!), you have to get the thing aligned! There is no point in even trying to do a rough evaluation until those tires are pointing in the correct direction. The alignment techs will quickly find out if there is anything that is grossly out of wack.

The Reverend

Sit in the driver's seat when they are doing the alignment. That way your offset weight will be figured in.

SoundGuyDave

+10,000 to the above two posts... Instead of sitting in the driver's seat, though, I would just ballast it with weight. The alignment can take a while, and I'm not sure any shop would be too happy with you sitting in the car while it's up in the air. Either string the car, or get it on an alignment rack!

Gibbo_UK

Hi m8

Before car drove great and turn in was quick and sharp, my only issue was understeer hence going to adjustable setup and other new bits.

The struts/shocks were easy to fit at the moment they are 3 turns from firm in the rear and 4 turns from firm in the front. I shall try 2.5 turns from firm all round.

The ball joints will very hard to install, getting them to go into the control arm was very hard work and it took serious pressure to get them in. I hope the control arms did not bend under pressure, could not see anything except for maybe right at the end where the balljoint pushed in but even then if they did it was slight to nothing. Did remove them from the car in order to press the balljoint into the control arm, I hope they went in fine but the amount of pressure required was alarming, is that normal? Can you PM me the string allignment guide please?

The car pulls to the right and steering does not feel as sharp or quick and feels unsafe at high speeds or if trying to carve a corner. I am guessing the alignment is massively out. There is no vibrations or knocking sounds it just pulls to the right and quite noticably too.


Here are some pictures:-










Do things look OK in those pics, as in things connected to right places etc. etc.

Don't worry about the bump steer kit as I'd not tightened it up yet, but would you guys say my placement of the washers is a good starting base and remember I have the Steeda ball joints.

travelers

Is your car lowered???

SoundGuyDave

As far as connections go, everything looks about right to me from here, on the other side of the pond... If that's the bump-steer stack you wound up with, I think you'll be quite a ways off. A good baseline for starting on bumpsteer is to have the tie-rod arm as close to parallel with the lower control arm as you can get it, and since you spacer stack is shorter than mine, AND since you have the X5 installed, I would bet you have some issues to resolve there. Since you have your old struts hanging around (right?) you should have a pretty easy time setting bump-steer. This goes along with the string alignment deal as well... I'll post it here, so that it's available for comment, discussion, complaint, etc...

