Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Steering Angle++

It's a pretty nice day out today so I went and installed some new 20mm (huge!) wheel spacers for the front (it gives the front of the car a better stance too).

Why you ask? Because I recently got around to installing a set of 4mm steering rack spacers. The spacers are basically small washers that take the place of the locking washer in between the steering rack and the inner tie rod. The stock locking washer has a pretty large diameter so it prevents the inner tie rod from completely travelling into the steering rack. By replacing this washer with a spacer that's the same diameter as the tie rod, the rods are able to travel further into the rack, fully utilizing all the teeth of the steering rack to achieve maximum steering angle.
People who have installed the mod have said that it increases the steering angle by about 15-20 degrees which is pretty great for such a cheap and simple mod. I didn't manage to take any before pictures but I'll let the after pictures tell the story. The steering angle looks decent now and should be a lot of fun come drift season.


I also included a shot of what my car's cockpit looks like at the moment.


The first drift event was supposed to be at the end of March but the current schedule says it is TBA... we'll see what happens.