Up front, we removed the front 18” Forgeline GA1R wheels and were in awe of the 14” Performance Friction multi-pad monobloc front caliper.
The OEM front toe link had ever so slight play in the ball joint and was in desperate need of replacement.
Weighing in a 468 grams, the front outer tie rod end features a traditional ball joint.
The Carbon 6 XP Front Tie Rod replacements are machined from 6061 aluminum like the rear toe links and also feature grade 5 Titanium hardware. Weighing in at 227 grams, the front tie rod ends are less than half of the weight of the factory tire rod end.
The tie rod hardware is excessively long in this photo. I worked with Carbon 6 to shorten the length and dial in a more ideal bumpsteer curve for mildly lower NSXs. So the tie rod is even lighter than this early version.
Next we turned our attention to the NSX’s front compliance beam. This beam has a triangular-braced vertical structure that the front mounting point of the upper and lower control arm attaches to. This triangular-lattice beam rotates along a vertical pivot, allowing longitudinal (forward and backward) movement of the front tires from impacts. This movement improves ride quality but as the rubber in the compliance beam ages and deteriorates, the handling and ride quality can be improved by clamping and locking out this movement.
4 comments
Whoever specced titanium for an aluminum balljoint needs to go back to school.
Titanium is farther from aluminum in a galvanic series than stainless steel is. That means that there will be a greater potential for galvanic corrosion between the titanium screws and the aluminum than there would be between the stainless and aluminum.
What balljoint is aluminum?
The galvanic effect between Ti and Aluminum and stainless and aluminum is minimal enough not to be an issue in most environments. I mean if you know material science at all you would easily know that it is not an issue. Ti is stronger than most alloys of stainless steel and has a greatly superior strength-to-weight ratio. It is a great material for this application. Not sure what you mean by an aluminum ball joint.
how come you don’t have the boots on the monoball joints in any of the pics?