Setting up the strings: You'll need some uprights of some sort, like traffic cones, jackstands, etc. that are fairly immobile, yet easily moved. You'll also need either a camber gauge (Maximum Motorsports sells an awesome one, and it's cheap!) or a digital angle-finder. Sears sells one that has a laser in it, which is also a handy tool. Next, you need to find some flat, plane surface to work on. Most garage floors are poured with a pitch to help water runoff, but you can simply use shims made of Masonite (countertop laminate sheets) to shim up the low points until they're all good. I use the laser in the Sears level along with a tape measure to determine when it's all good. Find one point, roughly where the tire would sit, and check for level N-S and E-W, and use the best spot you can. Then, plot out roughly where the other tires will land, and using the laser, shoot the beam to the center of the other spots, shining on a tape measure. Shim up the three low spots (or all four, if you want) until you can shoot the laser from each pad to any other, and have it hit the tape measure at the same height. Now that you have a plane and level area to work, I would tape or epoxy the pads in place so that you can get repeatable results. Now, park the car on the pads (parking brake on!), with the steering wheel unlocked. Stretch a piece of string taught between two of your uprights, extending around 8"-12" (20-30cm) past the edges of the tires, so that the string is longer than the wheelbase, and around 4"-6" (10-15cm) or so away from the sidewall of the tire. Starting on one side (driver's for sake of example), eyeball the front tire compared to the rear, and get them as close to parallel as possible. Next, using a tape measure, measure the distance from a machined surface on the rear rim (as close to the hub as you can get) to the string, and then do the same at the front. Move the uprights (cone, jackstand) around until those two measurements are identical. At that point you have a string running parallel to the side of the car. Repeat the above on the other side. Finally, center the steering wheel inside the car, and lock it in place. I have a wheel clamp (spring loaded to the seat), but you can easily use a ratchet-strap run through the bottom of the steering wheel and around the brake pedal to accomplish the same thing. Main point is that it will allow you to make adjustments without letting the wheel move around. Now, you can take some measurements that actually mean something! First measurement, traditionally, is caster, the fore-aft pitch of the strut, comparing the line passing through the center of the ball joint stud and strut shaft to true vertical. In the case of the S197 platform, there is no provision for caster adjustment, unless you have a camber-caster plate installed. Maximum Motorsports is the only vendor that I know of that offers one. Assuming you don't have that installed, skip the caster measurement, and go direct to camber. Camber is the angle at which the tire meets the pavement, and is measured by simply affixing an angle-measurement device vertically to the rim, and measuring the angle it generates. If the rim is exactly perpendicular to the ground, it has ZERO camber angle. If the top of the rim is further out than the bottom, it is a positive angle, and if the top of the rim is further in than the bottom, it is a negative angle. While this can be measured with a tape measure referenced to a plumb dropped from the string, the angle gauges are just too cheap not to use. The MM gauge I mentioned earlier is accurate to around 1/16 of a degree, and costs less than $50.00. On the S197, the stock camber angle is supposed to be -3/4*. For aggressive street and track driving, depending on how the tires read, -2.0 to -3.0* is much better. There are essentially two points and three methods usable to adjust camber on the S197, and I don't know what method you have, but you'll need one. First point is at the knuckle to strut joint. You can use a "crash bolt", which replaces the upper strut bolt, and has an eccentric on it to allow the joint to pivot. You can also use the plates, as sold by Steeda, to do the same thing, but with much higher durability. For the plates, you'll need to elongate the upper strut mounting hole, a few minutes work with a die grinder. The other place to adjust is at the top of the strut, by installing a camber plate in place of the stock factory strut mounts. These plates allow the strut shaft and spring to be slid inboard or outboard in relation to the tower to make the strut (and thus the wheel) pivot more towards positive or negative, as required. You can also combine the two if you really need to dial in a bunch of negative camber. That said, using whichever method works the best for you, adjust your camber angle on both sides to your desired spec, and match them as closely as possible. The final angle is toe. This is the angle described by the tires with respect to each other drawn parallel to the ground, essentially describing whether the wheels are exactly parallel to each other, or whether they converge to a point ahead of the car or behind the car. This is a simple measurement to take. Measure from your string to a spot on the leading edge of the rim, and, at the same height from the floor, from the string to the same spot on the trailing edge of the rim. Compare the two. If there is no difference (resolution of 1/32" or 1/64"), then there is no toe on that tire. If the front is further from the string, the measurement difference represents toe-in, and if the rear is further from the string, the difference represents toe-out. Since the steering wheel is locked in place, and is pointing straight ahead, we will be shooting for a total toe number, and that number should be evenly split between the two front wheels. The Ford spec is in derees (0.10*, +/- 0.20* toe in), but we'll work in inches, and this equates to roughly 1/16" desired spec for total toe. That means that it should be split to 1/32" toe-in for each tire. Here's where things get interesting. Toe-in creates more stability at speed, but toe-out creates a sharper turn-in when cornering. Conversely, toe-in when cornering tends to resist the turn, but toe-out at higher speeds makes the car feel unstable and want to dart from side to side. You can set to whatever you like, but I would suggest starting with the factory spec until you get the whole car dialled in and then change toe as needed to get the overall feel you want. Toe is adjusted by loosening the jam nut on the tie rod, and then rotating the tie rod to effectively "spin" the tie-rod end in and out, thus adjusting the angle. When finished, make sure you lock down the jam nut!. Once you have finished setting camber and toe on both sides, you have finished roughing-in your alignment! As you can plainly see, ALL of the settings are reliant on accurately squaring the strings to the car, so make sure you take your time setting it up, and don't be afraid to re-check your strings as you go. If you jack up the car at any point, make sure to roll it back off the pads, then back on again to settle the suspension, and when you do, you'll need to re-calibrate your springs. You can also set the alignment in this fashion with the car sitting on jack stands, as long as you have measured the amount of suspension compression prior to stringing the car, and then use jacks under the front control arms to get it back to the same compression. That may be easier and quicker if you have wholesale changes to make, like you do. Make sure, in this case, that you have enough clearance to bolt up the wheels with the car still in the air.

