center of steering changes when i brake, or turn right

[Johny5]

ok, whew, novel time...

about 4-5 months ago i had s14 brakes and thought htat was the problem, sure one of them was siezing. so i upgraded to z32 brakes and nothing changed. still baffled i decided to upgrade my front multilink and to a coilover system. well, i picked up some spl coilovers, kazama t/c and outter tie rods, jic inner tie rods, nismo powerbrace and some es steering rack bushings. this didn't fix it though either. so i got an alignment, didn't fix it. so i got another alignment at a professional race shop, that didn't fix it either. so i looked under my car, the oddshaped steering rack bushing looks like its kinda doing its job, holding on pretty tightly i guess. while the circular bushing wasn't really holding jack shit down. the rack coulda kina move on that side when i pushed it with my hand. so i ultra tightened the rack and it was really hard to move. but my steering still changes.

what happens is, when i brake and let go of the steering wheel, the car will continue to go straight. the car continues to go straight but the steering wheel has turned 15 degrees to the left, i.e. the center of steering has moved. same with when i turn right, on a highway or something. out of nowhere my wheel will kick to the left while i'm trying to turn right because the center of steering keeps changing on me.

this has been going on for 4-5 months now and i have no clue how to fix it. someone recommended tires on another forum, no dice. its happened on the last 7 pairs i've had in the last couple of months or so. my multilink is all fresh, like nov. 04 fresh and never abused. checked it just to double-confirm and its all in very working condition. barely any popping etc, no real binding on it.

if you guys can solve this problem for me and SOLVE it. then i'll paypal you $5. :x:

[mad s13]

I don't know that I can offer much help, but let me first ask how many miles are on your car.
the reason I ask is because I had the same problem about a year ago, came about when I had put 17's on the car, i'd done the alignment deal and it tightenend up the car some but the same problem you describe came back. My only remedy for it was replacing my steering rack when I did my swap. My rack had about 185k miles on it and you could tell it was worn. here is a thread i made about it over on fa thread made on freshalloy (http://forums.freshalloy.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=UBB9&Number=67732183&Forum=All_Forums&Words=slydwayz&Match=Username&Searchpage=2&Limit=25&Old=allposts&Main=67554091&Search=true#Post67732183)

hopefully that will shed some light on it for you, now that problem with my steering is gone, but i've got terrible bump steer, due to having everything else being worn out..lol my cars suspension is due for a complete overhaul soon.

hope this helps
Gray

[Johny5]

yeah dude it does. my two culprits were the rack and the bushings. my cars got 108k but damn its seen some serious abuse. and it ran no ps for awhile etc. racks probably fucked.

[Bryants95240sx]

Yeah i can almost promise you its the rack .b/c mine was going out and it did the exact same thing id break and the wheel would go to the right insted of the left.But after i replaced my rack it went away. It was a pain in the ass to replace the rack and steering not really hard it was just time consuming.

[Johny5]

damn haha, so it aint no fun on an s14 eh? oh well, project time :)

[mad s13]

I've heard it was alot easier on an s14 than s13...Russ over on fa( i guess he is here too) said in one of his posts some time back that it didn't take much to chang ean s14 one. I changed my rack out when i did my sr swap..and all i did was drop one crossmember and put the new one in..real easy with the motor out.

Later

[MikeFD3S]

It sounds like you are having caster problems and/or bump steer issues. Have you professionally aligned your car? Did you install everything by yourself?

Caster is the angle of your shock, relative to the wheel and shock tower.

normally, it would be like this

___
||
||
O

If you are having caster angle problems, one could be straight, and the other one could be off, like this (albeit not so extreme):

___
\\
\\
O

If one is off, the stress on the suspension when you are braking or turning will pull the wheel one way because the distribution of stress is uneven and imbalanced.

Also, if your car is lowered aggressively, and you are using aftermarket tie rods, make sure that you have them properly spaced. Super lowered 240sx actually have a higher roll center (despite lower center of gravity), which causes binding of the pillow end of the tie rod and bump steer due to control arm design. Aftermarket tie rod end should have spacers to correct it, so that the tie rod and steering rack are in their natural position.

Front multi-link has to be set precisely or else you can seriously jack up the way your car handles if you're off by millimeters.

With that said, Kazama Tie Rod Ends are tight because they're cheap and have the spacers
http://www.more-japan.com/xcart/product_image.php?imageid=39
http://www.more-japan.com/xcart/catalog/Tie_Rod_Ends-p-16155.html

A lot of shops carry them, or you can buy them through that site

From the mods you listed, you have tie rod inners, but no outers (which are more important for correction than angle) and you also got tension control rods which can change caster. If it's not anything related to those and your setting, then I have no clue man...maybe the rack?

[MikeFD3S]

yikes i just read it again and saw that you had an alignment and both inner and OUTER tie rods...d'oh!... must read... anyhow, is the tie rod ends spaced properly? I'm all out of ideas

[Johny5]

yeah iunno how much credit this shop gets. apparantly they work on porsche race cars etc. i'm gonna try the new rack, and if taht doesn't fix it then i'm shoving this front multilink up someones unlucky ass.

[Salty_X]

Hey, free (sorta) multilink!

[zeek]

Change the rack, then check caster.

[Dousan_PG]

rack definately
easy to do on s14, but as mentioned just time consuming
start early on saturday you should be done by lunch or a tad after if its your first time
basic tools and a friend's help should be more then enough

and order new bushings for the rack first though. nismo or energy suspension.but w/ s14..nismo or i dont know

[Johny5]

i'm trying for those yanack bushings but according to the negative informing ziptied thread they're saying those are only for s13s D: i have the es/nismo splparts.com combo already on there as of right now though :)