Hard launch at Woodburn wrenched my steery thingy about 10° off center to the left, but the car tracked straight, and I have no slop or play.

I've been digging into the problem before investing a possible waste of money in another alignment, wanting to know WHAT it was and make sure it wouldn't happen again.

Guess what? I can CORRECT it by taking a BRUTALLY hard right turn. But a MILD left hand turn will send it back out.

The rack and tie-rods are tight. Ball joints have no play.

Take your guesses. I have mine already.

I thought a possible loose subframe. Don did too. Because I reefed on my steering rack, tie-rods, and balljoints when I replaced my swaybar centerlink bushings recently. No movement.

I didn't dig any further at the time (a week ago) because I hadn't noticed yet that I could get it straight with a hard right turn (I'm a NASCAR fan, I turn left harder than right).

Found it today after work. I noticed a polished up bit of my steering rack on the passenger side just above the diff/dogbone mount:







But this rubber-lined clamp was tight.

Off to the driver'* side where I found the loose bolts. How loose?
THIS loose:





Off to the car again. Turning the wheel full right on the ramps, then re-tightening everything. Including the subframe. Why?

Because:



Goes to show you that even the best tranny builder around still hires monkeys for the manual labor. Keep in mind this didn't come on slowly. It wrenched out due to a very hard launch at woodburn last year, and steadily got worse.

Just air-chiseled the welded anchor nut off the bottom of the subframe bracket. Looking for a long bolt and nut in my box of parts.

I sheare the bolt like a pair of scissors.

Torque-steer, baby. I'm going to have to beef up my steering rack mounting all the way around if this is expected to hold up to this year'* power and the slicks.

Funny how in spite of this problem, the SSEi was STILL much more responsive in steering, even though both cars have the same FE2 suspension and T2V. I still have the SE/SLE rack in the 95, and frankly, it SUCKS in comparison to sloppy loose SSEi rack.

The culprit:


The target is the welded anchor nut (square):


The weapon was an air chisel.

The result:

there was BARELY enough room to do this.


The solution is a SOFTER bolt that can bend and flex somewhat, but harder, larger washers to distribute the load on the rack and subframe better. Why? The steering rack housing is aluminum. A harder bolt may cause the RACK to break next time:


A view of the nasty little bastard again:


Installed the new bolt (another nut was installed right after this:

whoo hoo, now THATS POWER baby!!!!!!!!!! Good thing is was caught before it caused any serious damage, or worse yet, an accident.


I always notice that your cars are some of the cleanest here, so are you plannig any cleaning and painting of the subframe while it is out?

EDIT: ( you posted the last pics while I was posting ) What grade bolt was in there to begin with, and what grade did you replace it with?

Grade 8 was in. Grade 6 is in now. I want the bolt to break before the rack.

Just got off the phone with SSEiMatt93. He and Joel (Slayer636) will be here Sunday. We'll rig some safety straps to the rack so if it shears another bolt, I won't lose the rack at the track and will still be able to limp home.

With the added power from last year, and the extra traction of the slicks, the hammer job on these bolts will be at least 50% greater this year.

I suggested Duct tape on the phone, but Since Bill isn't from Alberta, he did not take the bait, oh well
My 93 always had more Torque steer, bottom end grunt baby

The primary difference of the S1 compared to the S2 is where the torque peak is delivered. It'* significantly lower in the rpm band on the S1, so you hammer things like this worse, and the torque-steer is worse. Then you add torque.......

Lesson learned, and preventive measures are being planned......at least enough to prevent going into the wall at the dragstrip for now. The subframe will be dropped over the winter, and better clamps will be put in place for next year.

If the car survives this year.

Hhmmm i wonder if thats the knocking im getting :?

only seems to do it when im turning or something... :?

im going to check that out