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Re: [Tigers] Tire Size Question - Turned to Wheels/cross member

To: "Doornbos, Daniel" <daniel.doornbos@intel.com>,
Subject: Re: [Tigers] Tire Size Question - Turned to Wheels/cross member
From: "Smit, Theo" <Theo.Smit@dynastream.com>
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 10:24:41 -0700
Hi Dan,
I don't have any closeup pictures at hand but there are a couple of pics
taken by someone at the European car show this summer...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/daveseven/3736461357/in/photostream/

The outside plane of the wheels (and the outboard edge of the tire
tread) sits just outside the fender lip when viewed from above, with the
suspension at "normal" ride height. Because of some front suspension
shenanigans, the camber gain is enough to pull the upper end of the tire
tread inboard so that it stays clear of the fender. However, getting it
to clear the forward fender lip and valence when the tires are turned
took some metal shaping.

When I was rebuilding the front suspension, it became obvious that it
had at one (or more) points in its previous ownership suffered some
serious suspension mishaps - probably a lower balljoint failure, judging
by the gouges on the outboard end of the right lower control arm. The
upper control arm towers were each twisted in the same direction by
something like 10 degrees, so that proper alignment required offset
wedges at the front of one control arm and at the rear of the other. I
cut the whole upper tower off, and drilled (cut?) a 4" hole in the
crossmember where the shock towers were. Then I built up a new pair of
shock/spring/upper control arm towers to fit Aldan coilover shocks. The
lower control arm got a similar hole and a removable frame that locates
the lower shock eye. The upper control arm pivot is located 1" lower
than stock, which increases the camber gain. The sway bar is mounted on
a pair of forward extensions from the lower crossmember, set in UHMW
bearing blocks, and tied to the lower control arms with a set of Energy
Suspension swaybar bushings and bolts. It's not as geometrically
correct, light, rigid, or adjustable as the ToyzJunkie front end, but it
got me the main things I wanted, which was to eliminate the suspension
binding, and to be able to set the ride height where I wanted. There are
several other bonuses but I don't want to delve any deeper into the
jargon ;)  .

Cheers,
Theo
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