I have a 1997 Jetta 2.0 GT (whoopee) that has Koni STR.T struts and Eibach 4.5485 Sportline springs. Now that the springs have been on the car I have noticed a little bit of bumpsteer through bad potholes or other severe compression of one side of the suspension. So I am looking for ways to get the steering geometry back closer to where it belongs. I have found a possible fix at http://scch-heads.com/ which include an extension on the bottom of the knuckle to change the ball joint position and it includes spherical bearing ball joints. I understand that this would also require re-locating the tie rods to the correct angle with this kit. http://scch-heads.com/viewpart.php?id=38
I do have an inquiry to the manufacture of these items but in the meantime can anyone here give me some insight to the use of these types of joints on a street and occasional auto-x car? Or does someone here have a different solution...?
The drop pins are designed to raise the roll center on lowered vw's. Not alter bump steer. You could use just the scch bump steer kit but would need to do a lot of math or experimentation to find the proper space length.
Out of curiosity, how much toe out are you running? I have driven lowered vw's for the last 15 years and any bump steer I thought I had was always cured by dialing the toe out down to 1/16" max.
Keep in mind that strut equipped cars will always have some form of bumpsteer, its just inherent in the design.
The goal of tuning the bumpsteer kit would be to reduce or eliminate the bumpsteer in the working range of the suspension.
The working range essentially equals the resting location and plus or minus the known amount of suspension travel.
Tuning the bumpsteer will be a lot of work and require a lot of time spent realigning the car after each change in toe, camber, caster and tie-rod height.
As an alternative, you could look at relocating the steering rack up or down to maintain the stock relationship between the angle of the tie-rods and the upright.
I figured I was looking at this all wrong. The reason I was looking at the drop pins is that my control arms are slightly pointing up at the ball joint end. I was guessing that the incorrect control arm angle combined with the incorrect tierod angle worked together to cause the bump steer.
So, to purchase the bump steer kit I can't simply measure from the bottom of the steering arm to the top of the tie rod while the tie rod is held parallel to the lower arm?
And DD, I am running whatever the stock toe setting is for this car..
