Hey! For some reason my subscription to this thread got broken and I did not know that there where all these replies.

Anyhow, I see now that some people have gotten what I was trying to say here and why long stem balljoints could be a great mod for moderately lowered cars. The steering tie rods would have to be re-positioned but there are kits for that already.

Here is what is available for 944's. I contacted the seller but they would not give me the ball diameter so I could check if they could be adapted to 911's or my race car.

I have half a mind to buy a set and then head to the junkyards to find ball joint sockets that would work then weld them into the a-arms on the race car.


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1233113091.jpg

Kevin-

Could you clarify? If the a-arm is tilted down more wouldn't there be greater negative camber gain? I thought that was what the longer ball pins where supposed to do.

I am trying to get more neg. camber on bump and run less static neg camber.

Sorry for the double post...

your right i worded it backwards just rechecked, by lowering the ball joint it went to -.62, i am not sure i understand you, if the bump is off it just creates + or - toe. lets see if can remember this, if you want less static camber on the front end ride hieght and more when the front is compressed you are going to have to do something to get high camber gains, on an A frame upper car you would need shorter upper control arms. you can improve camber gains on a strut car by moving the strut towers in. this would create camber gain but you will have to rework the spindle to get the static camber out. and one inch may yield as little a -.10 degrees more, remember there are racing strut towers where you cut your tower out and replace it with one that gives more strut angle. if it were one inch higher with a half inch longer ball joint you would regain your travel, but bump would still be out. its possible if you took exact measurements i could check your camber gains etc, but sometime exact measurements may mean you have to cut a ball joint in half to find the center, Kevin

also keep in mind caster can cause a car to feel darty and should be checked to make sure your requirements are met before welding if you should replace the tower

While the GEO may be light, it's suspension was similarly designed to support that lightweight. I understand you have lightened the car further, you are also racing it, pushing it harder than the design intent. Compound this with a ball joint extension that is weaker than the factory design, and you have potentially a serious failure.

If you know how to calculate the loads and strength of materials, do so. If you don't know, then guessing is trolling for trouble.

Even if you can make it safe, this is a jiggy workaround solution. Instead why not focus your efforts on figuring out how to properly raise the spindles.

As an aside, Chapman wasn't condoning suspensions that don't move. He was deriding poorly designed suspensions that had to resort to super stiffness to work reasonably well.

The only thing that gave me heeby jeebies was that ball joint extension you posted....

I favor as few connections as possible...in suspension links...

And I'm aware of what those qm etc guy do with their suspensions..

Heck I have a bunch of qm parts set aside to make my 935 susp..

the best bet would be to move the spindle pin, but i have been using extended ball joints up to a half inch for a long time, any more then that i wouldnt do it, actualy most of the mono ball stuff is built so you can put washers inbetween to extend them, and i like mono ball carrots less then ball joints, mono balls have less rotation then a ball joint,(when i say ball joint I mean a racing ball joint), Kevin

Reestablishing the A arm angle on a lowered car reduces the static neg camber (brings the bottom of tire in) but again allows for neg camber gain with compression ( bottom of tire moves out). Thus, no real improvement unless you do something at the top of the strut to gain neg camber.

It makes much more sense to do it the right way and send your struts out and have them raise the spindles and decamber them at the same time. It as about $250 to raise them and another $200 to decamber them.

You still have to get a bump steer kit.

Now you have enough static neg camber, you get neg camber gain under compression, and you restore travel the the front so there is less risk of bottoming out.

I get that. While I would like to get the geometry right, it may be that I'll have to live with a sub optimal setup and just make it not move much.

Here's the thing, the Geo is a front drive car so raised spindles are not an option unless they are custom forged etc.. Long stem ball joints might help and that's why i am looking them up. I am going to contact QA1 and see what they have available. They do make one with the right stem diameter so I'll see if they make an extended one in that size.

My idea here is to allow one to use LESS static neg camber by building it into the geometry under compression. That way the tire is flat when the car is going straight and gains neg camber only when turning. For a front wheel drive car contact patch on corner exit is a big issue with an open differential and since my Geo has twice the stock Hp this is issue #1.

Thanks for all the input. If anyone knows who makes a long balljoint with a 15mm diameter stem let me know.

Datsun guys have been doing similar for a long time with 240z's. They use a balljoint mount that bolts to the rest of the strut though, so they just fit a machined spacer between the balljoint fitting and strut. Improves camber curve on lowered cars. And yes, typically they also run a shortened strut insert ( I think one designed for VW's from memory ).

GEO! :rolleyes:

OK. After a bunch of time doing other things I got this project done. I welded a threaded chromolly bung into the spindle and run a bolt through a spherical bearing pressed into the control arm where the oem balljoint used to sit.

Just did a track day and I gotta say this was a MASSIVE improvement. The car now only needs .5 degrees of static neg camber because it gains a lot of neg camber when the suspension is compressed. Much better handling is the result.

The reason this applies to 911's is that I think most people lower these cars with the torsion bars and not drop spindles. I now would venture to say that even the casual user should consider drop spindles BEFORE anything else. It allows you to lower the car and not have to have over stiff torsion bars. You also don't have to kill your tires with a ton of static neg. camber since there will be good neg. camber gain under bump.

Here is a phone cam pic of my home made setup. It hasn't broken yet and I doubt it will give any trouble. Pic. it sideways. Sorry.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1238948702.jpg

Welded?

You may want to put that on an extremely frequent inspection list. Welding reduces high cycle fatigue performance by a huge amount in any steel, and unless you did some annealing afterwards you won't get the durability of the chromoly part in the heat affected zone of the weld either. You will get the strength, but not the durability.

Thanks for the info about the welding. This car gets gone over a lot since it's a race only app.. I will check these every time it hits the track. By the way, the threaded bung protrudes into the ball joint hole in the spindle 1". It's not just a butt weld.

I pre-heated the parts to 550 degrees, tig welded, then wrapped in fiberglass to slow cooling. Many before me have welded spindles with similar techniques. Let's hope I got it right.

Anyhow, point of all this is that maintaining geometry in a lowered car is worth the trouble big time. Just turning the torsion adjusters to lower the front is not going to do anything but make the car look better in pictures.