Soon I'm gonna buy the 4 Arms Kit and I'm wondering if I could save some money ordering the normal tension rods and make some offset collars, so they are gonna get spaced to give more clearance. For now my s13 is pretty much stock regarding the steering and geometry, just some cs2 coilovers, stock s13 lower control arms and some 17x9 +17 with 225/45R17 Tyres In the nearest future I'm planning some geomaster hubs and some other steering mods but tire and wheels specs will remain the same, so where is the point when someone really need the kinked tension rods ? with what tires/rims/angles/lca? Cheers
First question: do you want to run a swaybar up front? If so, then stay with the straight arms. If no, then maybe kinked. If dunno yet, then straight arms - you can always resell and upgrade later if you need the extra lock. In the meantime, put the money saved into tyres and entries until you can feel the difference in how the car handles without a swaybar while drifting. I'm running aggresive modified knuckles, S14 LCA's, 17x9's @ -3 and only rub on the swaybar and castor arms at full lock, however i don't use full lock that often. Cut off your lock stops and grind/sand down the lock-bump on the standard knuckle for now. Once you've got used to that and have gotten into a few spots where you think you could have held it if you had "a quarter turn more" then get the knuckles modified/driftworks hubs, throw A32 rack ends at it and space the wheel a little further out. You will need to bend up the inner lip on the chassis rail too. You may also find your tyre is a little too big, try dropping down to a good race tyre in 215/45, that will give you the room
Hi and sorry for the late answer. I'm already running whiteline sway bars both front and rear, I don't just drift, sometimes (September of this year) my car will also see some normal track action. I'm gonna install some S14 LCA asap I'll figure our my wheel fitment/overfender clearance a lil bit more. By "rubbing only the swaybar and castor arms" you mean that you don't have clearance issues with the non kinked tension rods? Speaking of angles you are totally right man, I need to do some practice and then step by step follow your tips about grinding lock bumps and then move to some proper knuckles, the inner chassis rail lip it's already bent due some clearance issued with some gay offsetted wheels. Also thanks for the tire tip but I'm living in Italy where we have to follow some ridiculous procedures to change tire specs, essentially at the time I could only choose between 215 or 225 width and 40/45 sidewall (all round!), so I just went for the meaty one (sidewall choice was due the fact it's still a daily, we have potholes everywhere and it's a cheap or easy tire to find)
If you're set on running whiteline swaybars then they will sit on the same plane as straight-arm castor arms anyway. Understand the need to keep it semi-road friendly, hence recommending 215/45 and not 215/40. One good thing about going straight to modified knuckles from the outset is faster steering: small movements of the steering wheel translate to bigger movements of the front wheels. It might be something to think about for helping with normal track work.
