Postby Sasso » Mon Apr 21, 2008 11:57 pm
By the sounds of it you have two completely different problems. One is the tracking the road camber, the other is inconsistent tracking from off to on power.
Road camber tracking is not so bad, just an alignment thing, too little toe in front or rear will cause straight line instability. As will fat low profile tyres. Caster helps it stay straight but makes the steering wheel feel crap.
Perhaps you should try 2 or 3mm rear toe in instead of 1mm.
I really don't know why they use mm rather than degrees, because wouldn't the actual angle change with different wheel sizes. I mean I use 2-3mm toe in on the rear and 0toe on the front, I did it myself with some fishing wire and a ruler (and camber gauge and helper that can subtract quickly), and the car tracks pretty straight. But my 3mm on a 14\" wheel is more than 3mm on a 17\" wheel so perhaps you aren't running enough toe in on the rear. Zero toe on front give a nice turn in.
Your other and more concerning problem is that it tracks differently when you accelerate and brake. As I said, to me this sounds like something is broken or not even in the suspension somewhere. It could also be wrong wheel alignment values or not enough of something, like toe. But I remember back when I raced RC cars and I used to get different tracking when I accelerate and it would make going down the straight a pain, I didn't fix it until I got a proper alignment tool and learnt how to build the shock absorbers properly (yes they have oil in them and are adjustable).
I don't own Teins, yet, but im pretty sure you just count the clicks in any one direction until you hit a stop, then count back and make them all even (and see if they're different). You just need to open the hood and find the tops of the shocks. In the boot you might have to take some of it apart to get to the top of the shock.
Sway bar you should disconnect from the endlinks and make sure it can rotate fairly easily. And make sure the endlinks are the same length and not binding either.
The other thing is your brakes could be gripping differently left to right side if its pulling under brakes. One brake disk could be contaminated, just drench it in brake cleaner (try to avoid getting where the pads slide unless you want to regrease it).
Although I think its just a rear toe problem, more toe in should fix your instability. If that doesn't work, something is wrong, it shouldn't be that hard to get it to go straight.
When i'm feeling lazy or it needs to be gone 20 minutes ago, 0.1mm difference would be fine. If i was paying for it to be done, i'd expect it to be the same.
