Never been wrecked.

All other components are original to the chassis.

Ride height is set at 5.25" from jacking points to the ground.

It seems to get worse as I lower the car.

I can tighten the jimfab traction bars 1" to bring the knuckle forward; or even 2" if I remove the jamb nut.

But what would be the consequences?

Would that be too much stress on the balljoints or bushings in the flca's?

 

ef upper control arm?

 

Yes, stock ef uca's.

I've heard that swapping them left to right can increase caster. True?

 

everyone I know runs ef ex front knuckels (factory 10 inch) and presses the usdm 5 lug hub into that. I'm not sure if your ef with dc knuckels is your problem or the traction bars are. I also dont know about swaping upper control arms to mask your problems.

 

did you install the traction bar at the same time as the knuckle swap?
reason i ask is that it doesn't look like caster is the issue. the wheel is actually pushed back. you probably need to adjust the torsion bars. caster, when adjusted through the uca, doesn't actually change the position of the wheel. only the angle of its axis

pretty sure itr hubs are not direct fit into ex knuckles.
i think what most people do is machine the stock knuckles to accept itr hubs.

 

I had tried to go the ex knuckle route, but was only able to find siR knuckles.

After measuring them, I'm of the impression that they will simply not work with itr hubs.

The traction bars were installed at the same time as the suspension and 5-lug. I have since lowered the car another inch or so.

I'll adjust the bars and see where it takes me.
With the traction bar disconnected, the knuckle still feels like it just doesn't want to move forward at all.

 

the knuckles shouldn't actually push the wheel back like that. the knuckles sit straight up and down. the uca wouldn't affect it in this way either. the lca is also straight as well. it has to be the torsion bar pushing the lca back. when you look under the car, does the lca look like it's angled toward the rear? it should be pointing straight out toward the side of the car

 

Well I didn't think about that el capitan.

I think I almost have it solved though.

I brought the traction rods forward about 1/2" at first so that there were no extra threads between the heim joint, jamb nut, and rod itself.

I wanted to pull it all forward for maximum caster, so I went ahead and removed the nut and ran the heim all the way down and bottomed out the threads.

I think I actually went a bit far because the flca felt like it was binding, and the axle felt like that also. It actually pulled the wheel too far forward in the wheelwell and looked funny...

So I decided to go back using the jamb nut and maxxed out within the adjustment range of the rods themselves.

*btw, this is a ton easier to adjust if you loosen the flca bolt at the subframe attachment point.

 

o/p, perhaps you were sent the wrong traction rods?

 

Nah, I'm thinking I set them right when the car was only lowered with shocks and springs.

Later I added apex n1 coilovers and lowered it a good bit further.

But I didn't mess with the traction rods again.

I finally got around to looking at this again, because I added these rrax wiiide fenders and it was more pronounced.

 

Left side before:








Left side after:









Right side after:

 

* the adjustment of 1/2" at the rod gives over 1" at the wheel, for anyone doing this at home.

Also, although the rods are maxxed out to the jamb nut on both sides, the left side looks perfect and the right side maybe needs a bit more... I guess my chassis isn't perfect. :/

 

You CAN NOT use EG/DC knuckles on a ef/da. You will have caster and toe problems. Obviously, if you have to tighten the holy **** out of your traction bar to get the caster back to "normal" something is wrong. There are a few bit of things you have to do to get the 5 lug to work.

Here's a enormously informative write up on the 5lug conversion on EF/DA's.

http://www.ff-squad.com/technet/how-to/5lug.ef-da/

 

I already know about the dc knuckle issue.

Thanks for the concern though.

I'm actually having custom knuckles fabricated, but they aren't ready yet.

IMO the caster issue is separate from the 5lug knuckle issue.
Especially with all the caster adjustment in traction bars and upper a-arms that are readily available.

The only reason not to use itr knuckles is because they are ~1" taller and if you are very low and have upper a-arm contact to the underside of the shock towers.

 

just installed 96 itr knuckles on my DA. took an alignment just fine

why don't you try installing the stock crossmember/torsion rods. see what happens