Next, bump-steer...

Put the car up on ramps up front, and stands in the rear, on the frame. Get it as close to level as you can get it, and measure your static ride height from the floor to the center of the ball joint on the lower control arm, and write down that measurement. Now, measure the height from the floor to a specific point on the frame, and write down THAT measurement. Now, jack up the front end, and drop the frame on jackstands, using Masonite to shim them until they hit the same height measurement you had before. Disconnect your swaybar endlink from the bar, and put a jack under the lower control arm, and jack up on the car, until the ball joint gets to the same height you had before. For safety, you'll want to add some weight (50-100kg) to the corner of the car you're working on, so that you don't float it off the jackstands. Reset your strings, with the steering wheel still locked and centered, and re-confirm that you are showing the same toe measurement you had before. Now, lower the jack slightly, until the ball joint is 1" closer to the floor, and re-measure your toe on that side. If there was a change, then you have bump-steer, and need to correct it. Move the shims around on the stack, run back up to the static ride height, reset the toe (it will have changed), and then droop again, and re-measure. Keep going until you have as little change as is practicable. Now, leaving the swaybar disconnected, move to the other side and repeat, until you have as little change as possible, and your initial toe measurement is still the same. Go back to the first side and reconnect the swaybar. Now that you've set bump-steer, drop the car, re-string it, and verify your total toe is good and still split evenly. Test-drive the car.

Last issue: Ball joints. I have no idea of the level of mechanical ability you have, so I can't judge from what you said if you have installed them properly or not. Visually inspect the bottoms to make sure they are pressed into the lower control arms completely (the ridge is hitting the control arm, with no gap, all the way around) and that the two sides are visually identical. The ball joints are not tapered, but are interferance fit, so the point where they stop is where the ridge at the bottom hits the control arm. If they aren't pressed all the way in, then you'll never get the car to align properly. If they are pressed in cocked, at an angle (ridge hits in one area but not opposite), you have ovaled the mounting hole, and will need to replace the control arm. If that is the case, I would replace the X5 ball joint as well, for safety's sake. I normally use a hydraulic press for ball joints; you can use sockets and a hammer, but I really don't recommend it. Take it to a machine shop, or an auto shop and pay a few (insert currency here) and have them do it. Also, make sure that you torque the control arm bolts to spec (129lb-ft or 175Nm).

Quick question for you: What wheels did you wind up going with to clear the Brembos?

Gibbo_UK

Yes it has Saleen springs so just over 1" all round.

Gibbo_UK

HI m8

I had a shop do the ball joints for me and they used a press/vice to get them in. Here is a better image of them installed on the car:-



I have put on the pic an arrow pointing to what maybe a gap, would you say that is a slight gap and if so then I need to push the ball joint further in by hitting from the bottom in an upwards motion as per the other arrow?

If so is it OK to use a hammer to hit/tap the ball joint into place from the bottom until the what looks like a possible gap is gone or would you say from that pic it looks OK?

Never got any wheels yet, so am still on the Saleen 20" wheels.

SoundGuyDave

DO NOT whack it with a hammer!! All you'll do is ding up the ball joint, and compress the spring. It normally takes in excess of 1T of pressure to press in a ball joint, and you'll never get that with the arm attached to the car. I will ASSume that they are installed correctly. I took a peek at a pic of one on the Steeda website, and it appears as though it's in right.

Get some strings on the car (or get it to a shop) and let us know what you find! I'm betting that all your problems are in the angles.

Gibbo_UK

HI m8

So you sure that the balljoint looks OK then even with that very slight gap that can be seen in the pics?

The car is feeling better since the bumpsteer kit went in today, still pulls to right a little but steering is quicker/more responsive as did have a go at visually trying to allign the car as well which helped a little.

Its going to a specialist on Saturday who race cars etc. who are going to set the caster, camber, toe and allignment etc.

Do you guys have any recommend settings for toe, camber and caster on a street car that is aggressively driven and love to carve corners please but I dont want it to feel twitchy, want it to feel planted and confidence inspiring.

