short steering arms for a track car?

[dan farmer]

I'm curious about putting EB Spares' short steering arms into my Giulia Super track car, and i'd like to hear opinion and experience from others. In my very limited experience with the car, it seemed that tight corners required quite a bit of turning the wheel. If the shorter arms quicken the steering, it might be a good thing. Unfortunately, I can't drive around and think about it, because the car is in pieces. What say you?

TIA-
-df

[Tifosi]

All that follows is 2cents worth of opinion from the edge of things and has no bearing on anyones product, kit, or system andis relative purely to the mechanical angle:

Shorter arms at the hubs will quicken steering but have the potential to bind somewhere due to the change in angle of the tie rods. (may create alignment issues too due to tie rods running out of usable range)

Longer arm on the steering box will quicken steering, but again, bind may become an issue. (same as above in regard to range of adjustments also)

Changing ratios in the steering box proper will keep all the geometry the same and quicken steering ratio. (and make it hard to turn the wheel)

However, if you do any of the above, you may run into an understeer issue as you rank on the wheel and surpass the friction circle of the tires. (quicker steering points the tires quicker, yes, and it also can exceed the grip angle at a proportionately quicker rate too)


All aside, you might want to consider just going with a smaller diameter steering wheel.

Yes they are harder to turn too, (as would any of the above solutions), but the reduced arc of travel your hands go through can pick up quite a bit of steering/wheel deflection speed without the hassle of tweaking out the front end geometry.

EG: a 90 degree turn on a 12" wheel is 2.33" less motion than a 90 degree turn on a 15" wheel. (making steering with both hands over 4 1/2" of 'saved' arm/hand travel)

[genericwood]

Dan, I agree that a smaller steering wheel is a better solution. The one exception I can think of might be an autocross car. With much slower speeds and tighter turns, short steering arms might be nice. If you do go to the trouble of changing steering arms, make sure you address bump steer issues at the same time!

Erik

[George Willet]

I have measured the 105/115 suspension pickup points and dimensions and worked the geometry on a very good suspension program, and the short arm idea is a mistake waiting to be made!!

[genericwood]

George, I'm curious. While I haven't found short steering arms to be necessary, what is it you found that makes them a mistake?

Erik

[Alleggerita]

Quote:

Originally Posted by George Willet I have measured the 105/115 suspension pickup points and dimensions and worked the geometry on a very good suspension program, and the short arm idea is a mistake waiting to be made!!

[George Willet]

Shortening the steering arms creats two immediate problems. One: the bump steer becomes really bad; two: the toe change with one inch of bump on one wheel and one inch of droop in the opposite wheel causes about one degree of toe out change, and it gets worse as the car rolls more into a corner.

Another factor, (which my program will not address, I'd have to lay it out on a drafting board) is that the Ackermann goes out the window, talk about tire scrubb!! Bad Ackermann AND additional toe out!! Who needs trail-braking with this set up?

There are only a few changes that can be made to the stock Alfa front suspension that actually help and do not cause side effects. I have to admire the engineers that designed the suspensions on the 105/115 cars without the use of computers. The stock suspensions do a pretty good job for a design from the early sixtys that had to acomplish so many things.

I always come back to what Carroll Smith said to me about making changes to the car: changes and adjustments can pick up tenths of a second a lap; a good DRIVER can pick up MANY seconds.

[Andrew.b]

The Alfaholics Race cars in UK use the short steering arm's........guess they thinks it's a worthwhile mod.

[Max Banks]

yes we do use short steering arms, but ONLY with rose jointed track rods. Its the only way to prevent bad bumpsteer. We tried a set on a road car and the car became most unpleasent to drive, hence now its only run on our full race car with R-J track rods. Tread carefully with quality as well, we have seen some offered in the UK which leave a great deal to be desired with regards to quality and metal quality.

[Max Banks]

p.s. bumpsteer should not be an issue if the short steering arms are manufacutered correctly and accurately, but this is often not always the case. Also bump steer is different dependant on static ride height, thus your car could be at a ride height where the bump steer characteristics are particularly bad. Hence the necessity to use R-J track rods to dial it out.

[George Willet]

IMO there are only a few that have the time, resources, the ability and the budget to make changes to the Alfa designs that are not creating more problems than they solve. (The One Percent)

Max is among those who have the time and the budget to look at what works, what doesn't work, why it doesn't work, and is willing to go backwards, and then try something else.

The majority of us are looking for easy answers for complex problems, and don't give enough credit to the Alfa engineers that created an engine and chassis that attracted us to the Marque in the first place. Sometimes what works on a Chevvy or a Honda just can't be applied to a different design, no matter how hard you try!

Parts don't take the place of learning to drive, correctly.

(OK, I am off the soapbox )

[vintage prep]

Remember the Brodie knob?

[60sRacer]

I agree that a smaller diameter steering wheel is the best solution to a desire for quicker steering.

I've even found that leather driving gloves and a leather steering wheel makes a big difference. Easier to turn the steering wheel quickly, and the stock arms keeps the force low.

But I'll challange the need for quicker steering. Think hard about what problem you are trying to solve. There are a lot of "tuner parts" being used on the rice rockets to fix designs that were compromised in favor of soccer-mom-easy-to-drive. Alfas never had these compromises; as George points out, they are very good from the factory.

Even in Xcross, quicker steering is better obtained by adjusting the oversteer characteristics. A little (or a lot) more oversteer will make the car quicker (and more likely to go off track) in a tight Xcross layout. A bit less oversteer will make a wonderful track car. Slightly less for a street car.

But an oversteering car is like a jet fighter - very maneuverable because it's unstable. To take advantage of it you have to become a better driver. Which is George's best point.

Pretty easy to adjust for oversteer - just change the front or rear (front is easier) sway bar for bigger or smaller. (This presumes you have a well sorted suspension that is already well balanced and has as little bumpsteer asy you can get). I have an old Shankle front and rear sway bar set up that has long straight levers; adjusting can be done by moving the connection to a different (previously drilled) point in the arm. But swapping an entire front bar is a 20 minute job, so changing diameters isn't a barrier.

Shorter steering arms with a street type understeering car just makes it quicker to plow off the track.

Go with George - learn to dance better. It's more fun too.

Robert

[genericwood]

I agree with almost everything said in the last few posts. And I strongly agree that bumpsteering is critical. What I don't understand is how shorter steering arms has much affecyt on Ackerman? George, can you explain?

Erik

[PSk]

I've never tracked my 105 series Alfa, but I will say that any track car that requires you to 'reposition' your hands on the steering wheel is costing you accuracy and thus time. I also believe that shuffling your steering wheel is just stupid ... but amazingly cops over here are taught that (?) ... all that happens is you loose where the wheels are pointing!.

My last club car, the Sud powered spaceframe thing, had great steering speed. I could do any track, even hairpins without having to move either hand ... this makes catching and holding, etc. power slides really easy and intuitive.

Thus IMO there is nothing wrong with speeding up the steering by any method as long as you understand that with any change, even a really tiny change, you need to do your homework and work everything out.

There are many books that cover all this suspension stuff really well ... and now programs. What you will find is that unfortunately it costs a lot of money as small changes require lots of new parts ... but what you will also find is that in many cases you can MAKE a component that suits your car better than you can buy it, saving $'s.

Pete