Question for you guys that are experts on the Front lower offset ball joints. (Hardrace and Megan Racing)

I have a set of Hardrace ones installed that are now shot... essentially, the dust boots opened up and now the joint themselves need replaced.

The value of the mod is in the bracket, not the actual ball joint, so I'm wondering if anyone pressed out an old joint and pressed in a new one? It looks like it would be pretty easy to do... IF you have the correct ball joint core to put in.

Has anyone done this? Are the joints themselves OEM or OEM like cores? Or are they from something else or custom altogether? I don't have any stock ball joints around to compare.

 

You can order new joints from Hardrace.

 

Here is where I am at...

Springs 800/500
MCS Doubles
Front Gendron 1.25" Hollow, 5 of 6
Rear Gendron Bar - 1 of 5(?) lowest
Approx 13" all the way around ride height
Camber -2.5f, -2.3r
Tire - Z2's

I would say the car is ultra stable. I took out an possible oversteer over the two years as I learned how to drive the car.

I am at the point where I feel the car needs to "dance" a little more. Presently there is no such thing as throttle oversteer as the car just plants and goes. I think this is not a bad thing but maybe there is a little bit of time out there if I could loosen it up a bit.

Here is a video from last weekend @ ZMax. I can see my line is off and I am not near enough to the cones (thanks racekeeper) but after some feedback it appears the car is definitely on the pushy side.

What is the best way to start moving toward a more agile setup?

ZMax 4-13

 

I like tuning with rear toe...

 

Suggestions? I am currently at 1/4" total toe.

 

Your front bar is on the stiff side IMO. Try going to full soft just to see the contrast then home in on what you like.

You can firm up the rear bar to induce more oversteer but your frot bar is where I would start.

 

Good point. I like the cars ability to transition currently, wouldn't I lose some of that with a softer front bar?

 

You also have shocks. Are they two way? Upping compression can help the car take a set quicker.

Just change one knob at a time to be sure you understand the results before changing another.

 

Yes, but it's important to note what phase the push occurs in. If its mid/late, total front roll stiffness could be too high.
If you reduce the front bar and add compression, you might develop an entry phase push.

The split between the f/r rates also poont to terminal push and I like to tune the base balance with springs because it lets you use your sway bars for surface/tire/other issues. If you're not interested in hardware changes you can lower the front, increase rear toe, increase rear rebound, or put someone crazy behind the wheel who lives for entry speed rotation and see what happens. You'd be surprised what another driver thinks about your car.

 

What a weekend. After this discussion and then a few offline discussion with a few of you. Here is what I ended up doing...it's alot but I had wanted to try to a few. things. I bucked the logical path of changing one thing at a time. I felt like I would go extreme and then back off. I got 4 events before D.C.

Up 200lbs of rear spring to 700, lowered the car to 12.75 front, 12.5 rear, upped camber to -3.4 front, -3.0 rear, and....switched to BFG's.

This feels more like a tire review than a suspsension. I had hoped to run the BFG's first for 4 runs and then 2 with the Dunlops. Time didn't permit. The BFG's were brand new, no scuffing. I did have a co-driver though going before me. I don't want to call the car looser but I will say on corner exit before the changes I could just stick the throttle the car would plant, push a tad, and go, it now feels faster with the rear just starting to slide out a bit. The harder I drove it the faster the times got. It was counter intuitive to the plan of attack with the Dunlops. I know alot of you are data hounds and with all my changes I can't say for sure what did what. The car felt like magic...

Thanks Jon, Dave, & Josh for the help, I think I may have hit on something here. I will be running again this weekend @ Milton Frank in Huntsville which is a massive lot. Curious to see if I can duplicate this past weekends results.