gearwhine said:
I can believe you know what you're talking about, but that's confusing as all hell, I don't even think I understand it.
are you just saying.... the less of an angle, the less horizontal distance change during bump, meaning less movement put into the steering wheel???
To answer the question about where to measure, measure from bolt to bolt on the track bar, and then the same on the draglink. If there is a large difference, then that sucks. For parallelism, just look at it. Both need to be good in Order to get little bump steer.
Yes, that is kinda confusing now that I re-read it.
1.) drag link and Panhard must be parallel to one another.
2.) Drag link should be as close to parallel to ground as possible.
For the sake of what you need to know that is pretty much it.
Now, the other fluff I was talking about....
a.) find a blank wall in the room you are currently sitting.
b.) find the center
c.) take/imagine a peice of string that is puled out from the center till it is tight.
d.) make string parallel to ground.
e.) mark the othe end point of the string on the wall. You should have a line parallel with the ground at this point.
Ok, that's the setup, now the fun...
i.) make the end of the string move down (following the circle, taut string) a few degrees below the horizon.
ii.) Notice the distance along the horizon that the end point of the string has travelled.
iii.) move the string down a few more degrees (say 10 more). notice the difference along the horison the string has travelled.
See how as the string moves "down" through the arc of the circle the distance along the horizon gets larger?
Now imagine this string is your drag link. The steeper the angle, the more the end point moves along the horizon for the same amount of suspension travel.
Factory setups use a slightly up angle so that there is minimal horizontal change (i.e. bump steer) with hitting bumps and/or braking so that the vehicle feels more stable. If the draglink travel from slightly down to slightly up (above horizon) the same amount of horizontal change is in play, as oppposed to a huge deflection.
Take a look at this image:
http://moose.ca/albums/Web_Threads_NAXJA/steering_wheel_radius.gif
Note the difference between "a" and "b".
HTH