Howdy folks.
After I installed the Konis on my Neon R/T I also installed two crash
bolts per side and maxed the negative camber.
The wierdest thing was that the car never "felt" right. Sometimes while
autocrossing with R tires the car almost felt as if it just suddenly
slid an extra inch or so while in the middle of a corner. It didn't do
it every time and I couldn't repeat it on demand.
At the McKamey class I attended earlier this year Brian Priebe drove my
car and also said it didn't "feel" right.
And when I would look at the car while it was sitting in the grid or
paddock areas the negative camber would be more pronounced than at other
times.
Hmm, wierd. I've got dissappearing camber. What gives?
Well, last weekend I was doing some maintainance, bleeding brakes,
rotating tires, etc., on the car and found something interesting.
When I checked the crash bolts they were only at about 50 ft/lbs of
torque. I could actually move the steering knuckle by using a long
screwdriver as a lever.
Son of a....... the darn things loosened up!!! I wondered if that
would happen since when I initially installed the crash bolts I had to
tighten and loosen them about 3 times each. Apparently the bolts
"stretched" too many times and would no longer hold their torque
settings.
So, I took one of my spare sets of crash bolts and replaced the
stretched ones. I also put the factory bigger bolts back in the bottom
holes and am just running one crash bolt per side. (I'll actually go
throw the car on a real alignment rack tonight to see just how much
negative camber I have but from just eyeballing the tires it appears to
be about the same as two bolts gave me.) Before I put the new crash
bolts back in I put a fresh layer of yellow (to match the Konis) paint
on to help hold the bolts in place when the paint dries and then torqued
them to 140 ft/lbs.
After one event, admittedly a low speed one and consequently not very
taxing to the bolt torque settings, they haven't slipped any. I marked
where the steering knuckle was in relation to the strut for future
reference though.
So, to sum this all up. Only tighten Neon crash bolts to the
recommended 140 ft/lbs once. If for any reason you need to remove them,
replace them with fresh bolts. At about $18/pair it's fairly cheap
insurance and easy to keep a spare set or two in the tool box.
Oh well, live and learn. ;^)
See you on course.
Eric Linnhoff in KC
#69DS TLS #13
'98 Neon R/T
<eric10mm@qni.com>
Mustang Sally,
guess you better slow your Mustang down.
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"Mustang Sally" by Wilson Pickett
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