I haven't seen this posted anywhere before so I thought I'd mention it...

Last May I had my car aligned and it had -1.6 degrees of camber. This was with FRPP springs and no camber bolts or caster/camber plates.

Last week I added the Steeda X5 balljoints (and bumpsteer kit) and camber is now only -1.1 degrees. Essentially the balljoints added back a half degree of camber, which I find interesting. -1.1 degrees is not that much camber and is within the Ford alignment specs. So if you only drive on the street, it seems to me you really don't need to mess with camber bolts or buy castor/camber plates if you also run the X5 balljoints.

I prefer more camber for when I do my track days so I'll be adding some caster/camber plates at some point.

Dave Kegel

 

I just got mine in and I'm gonna order my bump-steer kit next week, so thats interesting to note. Did you notice a diffrence in the handling of the car with the X5 joints?

 

It's been raining since the alignment so I haven't really been able to drive it yet. Hopefully soon.

Dave

 

I'll bet you're in Chicago, aren't you...

 

You are correct sir. Romeoville/Plainfield area.

Dave

 

I had a chance to drive the car today. It drives much better now. It's really hard to describe what it was like before other than to say that the front of the car seemed to have a different agenda than the rear. I have a very stiff rear swaybar on the car and going into a corner it felt like the car was twisting in the middle. I didn't even have to be going very fast for it to feel strange. It felt like all the weight was in the rear of the car and that the car's center of gravity was behind me. It was not a great feeling. I installed Delrin front swaybar bushings to try and remedy things - I thought the rubber bushings were allowing the car to move too much before taking a set - but that didn't really help.

The way I'm describing it makes it sound like the rear swabar is too stiff, but I don't think that's the case. Driving it hard on the track last year with the shocks stiffened up, all of the stock understeer was gone and it was very neutral.

Anyway, it's much better now. The front and rear seem to be acting in concert with one another. The front is much flatter now and it doesn't feel like I'm driving a rear engined car anymore. I'm anxious to get it back on the track and see how it is. The nose tended to porpoise coming out of a corner under full throttle. I'm hoping some of that's gone now.

Dave

 

Dave, are you heading to Gateway in a couple of weeks?

 

Sweet, so the reduction in roll-center (I believe that is the correct term) is noticable.

I purchased the X5 ball-joints to correct the geometry and minimize the impact the altered geometry of the FR3 handling pak had on the car.

Once I get the X5 ball joints installed I can start fiddling with the few adjustable items to get the handling I'm most comfortable with (for some reason my stock rear LCAs interfered with the top hole in the BMR LCA brackets so I guess I'll go with some tubular arms to get the clearence and adjustability I need.).

 

I know what you mean, my suspension only felt like a work in progress until I got the balljoints and the bumpsteer kit installed. It handled better than stock but it still didn't feel right.

Bob, did you loosen up the bolts holding the BMR brackets onto the axle before trying to put the LCA in? It won't fit if they're torqued down (found out the hard way) because it flexes under 130 ft-lbs or torque. Found that out the hard way.

 

Yeah, I had mess with them a bit to get everything bolted down, the driverside proved to be the hardest to install (did the passenger side pretty easy) it finally came down to unbolting the front of the arm on the driverside, unloading the diff and swinging it to line things up then I settled the suspension, loaded the diff and torqued things down.

 

The X5 ball joints raise the front roll center back up (reducing the front roll couple) that drops when lowering the car. Raising the inner pivots of the lower a-arm does similarly. The uneasiness you reported was the front of the car rolling and pitching more as a result of the lower roll center and increased roll couple in the front.

You are one of the few that finally caught on to this, as most drivers who have lowered their car without this mod subjectively claim that the car corners flatter, which it does not.

A test on a skid pad would really bring that revelation home.

 

Eh...my car did corner flatter than stock without the X5's but like we were saying it didn't feel like right, but once they were installed it was even flatter. we never said anything about grip, stability, or control, only sustained body roll. Can't speak for all the lowering springs out there, but the Steeda's are significantly stiffer than stock which probably accounts for the difference even with the wrong geometry.

