i just installed an eibach prokit. now my front suspension mods include poly bushing in the stock a arms, prokit springs, new balljoints, centerlink and tierods, and energy suspension endlinks. rear suspension already had lakewood lca's, energy end links, and new adjustable pan hard bar from jegs.

after having it aligned today the steering doesnt feel quite the same as before. it seems harder to steer(that may be my p/s pump i think is goin bad) but the wierd thing is when the wheel is turned all the way to the lock (right or left, doesnt matter) the inside tire is turned more than the outside tire and it pushes the outside tire. i am worried this will cause massive understeer but have not noticed any under pretty hard cornering but i guess ill see when i auto-x next.

 

sounds like they didnt align the car right, take it back

 

The inside tire should be turned more than the outside, it cuts a smaller circle. The difference is determined by the steering geometry/angle the tie-rods connect to the spindles. This angle is set by the length of the idler arm and pitman arm, which shouldn't have changed. The geometry is by no means perfect at every turning angle and you may get some scrub at or near lock.
Differences in height (overall and delta between the sides) can have a small affect.

What you see is probably normal.

Oh, and new ball joints can stiffen up the steering for a while. Give it a couple hundred miles to loosen up.

 

i did notice that my idler arm holes were slotted for adjustment, but did not note original location because i didnt realize they were slotte till i got it off. but i just bolted the new one up in no particular spot. could this be my problem?

 

The alignment of the idler arm is basically to keep the drag link level with the steering box choice and pitman arm (the pitman arm side has no adjustment, it just tightens to what it is hight wise).


The inside tire always turns more (aka Ackerman angles) so as stated already from someone above me that the inside tire takes a sharper turn radius route than the outside. These cars do suffer from ill effects of ackerman angles at full lock with the 16 inch rims since the width oif the car in propertion to the ackerman effect and geometry of the tierods does go out of wack fully turned- but you never do that at speed, just low speed parking lot manuvers that will make one the dominate tire grip and the other one skip during a tight lock turn.

Now as for the harder steering effort, that can very well be that they set you up with higher caster angles which will in turn increase the caster trail (imaginary point the strut shaft travels to the ground- then calculating that point to the center tire contact patch). This will cause the car to have to lift slightly more with steering imputs. Higher caster is normal for poewer steering cars but a bad deal with manual steering unless the car only sees high rates of speeds in corners.

 

the caster is non adjustable and left as is. he gave me a little extra negative camber to increse handling a bit, only 3/4 of a degree.

if it is only way out of wack at full lock but fine everywhere else then i cant complain cause parking lot manuvers arent as enjoyable as auto-x anyway.

 

You do have caster adjustment- You just are not seeing it. The strut plates have the camber slots and the fender itself has the caster slots that are hidding from veiw up top. Look underneath your fenderwell. (If the car is aligned in a neutral position the three bolt flange underneath my be hiding the slots from veiw. If you have more caster aligned into it they will show slightly.

 

yeah, ....and idler arm should be mounted so as to be at same 'height' as the pitman arm. you can measure both from a common reference point on the frame.