To give a little background, I picked up this $500 Camaro to setup as a drift car. 240s are getting expensive around here and I wanted something cheap to learn with.



It's a 2.8 auto (soon to be manual, possibly turboed also) rebuilt 25,000 kms ago, running and driving well, minimal rust on the car.

I pulled the front control arms off to trim the springs and discovered poly bushings!



In any case, as I'm sure anyone who's tried drifting these cars is acutely aware, steering angle is lacking; especially compared with most of the cars that are popular to use. So I'm going to try to get as much as possible to make the car just a little more competitive than it could be stock.

I'm going at this in a few stages. Modified knuckles will probably be the last thing I do. I believe I can get a bit more angle than a stock 240sx without needing modified knuckles.

 

First thing I did was take some photos of the stock angle (pathetic haha)



At this point (stock) I believe it's hitting an internal stop in the steering box since the knuckles aren't quite hitting the stops on the a-arms.

So I went and picked up a 95 Jeep Grand Cherokee box. Bolts right in, has the same ratio as the WS6/Iroc box, but provides more pitman arm movement (3 steering wheel turns lock to lock). Here's a comparison with the stock box on the right and Cherokee box on the left.



After installing the new box, of course the knuckles were hitting the stops on the a-arms. So obviously those were the next to go. After those were gone, I ended up with this:




However, there's still room for more with this box. At this point the tires rub the frame on both sides (the crappy 245/60R14s that came on the car). The next thing I will be doing is extending, notching, and boxing the a-arms for clearance (both to the a-arms and to the frame). Also I will be finding a more ideal wheel/tire size for the front. I'm thinking somewhere around a 225/45R17 or 235/45R17 on a 17x7 rim to start with.

 

Following this for sure. I have a 91 that im swapping the 305 for a 350 in, and im in need of angle. Got any angle measurements so far? Also, got a part number or something for the box? Are they all the same in all cherokees?

 

No measurements yet. But I'll try to take one after I modify the A-arms. As for the box, it's the same in IIRC all 93-98 Grand Cherokees.

 

Thanks. Ill be following this build for sure, hope you dont mind me stealing a few ideas here and there!

 

I am very interested in this thread as well

Did you swap the pitman arm over or just used the stock cherokee pitman arm?

 

The pitman arm has to be swapped over as the Cherokee arm is shorter and lower. Even if the Cherokee arm was used somehow you would get less angle with it since it's shorter.