Sorry for the wait guys, it has been a very busy week for me.
School was in midterm week and I was being a pit crew member for Charles Ng on Friday and Saturday for his very first Pro-Am Drifting Competition debut!!
First a very exciting short annoucement, Charles Ng won 1st place in Pro-Am Drifting Competition Saturday 10/17 at Irwindale Speedway!!!
It was very intensive, both for the driver and the crew, yet we pulled it through and the result is very impressive.
Anyways back to topic, I know some of you have been waiting for this for a while =p


this is how my rim and tire look like when the toe arm snapped!
i lost most control of the car but luckly was able to shoot straight out from the slowest corner in Big Willow, turn 4, instead of turn 1, 2, 8, or 9! Praise the Lord!!


so this is what happened, the toe arm snapped from its ball joint screw...


close-up of the broken screw


close-up of the broken screw - the shoter other half


the shorter part of the screw was still stuck inside...


so this is what happened to my re30... anyone can help me get it fixed or find an used one for cheap!?

it is my knowledge that this is not the first time this has happened to an s2000, i have heard it couple times myself... any inputs?
some say its cuz the ball joint is stuck, some say its cuz the screw is not stiff enough, some say the spacers were wrongly positioned, any other posibilities might have caused this?
i just hope we can find out the root cause and no one has to suffer from this horrible incident ever again!

last but not least, if anyone can help me fix this rim or find an used one (17x9J +63 bronze) i would greatly appreciate =)
i took it to rb wheel in hacienda heights and they said it will cost 3 to 4 bills to fix this one and it will lose stiffness cuz they have to cut down the bent area and re-weld it on >"<

 

I think its safe to assume that the stud (if you can call it a stud) that replaces the old ball joint is not "stuck" in the knuckle. Its is supposed to be a tight fit, and would require a ball joint remover to separate it from the knuckle.
I do not think that the spacers have anything to do with the failure because of the placement of the spherical bearing on the stud. They are designed to be adjustable and therefore should be able to sport the load at any range.

In my opinion one of two things happened. Either the stud is made from a low grade material and it simply just sheared off under load or the stud was stretched and weaken by being over torqued (which could also easily happen if the stud was of a low grade material / hardness).



-Rob

 

Coming from the Suby community this is fairly common on the front knuckles. The real "Time Attack" guys change their pins every year because the load is very high, higher than stock because of the length of the pin and the amount of metal is small. I'll bet if you pull the other side apart, you'll find stress cracks already right where the pin enters the knuckle. If it was over-torqued, I think it would have shearing inside the knuckle, not at the bottom edge.

If you look at picture #3, it looks like the crack has been working it's way through the pin till finally there wasn't enough material and it let go.

 

The problem is that these parts are exposed to greater bending moments that the oem parts. The futher out you mount the rod end, the higher the bending moment.

How many miles do you have on these toe links? Did you torque them to spec? What grade hardware does T1R supply?

 

overtorquing would probably cause the threads to shear before you weaken the shank in torsion. i'll show the pics to some people at work to see if they can tell the failure mode. quadrajet makes a good point... crack propagation from the surface.

the fastener just isn't strong enough for the loads. upgrade material or thickness.

 

doesnt surprise me, the t1r tie rod ends for the ep3/dc5 are notorious for snapping in half as well. thats the kind of quality you get when a taiwanese company tries to portray themselves as a japanese company. glad nothing serious happened, big willow is a scary place to have a suspension component fail. btw, i think i saw that wheel at g dimensions.

 

i had them on for less than 5000 miles
they were installed by darin at westend
and sorry i do not know what grade of material the pin is made of

thx for the input guys!

 

sigh im a taiwanese myself...
yea the wheel is sitting at g-d right now
mayb i should inform t1r then... to improve the overall image and quality of taiwanese products

 

Sorry again for that unfortunate mishap at WSIR. What is your next move with the BSK situation? J's Racing? Has anyone heard of failures with the J's Racing piece? I just had it installed, so I am a bit concerned...

 

i hate to see parts that fail. especially parts that i have.. any body/frame damage?