 

I didn't hear any we at the start of this thread. I heard a guy reporting how profoundly amazed his handlling (grip, stability and control) were vastly improved when he made the front roll center correction after having lowered his car. What I offered was some explanation from an engineering perspective what he was experiencing between the two set up's.

What can not be denied is: With the front roll center lowered the the whole vehicle roll moment couple is increased, because the front roll center drops more than you lowered the CG relative to the rear roll center. The roll center axis is now significantly more nose down. As a result, the outside front corner of the car is going to dip more than it did before ... other than the macho look, the overall handling performance (grip, stability and control) has been reduced, though subjectively the average driver thinks its amazingly better ... maybe because their butt is that much closer to the road. The dip can be visually illustrated by taking something square (like a CD case) or rectangular, holding above your desk, incline the object, and then roll it about its own central axis ... you will note that the forward corner dips closer to the desk than the rear. If you hold it level, the roll displacement is equal front to rear.

All lowering springs are up rated to some degree or another to compensate for less bump travel and the intended service (track springs will be stiffer than road performance), and those generally add proportionally about the same increase in suspension roll stiffness front to rear. Sway bars similarly if added to each end. But despite even that, the front bias still suffers due to the reduced roll center height on the front. And if you try to correct the front by even more roll stiffness, you increase the understeer with the flatness you gained, and given up more grip, stability and control than you already lost.

 

RadBoss, I agree to a point. In theory you are absolutely correct, however, practice sometimes (often) differs from theory. As I upgraded my suspension, I did it piece by piece with the springs being the first part on. I've got autocross data to back up that springs alone dropped my course time by over a second on a sub-60 second course.

I've got road course lap times that demonstrate that springs/struts/sways drop *massive* amounts of time on my local road course. Not as good a comparison as the autocross data (too many variables at this point), but I can guarantee that I am faster with the Eibachs vs. the stockers.

There is plenty of data available from AX'ers and road coursers who, due to class limitations, can swap springs, but can't alter suspension pickup points. Do they run with aftermarket lowering springs? I'll give you one guess.

Is it ideal? No. This is where we agree. Correcting front suspension geometry is something that *should* be done to optimize handling. However, to say that lowering springs only harm performance isn't necessarily correct, though, and is actually quite misleading.


P.S. The Steeda relocation kit has been on my short list of things to do, and I'm hoping to get around to it this summer.

 

Hey guys, I have been having problems with my car and have a couple questions:

Is it possible that installing x5 balljoints can be detrimental to a eibach-kit-lowered 05gt? Like can this "roll center/instant center" that the balljoints correct be over-corrected?

If so, would this overcorrection cause horrendous bumpsteer?

maybe a better question would be does every car that is lowered with eibach prokit need balljoints to perform its best? my car's ability to track in a straight line was tossed out the window when I had X5s installed and I'm trying to figure out why!

thanks

 

Did you have the alignment checked? Off the cuff it sounds like a camber and/or toe issue (bumpsteer aside). If its doing it when something causes the suspension to compress/decompress then its bumpsteer.

 

+1 get the alignment checked. when i installed the balljoints it destroyed my alignment, made the car very unsafe

 

Absolutely. If you are not running a properly set up bump-steer kit, installing the X5 balljoints (or altering the k-member mounting points) will result in nasty bump steer.

By installing the longer balljoints, you've brought the front control arms back towards level, but have left the tie rod angles alone--this is what can cause the bump steer. A good starting point is to set the control arms and tie rods parallel to each other using the bump-steer kit, then tweak it from there.

Here's a good article by Steeda that gives a basic summary: http://www.steeda.com/news/tech_arti..._bumpsteer.php

 

Exactly. You need the bumpsteer kit with the balljoints.

Dave

 

Thanks for the ideas, I think I'm going to start small and re-check the alignment. The last alignment was done about 2 months ago at the same time as the bumpsteer kit install, which went perfectly btw, everything lined up, but it didnt fix the tracking problem. It did make it better, but something is still wrong for sure.

My new theory is that either my stock front swaybar links are loose and are messing with the alignment, or my camber bolts combined with the balljoints' effect on camber are screwing with my alignment, do either of those sound possible?

Either way, I am taking it in on Tuesday and will try to get to the bottom of this, once and for all.