I'm curious to know if any still uses traction bars with the kingpin setups
I'm about to purchase some and don't know if I should just dump my full race traction bar setup or keep it.. Just wondering what the guys that are running the sphericals like to do anyone with hands on experience with this
Thanks

 

no traction bar needed

 

Depends on the chassis. On an EG/EK/DC that has the compliance bushing, then no.

On an EF/DA that has a radius rod setup, then yes, some sort of triangulation is necessary.

Kingpin Machine actually released this statement on their facebook page: (PM me if you want me to take it down for some reason.)

"Attention EF/DA customers!! If you own a traction bar setup made by any company that consists of two pairs of heim joints in each leg of the traction bar it is 100% wrong. Period. I am running into this issue with at least 3 customers and probably more depending on how many of my EF/DA customers are running traction bars.
The stock suspension design of the EF/DA locks the front LCA and the radius rod rigidly into the same axis. In other words, the front suspension is triangulated. In contrast, the EF/DA/EG/DC rear LCA is not triangulated. Even with stock bushings if you take a large breaker bar and clamp it to the rear LCA you can rotate it fore and aft. Once you put bearings in the rear LCA you can grab it by hand and rotate the rear LCA until the bearing spacer contacts the bearing sleeve. That is why I engineered a solution to combat this inherent problem in the rear of our chassis.
But this issue does NOT occur on a stock EF/DA/EG/DC front suspension. However, if you were (for reasons I can't understand) to "engineer" a traction bar setup for the EF/DA that has rod ends on each end of both traction bar legs you will create this rotation issue. The problem is that you have one too many heim joints. You obviously want the heim joint that connects to what is now your front crossmember. That is what allows the suspension to articulate. But why on God's green earth would you want another heim joint attached to the LCA? Now the front LCA and the traction bar are no longer a triangulated unit. The LCA can now rotate independently of the traction bar leg and produce undesirable handling effects.
Worse yet, say you buy Kingpin Machine spherical LCAs for your EF/DA. At least with the rubber bushings they are so stiff that they dampen the rotation of the LCA somewhat. But with sphericals you have low stiction so the untriangulated LCA can easily be rotated now by hand and produce dramatically bad handling effects.
But the problem here lies in the traction bar. It is not designed to work like the stock radius rod does and again is 100% incorrect. A proper traction bar setup would simply work and mount like the stock radius rod does. The rear of the traction bar leg would rigidly mount to the LCA. The front of the traction bar legs would have a rod end that would connect to what is now the de facto front crossmember. It would work just like the Kingpin Machine radius rod bearings do by eliminating the deflection inherent in rubber bushings while allowing the suspension to freely articulate with very low stiction. It is simple really. Honda did a great job designing this suspension. These traction bar setups are like reinventing the wheel and replacing it with a triangle or a square!!"

 

Kingpin doesn't make compliance bushings or FLCA's for EK by the way.

I still have the Full Race Traction bar on my car but I am not sure if I need it or not, I am going to have to find out.

 

Sorry I've got a ek chassis with a eg k-member and eg lower arms..
I will be also using skunk2 ek upper arms with kingpin setup..

 

My bad, I've never messed with those new-fangled cars.

 

The straight part of the EK front LCA is the same as the DC/EG front LCA except that the inner bushing uses a 14mm bolt rather than the 12mm bolt that the DC/EG uses. For EK customers I just machine inner bearing spacers with 14mm ID. When I buy front LCA cores I can't tell the difference between the EK and DC/EG cores once I get the bushings pressed out. They are identical.

You are 100% right though on my not making the EK compliance bearings yet though.

To the OP, nearly everyone just sells their traction bars. All they can do is cause harm in the form of bind on a DC/EG once you go to sphericals.

 

This is why I replaced my ek subframe with an eg subframe and rack. I wanted to use the kingpin compliance and Flca's, so I guess I will pull the traction bars off and sell them.

Good to know...

 

can you keep power steering?

 

Yep u can run the eg p/s rack

 

why would you want to keep PS on a race car? or a car with more than stock power?

 

I pulled the power steering from my EK long ago and looped the lines. So I got the manual subframe and rack setup, I can tell you the eg subframe is way cleaner and has less junk on it than the EK power steering setup.

 

Are there dust boots that can be used on the Kingpin setups that would allow for extended street use for a FIS built car. I understand the feel that will be transmitted because of the solid bearing setup, I am willing to deal with that. I just don't want to send my arms in every winter for maintenance if it is something I can deal with myself as far as maintenance and care.

 

You can maintain the bearings yourself. It's real easy. There are no boots that I am aware of.

 

What does maintenance consist of?

 

We keep the traction bars!

also we keep the a/c and p/s!!

 

Teflon lined bearings are considered maintenance free. Maybe spray some WD-40 or Fluid Film or something similar on a cloth and wipe them down once a year when the car is torn down and inspected. That is mostly just to make you feel better. Do NOT use grease on teflon lined bearings. The teflon liner IS the grease so to speak.

I don't make dust boots and I am not a fan of them. Most of the ones I have seen are really just O-rings that likely create more problems than they solve. The Outlaw Series bearings are all stainless. Obviously stainless will corrode but it should not happen quickly. But I am not a big fan of sphericals on street cars for a lot of reasons.

P.S. @JO TECH, I would love to see you guys test without traction bars. I think your 60' times would drop.

 

How quickly would they corrode if you had to guess? I'm currently in Okinawa, JP and most 7-10yr old cars have holes in them already. Was thinking of getting some for a dc2R that would get auto-x and mountain run duty.

 

Keep that on mind, but is hard always go to a different track everything changes

 

I can understand that Chris. More often than not, I drive my car 65 miles each way to the local 1/8th for TnT. Longer distance for events, I will most likely trailer it. I do enjoy driving the car though, but also would like the best performance possible out of the car.