red67vert

Has anyone tried Elephant Racing's tie rod bump steer kit? Like to get some feedback on installation, washers, or no washers used? Did you have to move struts to install? And does it work?
My car has been lowered, but not slammed like some. Chuck is saying don't use any washers, and not all struts have to be loosened. Not that I doubt him, just wondered what your experience was/is. Thanks! Love this slippery slope.

squidge

We've already talked about these via PM, but I'll post here so others can see since I don't think there's many of these sets in the wild yet.

Lowered but not slammed is the perfect use case for these. You have to use the provided spacers (washers) to keep the total stack height the same, but it's a matter of whether you place the spacers over or under the knuckle that determines how much correction is happening.

I'm attaching the instructions they provide along with the parts, provided Elephant doesn't have an issue with me sharing them here. It really explains them much better than I can in a forum post.

phoneyman

Just for clarification, this Elephant kit is for correcting bump steer on cars that are not excessively lowered, and this would supplant the route of going with new RS hubs/GT2 style ties?

dave morris

Bump steer kits are a waste of money IMHO. If you're installing it to achieve
some performance/handling enhancement, I doubt you'll find it.

jscott82

I'd be curious just how much improvement these can make. To correct bump steer on a lowered car you want to move the tie rod "down" on the hub carrier.

On the stock hubs, the tie rod mounts "top to bottom" (if that makes sense), there just isn't much you can do to move it "down" any more... I assume they have done some tweaking to minimize the offset of the rod end, but there is only so much you can do...

The factory correction on the RS hubs was to not only change the position of the rod end, but completely change the orientation as well. These mount "bottom to top" thus you can space it "down" as much as you want.

squidge

Correct, it's for correcting bumpsteer on cars that are above RS height. At or below RS, you'd probably want RS carriers.

Regardless of the effects of the bumpsteer correction, this kit is a good value just in the sense that it provides solid inner tie rods, GT2 style. There's no other product I found for the money that did that, aside from buying a set of complete OE rods, Tarret solid inners, and mixing and matching. Which costs more and leaves you with unnecessary parts.

I have no point of reference for the bumpsteer improvement -- I'm not lowered yet and have not driven another 993.

jscott82

Agree, and really like the guys at elephant, they come up with some innovative solutions... Was just curious if they found some magic that everyone else missed.

squidge

When I move back to Raleigh later this year you can drive my car and see what you think. I'll need an Asheville driving weekend at some point.

Endoman

Someone I know slammed a 964, when you tun the car lock to lock the fender goes up and down about 6". As well as looking stupid it's bloody dangerous. But then he's an idiot. Ideally at rest with front suspension under normal load the track rod should be parallel to the ground so that vertical movement of the suspension does not greatly disturb front toe. When I raced we spent a lot of time getting this right. On this particular car you did it by lowering the rack with spacers. On an RS height car you change the uprights (also gives quicker steering if you don't fir the RS rack) The ER kit for raised suspension? Someone going desert racing?

squidge

It's not raised, just stock. Coilovers are going in soon. Iinstalled these tie rods while doing my power steering rack a few months back, as there's no sense doing the job twice.

Analog Theory

I have the ERP bump steer ends on the RS inner tie rods and can comment on both. I do have RS uprights though so not quite the same. You really do not realize the bump steer effect until it's gone. For me anyway it was money well spent. My current ride height is slightly above RS I believe. Thumbs up from me on this mod.

user 723923490

You don't think these tie rods would be effective in reducing bump steer?
How about the solid inners? not effective?

Bill Verburg

You keep posting this, it is wrong
cabrio993 went to the trouble of actually measuring the differences between the standard and Rs wheel carriers,
here is the pic


all the RS wheel carrier associated tie rod do is change the height of the steering action.

the proof to me was the factory supplied steering specs, compare the steering of a standard 993 to a 993GT2, both use the same rack one has standard wheel carriers the other RS wheel carriers, they have exactly the same steering spec as can be seen here


the diameter of the steering wheel also affects the perceived effort as does the drivers position wrt to the steering wheel, but all other things being equal a faster rack will feel heavier.

Bill Verburg

The only way to know how the o/s tierod ends affect steering is to do a bump sweep. Just throwing parts at something is just as likely to make an issue worse.

Endoman

Perhaps it's the Evo tie rods that alter the feel and mine is a a '95 car which may well have the 964 rack as it looks quite different to the later cars. So the RS does have a different rack? I think I confused the conversion of 964 uprights to 993. I bow to your superior knowledge.