I've been looking through archived content and could not find what I needed.

I had my Civic at the track last weekend and am having some major bump steer problems with my car (inducing changes in the toe). It is a full blown ITC (just swapped in a 4 speed transmission) / H5 challenge car and pretty fast but for bump steer in some dangerous corners.

I'm wondering how best to fix it. I've read that you want the toe links to be angled similar to how the suspension is. I'm trying to find out how to do so.

I've talked with another racer and found that I can take the knuckle and drill the hole to fit a spherical bearing and use a setup and washers to adjust the angle of the tie rod arm.

I'm also wondering if there's already a developed kit for this problem or a DIY to make sure I do it right.

tia

Joel


Modified by jaje at 5:00 PM 5/4/2007

 

Have you actually measured the amount of bump steer you have or was your car behaving strange and you think it is bump steer that is causing the behaviour?

If you are going to shim your outer tie rod, then you should have a bump steer gauge to measure it so you know when you are at your desired setting. And when you are measuring it, make sure you are measuring it at the wheel travel range so you may want to remove the shock while you're at it.

Generally, if you are toe out under bump (compression), you'll want to lower the outer rod joint. If you are toe in under bump, you will want to shim it up.

Any shop that prepares race cars will have the equipment you need to measure and align your car. I've heard that shim kits exist but you may need to make some modification to the tapered hole in your upright.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by bsclywilly &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Have you actually measured the amount of bump steer you have or was your car behaving strange and you think it is bump steer that is causing the behaviour?

If you are going to shim your outer tie rod, then you should have a bump steer gauge to measure it so you know when you are at your desired setting. And when you are measuring it, make sure you are measuring it at the wheel travel range so you may want to remove the shock while you're at it.

Generally, if you are toe out under bump (compression), you'll want to lower the outer rod joint. If you are toe in under bump, you will want to shim it up.

Any shop that prepares race cars will have the equipment you need to measure and align your car. I've heard that shim kits exist but you may need to make some modification to the tapered hole in your upright.</TD></TR></TABLE>
I had a very well experienced racer (30 years and was an factory audi / porsche driver) take the car out then he looked under it to help diagnose the problem and said he felt it in several of the corners. He checked the steering and said that is mainly the problem (at least what he saw).

I did find a shop close by that I'm going to bring it to - they will check and measure it to make sure they find out what is exactly wrong (could be something else). I also just found out if I do change the stock setup it will bump the car to production class. So now I'm not sure I can do what I was planning on doing.

 

I got a good look under there and found I have some flex at the tie rod (not much) which is probably exacerbating the problem. What I'm going to do is bring it into a shop close to me that prepares cars for SCCA. I'll be bringing it in the week of the 23-27 - they'll be able to accurately diagnose it better than I could.

 

I got an update on the bump steer problem. Turns out what I thought was bump steer (seemed to mimic it when I compressed the suspension). Found out a couple bolts on the steering rack were very loose causing the intermittent problem. Once they were tightened the problem went away completely.

It's nice it was something simple and easy to fix rather than being costly.

 

there would be no legal way to adjust bumpsteer anyway in ITA or H4.

btw, we have a rr/ax forum better suited for you.

https://honda-tech.com/zeroforum?id=19

 

I figured I could have found an answer here quicker. Seems the only way to be able to provide this is to use washers to help space the tie rod. SCCA doesn't allow much modification in IT for this problem.

 

its not really problem tho.

in racing youre going to be using 400-600lb springs in the front. up to 1000 in the rear. the suspension travel isnt as much.

the 88 crx has a unique difference than the 89-91 chassis in that the rear compensator (toe) arm is mounted higher on the chassis so the rear bumpsteer does act differently. but its a wash once you lower it to typical race heights.

btw, i raced ITA in 2002 in SFR. a lot of my friends are in HC here in socal. so im familiar with the rules.

and no, youre not going to get more informed questions on suspension here, unfortunately. but only RR/AX related questions should be posted there, so this topic would be much better suited there.