One of the most common problems I see J-car enthusiasts stumble upon is one that is largely self-inflicted. The first thing many modifiers do is lower their car with a set of coilovers or lowering springs (or cut springs, if they're extra stupid) and while a lower car certainly looks nice, a significant drop in ride height can play havoc with your car's handling if you're not careful. Thankfully, GP Sports have got a solution.
Their new Hyper Knuckle kit and Super Knuckle kit are direct bolt-in replacements for the standard front steering knuckle on S13-15 Silvias and C34-35 Laurels and they both correct a lot of problems associated with lowered cars, as well as giving a few extra advantages for drifters.
One of the primary side-effects of lowering is a change in height of the roll center, an imaginary point upon which dynamic forces are exerted on the car - on the Silvia/Laurel's Macpherson-strut front suspension, dropping ride height also brings the roll center height (RCH) closer to the road and further away from the center of gravity (COG). In basic terms, the further away the RCH is from the COG the greater the severity of roll during cornering, so whilst your slab might look totally dope scrapin' along the boulevard, it's going to handle like crap once you take it to the track. The GP Sports knuckles eliminate this problem by bringing the lower ball-joint seat further down, thus correcting the angle of the lower control arm and returning the RCH closer to stock height (below).
GP Sports have also dropped the height of the steering arm on their knuckles, thus eliminating that other bane of lowered cars: bump steer. Lowering your car changes the relationship between the tie-rod to the steering rack, generally introducing an upward slant. When hitting a bump the tie-rod's angle increases even further, thereby shortening the effective length of the steering arm and making the wheel momentarily toe-in or toe-out, which makes the car feel like it wants to 'jump' left or right.
Lastly, the GP Sports knuckles also feature a shortened steering arm, which when used in conjunction with a steering rack spacer allows you to get a significant increase in steering angle (below) - vital if you drift on a competitive level.
The GP Sports knuckles are available in two forms: Hyper Knuckle or Super Knuckle. The Hyper Knuckle is split just above the ball joint seat, allowing a spacer to be inserted between the ball-joint/steering arm and the rest of the knuckle to permit up to 40mm of RCH/bump steer correction on extremely lowered cars. The Super Knuckle's mounting points are fixed at 20mm lower than stock, but this should be fine for the vast majority of street-driven cars. The Super Knuckle Kit retails for JPY 68,000, while the Hyper Knuckle kit sells for JPY 98,000 with spacers starting from JPY 12,800.
Of course, you can correct all of the above by using a variety of spacers and other (cheaper) aftermarket parts, but won't be able to beat the simplicity and design of the GP Sports knuckles. Besides, being a cast item it's also far less likely to break than a bunch of spacers. Check out GP Sports for more info.
[Source: GP Sports] [Images courtesy of GP Sports] zum Original
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