Is this dodgy?

subarutility · Post by **subarutility** » Wed Feb 04, 2009 11:18 pm

Hi,

Like most L series owners I have wound up my front struts to maxium and have gained more ground clearance, however I now have approx 1.5 - 2 degrees positive camber, which will not only wear out my new tyres, but will provide poor handling.

I am thinking of elongating (slotting) the hole where my lower control arm bolts to the cross member, so I can move the control arm out further, therefore giving my car neutral or negative camber. I was thinking 10mm would do nicely.

I could also drill a new hole independant of the existing one.

IS THIS DODGY? Surely I am not the first person to think of this?

Thanks.

Matatak · Post by **Matatak** » Wed Feb 04, 2009 11:43 pm

possibly slot the strut top holes instead ?

AndrewT · Post by **AndrewT** » Thu Feb 05, 2009 12:27 am

Yes it is abit dodgy (don't tell the police) but this kindof thing normaly doesn't matter too much unless you are a racecar driver...however this also goes for offroading. You are pushing things beyond what they are normally designed for (the crossmember is engineered for it's standard hole position obviously). You may have to watch out about extending your CV's too far.
Personally I would do it but I'd be careful, ie do some tests and see how things hold up. You certainly don't want your control arm busting off the crossmember at speed :/

Ben · Post by **Ben** » Thu Feb 05, 2009 5:21 am

Not dodgy at all so long as you do it properly and weld a piece of flat bar on the cross member and then use an offset head bolt to bear on the flat bar and give adjustability. This is *exactly* how a camber bolt works and is what a suspension workshop would do if you asked them to give you more negative camber.

brumbyrunner · Post by **brumbyrunner** » Thu Feb 05, 2009 7:33 am

What Ben said is certainly doable. Even if you don't use an offset bolt.
As AndrewT said, I'd be concerned about overextending the inner joint. You'd also need enough length on the radius rods.

How most people fix this problem is to adjust the top of the strut instead. This won't affect the track and you can include some caster at the same time.

subarutility · Post by **subarutility** » Sat Feb 07, 2009 12:37 pm

You can't slot the tops of the struts, there is no room for movement.

Adjustable strut tops are proving hard to find.

Someone from Pedders told me that they 'toe out' the alignment on L series to counter the positive camber. Anyone heard of this? How would that make a difference?

If it proves viable, then I may get some second hand standard strut tops (mine have seperated and my struts drop from strut tops) and then get a 'toe out' alignment.

discopotato03 · Post by **discopotato03** » Sat Feb 07, 2009 4:42 pm

Firstly AFAIK all early Subarus should have toe out rather than toe in .
Its because the front wheels are draging the car along and want to pull themselves forward as far as the suspension links will let them .
You radius/caster rods generally have rubber bushes which allow some movement for and aft . If the toe is set slightly out when the wheels pull forward the toe should go neutral .

As for the control arms they can be made longer provided the fabricator knows his/her stuff .
They are a bit involved because they really need to be extended towards their inner ends by getting two sets and making two long bits for each side .
It also gives the opportunity to offset them forward to get some badly needed positive caster - probably need power steering if you do this .
You'd also have to make new holes to line the caster rods up properly and move the front anti roll bar mounts back where they should be .

I've just been looking into ways of extending L series front driveshaft assemblies and I think there may be a reasonably easy solution .

I recently scrounged up a pair of Gen 1 FrWD Lib shaft assemblies - these are the strongest ones .
If you gut an L RX Turbo shaft and the above mentioned Lib one some interesting things become obvious .
The RX L's DOJ bell is shorter than the Lib one by apporox 5mm when both are sitting on the small or gearbox sides . The actual clip height is something similar so I'm guessing the Lib DOJs have more total plunge depth than the RX L ones .
I'll have to look up the manuals to see if the inner ball race and cage can be turned around because depending which way round they are std (can't remember) it may offset the axle shaft outwards . With luck here you may gain 10 odd mm . I'm not 100% sure with an L series but with Datto 1600's extending the control arms gets your aroud 1 deg per 10mm .
L Series look to have a lot of lateral slop in the engine and gearbox mounts and the plunge depth of the DOJs would have to take this into account .
If you did something to take the slop out and stop the engine from moving around so much you could possibly extend the control arms ~ 15mm and gain something like a 1.5 deg camber change in the positive direction .
I'd kill to have 0.5 deg of negative camber and 4-6 degrees of positive caster , beat the Rexes round the twisties easily then .

Now if you can effectively extend the driveshafts you can extend the control arms which widens the track and makes the camber less positive .
You would have to be careful with the steering racks tie rod length because if you widen the track this way you have to increase the distance between the tie rod ends by the same amount .

One other thing to remember is that the higher you go without a lift kit the greater the drive shaft angularity is . Extreme angles tend to wear out CV and DOJ's faster .

MY RX L is std height at the front and its camber angles are ~ 1.25 degrees positive which is pretty pathetic .

Cheers A .