I was thinking the following:-
1.6 degrees negative camber
caster not got a clue, what is recommended?
Neutral or 0 toe or do you know a better setting?

SoundGuyDave

Caster isn't adjustable, but there's enough from the factory. Your camber sounds good, and as for toe, either a touch in, or a touch out, depending on how the car feels...

When you eyeballed the alignment, how far off was it? Roughly the same camber, or was one side WAYYY off compared to the other?

Gibbo_UK

Hi m8

I can adjust caster as am installed the maximum motorsports top mounts that give both castor/camber adjustment.

When eyeballing hard to tell but to drive its definetely off, does not pull as bad now but its off as still pull to right a little, steering has improved.

Its going in the allignment shop tomorrow to get setup hence why I was interested in setting to get it handling nice for my style of driving which is corner carving and wanting the car to feel planted.

So were agreed on 1.6 degrees negative camber for the street.
A neutral toe is best, am I right in thinking more negative toe improves turn-in but can make the car feel twitchy?
Now you know I can adjust castor, what should I be aiming for?

Glenn

it looks like the top nut on the bump steer kit is loose. Is it? Or was that pic taken before the job was done?

Gibbo_UK

Hi there

Yep pic taken with it loose, so don't worry, hehe.

Had allignment done today, car is so much better!

Goes in the shop tomorrow for castor/camber and toe setup.

I need recommendations please for castor and toe setting to use, please help.

SoundGuyDave

Caster helps with wheel return and resistance to steering angle change due to road imperfections. Too little, and the car will dance all over, too much, and the ride gets very harsh. That said, there's enough in the factory setting for virtually any situation, but the MM plate allows you to exactly match the angle from side to side. Having as little as 1/2* of difference can induce a pull to one side. IIRC, the MM plate allows up to one full degree of ADDITIONAL caster to be added, so starting with the plate installed as far towards the front of the car as possible would be a good start, and should put you right on the factory setting.

-1.6* of camber is a good place to start, at least until you can start reading the tires. Under street conditions, it may be a touch too negative, but you'll need to see what the wear patterns look like. Under your normal driving conditions, put around 150-200KM on the tires, and look at the treadwear to see how the tire is reacting. If you start wearing the inside edge of the tire more than the center or outer edge, you've got too much camber dialed in. I have found that different tires respond differently to camber settings, once you get away from the stock kit, so reading the tires is critical. If you have (or have access to) a probe-style tire pyrometer, that is the BEST way to tell. Go out for a "typical" drive for 20-30 minutes, then IMMEDIATELY take temp readings on the outside, center, and inside of the tread section, and compare the numbers. You're looking for even heat all the way across. If one edge or the other is showing hot, then camber away from that edge (inside too hot, less negative camber, outside too hot, more negative camber). If the edges are the same, but the center is too hot, drop air pressure. If the center isn't hot enough, add air pressure. That works for the rear, as well. FWIW, probe-style pyrometers are much better than the infrared type at this, as they get within the tread block, and don't just rely on the surface reading.

For toe, you are correct: toe-in increases high-speed stability at the expense of some crispness in turn-in, and toe-out increases turn-in at the expense of high-speed stability. I would run just a touch of toe-in for street use, and again read the tires. After some initial runs, gently rub your hand across the tread section of the tire back and forth from the inside to the outside, and feel for any kind of "sawtooth" wear. If you feel any, you have too much toe dialed in, as the tires are scrubbing across the pavement, and not actually tracking. Minor adjustments to the total toe have pretty profound impact. I would start with 1/16" toe-in to begin, which shouldn't scrub the tires, and then adjust from there to get the "feel" that you want. 1/2 turn of the inner tie-rod is usually enough to feel a change, so don't be afraid to experiment. Make a log of the changes you make, and note how they "felt" or performed. Make only one change at a time, and don't be afraid to go back to the baseline if it starts to feel weird. One of the inner tie rods is reverse-threaded compared to the other, so make equal adjustments in the same way on each side to keep your toe even. That will keep your steering wheel centered.

I didn't know you put the MM plates in at the same time; having a caster difference will definately cause a pull to one side, as will camber, but to a much lesser extent.

Please let us know how the car feels once you get the alignment on it!

Digital_Synapse

holy crap, you guys are awesome.