Quote:
Originally Posted by x233
It appears with this upgrade the effect is basically the same as using slightly longer control arms that push the whole thing out slightly. If true, it means the wheel relative to strut geometry remains intact.
Anyway, I placed an order and should be installing the knuckles in about 3 weeks. Will update then.
I want to install the knuckles first, see how it goes, take measurements to see if that also affects castor, and see exactly how much camber I'm going to get, see if there any issues, etc. It it lands me in the -1º45' area, where I want to be with my street car, and if it's more or less symmetrical I may not even need to add the tension struts with the adjustable bush. If I have to, I'll do it separately if see the effects of those separately.
PS: The reason I came up with these knuckles in the first place is because I damaged the ones on my car. The car had seen some pretty bad roads and I wanted the dealer to check everything in the suspension. They did and discovered the struts slipped down in the sockets of the steering knuckles by about 5-7 mm, a bit more on the driver's side. I may never find out if it's really the impact of bad roads or someone at one of the indy shops messed up when installing the struts on several occasion I did that. My BMW dealer suggested I should change the knuckles since simply releasing the struts, repositioning them in the knuckles that are probably damaged and tightening them up again would probably result in them slipping again after a while. I said ok. Disappointed at first. Then they asked if I wanted the stock knuckles or the ones that make the camber 30 min less. Now I felt a lot better about it and said oh sure, those are the ones I want since I was ready to install the adjustable tension strut bushes to achieve the same effect anyway.
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This is an odd conclusion, are you sure you did not bend a strut? The strut can only go so low in the knuckle (strut is chamfered) uses a locator pin I believe. Maybe indy shop did not locate properly, but damage the knuckle would be near impossible without a serious collision, where say a wheel was ripped off the car.
The knuckles application is in collision work when you cant get the geometry perfect for some reason, factory specs are broad so 30 degrees one way or another is ususaly good enough.
If you use those bushings you need to make sure they are in the same spot on each side regardless of camber, if you adjust via eccentric bushing and they are at different angles to fix camber you will have unequal control arms and different roll centers.
The knuckles will give exactly 30 degrees at stock ride height, you may get some more with lowering springs, whatever that number is it will be static.
I am not a fan of eccentric bushings in general, they have a tendency to slip. Just out of curiosity why not just use the m3/m4 arms with the added benefit of the spherical bearing? They are a give away at oem price. With the m3/m4 TS and LCA there is nominal movement forward, resulting in slight castor gains.