Rack Spacers For More Lock

[DJRIFT]

im really not satisfied with this thread so far... havnt gotten my answer yet.

Can someone who KNOWS about these, please advise. Would greatly appreciate it.

I have run these (not the GK tech ones) in my car both on the street and in my track car.

the main reason that mechanics will fit stuff to track cars and not street cars is that track cars generally looked over and checked many times more often than street cars. my track car is put on jack stands as soon as it its put back in the shed and i generally have a good look over it in between events. this is the same reason that rose joints are not recommended for street cars. as they are not designed to do 20 or 30,000 kms a year and they ware really fast with road grime ect.

i ran all rose jointed arms in the back of my road skyline a few years back and it was a pain in the ass every few weeks having to re-lube them as they would start to squeak an groan. i have thoes arms in my track car now and they would be lucky to have done 10,000kms and they are shagged.

i know that some of that is irrelevant but it gives you another aspect to look at when he says No. plus you really are stretching the the design of the steering rack and steering arms. its will increase the chance of braking if you say hit a big pot hole.

and i have a real life experience. a performance car workshop owner friend of mine wrote off his 180sx when the steering rack spacer undone itself and sent him backwards off a public road doing around 140km/h. he swears to never fit them.

[nato_wp]

Spacers are fine in my (and close mates') experience, for the street. As an added measure, to compensate for less thread surface, always use an appropriate thread-locker (choose the right loctite product for your needs). I haven't had ANY disadvantages to installing them. In fact, I think they are the best value-for-money change I have ever made on my car.

How do they give you more lock when standard the hub hits on the lower control arm? That's the travel limitation, not the effective length of the rack. Plus they move the pivot point of the steering arm further outwards, changing its alignment with the lower control arm pivot point and hence introducing bump steer.

Cheers

Gary

I neglected to mention that all my rack-spacer experience has been with mcphearson strut applications, where the hub doesn't hit the LCA from factory. For skyline specific info, listen to this man.

Stock S12 struts & manual steering assy:

S13 LCAs, knuckles, Tie rods & ends, R31 Castor rods.

As above + 6mm Gktech rack spacers.

Edited November 28, 2009 by nato_wp

[nisskid]

How do they give you more lock when standard the hub hits on the lower control arm? That's the travel limitation, not the effective length of the rack. Plus they move the pivot point of the steering arm further outwards, changing its alignment with the lower control arm pivot point and hence introducing bump steer.

Cheers

Gary

ur hubs dont hit the LCA stock, with the spacers they do, they do give u more lock, they have been proven time and time again, and i can personally vouch for them.

also with enough hard spins u will dent the lock stops naturally giving u more travel.

[MookRG]

On a 33 the lock stops on the hubs do hit before the rack runs out, trust me i've spent hours under mine figuring it out,

You have to cut the stops off the hubs, dont cut them flush, leave them with around 5mm of height that way you wont get rack bind. Then you will need the spacers.

also with enough hard spins u will dent the lock stops naturally giving u more travel.

agree with this one fully though.

[nisskid]

yeh i lost lock when i went to R33 LCA's, couldnt figure out why, then realised its simply because my 32 lock stops had taken such a beating they were dented in a good 4mm giving me extra lock lol

[nisskid]

btw to give u an idea of what modified knuckles give u, here's an entry with NP wonder knuckles on a R32