S13 suspension into AE86 - LCA length??

[jonra23]

Hen, after reading the thread on ae86dc, it seems you need a longer arm than standard ae86 to keep reasonable (as in not pos) camber due to switching strut types which im sure you read also.

I thought one of the positives of going with s13 struts was the camber adjustment, was one of the reasons that i was heading down this track.

regards
jon

[Rallystanza]

jonra23 - This conversion has many better up sides than camber adjustment. This can be done on most struts via the use of camber tops withough modding anything else.

This S13 conversion brings: The ability to run a larger bearing, meaning safer for the big brakes you can run. Brakes you can run heaps of big nissan brakes, bolt on! EASY! then there is the massive steering lock you also gain through this conversion.

the camber adjustment is a mere piss in the ocean compared to what else you can do.

Anything we can do to take away S13 parts from our Nissan counterparts is a good thing also

Jeremy!

[EVOSTi]

what i understand is if you keep the relatively short toyota LCA you may end up with positive camber due to the s13 hub design. as mentioned by a guy on ae86dc, after going to the 40mm longer s13 LCA's he was still within acceptable camber limits but gained alot of track at the same time.

[jonra23]

Thanks Jeremy, Evosti.
Have the Struts and brakes out of my sons A31 (cefiro) which is the same strut as S13, from when we put R33 GTR Brakes on it to get engineered for RB30DETT.
Havent bought Spindles yet as will be a while before i get around to suspension.
Was under the impression that could get enough camber adjustment with the S13 strut and standard LCA, if not will stop looking for a suitable lower Ball joint and probably go with S13 LCA.

regards
Jon

[EVOSTi]

you and i are in the same boat, id love to keep my LCA's cause i dont want wider track but may have to. ill get the measurements of the s13 spindle anyway, if i find a suitable balljoint im still going to try it out.

[Rallystanza]

Ok guys.

EVOSTI - There is something else i discovered with my measurements.

I measure from the ball joint to the wheel mounting of the hub/disc on both cars.

I found that the S13 hub with S13 LCA gives a measure of about 100mm for this measurement.

On the AE86, this measure give a measurment of 135mm.

These are approx with a tape measure as accuratley as i could from under a jacked up car.

So this means that your extra LCA arm length from the S13 arm is absorbed by the hub/spindle design on the on the S13.

You read into this how you like.....

Hope it helps.

Jeremy

[EVOSTi]

it makes sense, and thanks for that info.
so if you take into account the added length of the control arm, THEORETICALLY your track would increase by approximately 5mm each side.

[thechuckster]

dumb question: S13 is 4-stud? is there an easy hub upgrade to 5-stud for these?

[Rallystanza]

Yeah, best off to ask the skyline boys, but i think you just need S14 hubs instead of S13

nissansilvia.com is your friend

Jez

[horse]

yeah u'll need to run s14 hubs + stub axles to go five stud. though the s14 LCA has a different ball joint taper than the s13 LCA. you can buy a s14 ball joint made by Mooj.

the only problem i encountered when helping a mate do this conversion down here was that most of the dorifto boys had grabbed the majority of s14 gear that was lying around and hence was a PITA to find a set of front hubs and stub axles.

[thechuckster]

i did find one thread where some guy had S13 spindle (stub axle) and was going to press S13 bearings into S14 hubs. S15 hubs might also be donors... R3x as well??

The cerifo's share similar suspension parts as the S13 - i wonder if any nissabs that was sold locally shared the S13's hub/strut arragement?

edit: these NS folks have difficulty distinguishing between the stub axle (or spindle) and the hub. My guess is that they rarely take them apart so they treat them as one unit?

[Granto]

fwoar good lot of info there.

looks like the best go would be to get the S13 LCA and redrill castor arm holes (thanks to simon for that one)

figuring it'd give you just a bit more front track (5mm each side? as previously said) and that'd give you a bit of a tendancy to oversteer (thanks matt for that )

that's not too bad at all

Grant.

[jonra23]

From most forums i have searched they are talking around 20mm per side increase in track.

http://forums.club4ag.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=123869

Not wanting to run flares, and moving the strut further out was going to find it difficult to run decent fron tyres is why am trying to keep standard LCA on a RA23.

regards
jon

[Lambolica]

I'm in a position that I can be a little more flex able, I'm looking at swapping crossmembers as well so that throws another equation into my mix, I'm going to try to end up with an offset and PCD that has a wider wheel selection as the wheels I specifically want are uber rare in Celica offsets, I may well end up going 5 stud to tap into the wider ford/holden wheels arena.

My diff will increase the rear track about 20mm so somthing similar at the front would be nice as well.

I'm more concerned with having flexabilty to change camber/castor rather than fighting to get a tyre freindly camber.

Cheers
Simon

[jonra23]

Simon

Contrary to popular belief you can go 5 stud GTR stuff on to S13 struts which is same as Ford stud pattern so plenty of options there.

regards
jon