,
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| This Nissan Sentra obviously needs some help!
|
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| This B15 Sentra has had some help. The outer ball joint has been replaced with a spherical bearing and a long spacer to the spindle. This drops the outer pivot and raises the roll center even in a radically lowered car.
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| In Dai Yoshihara’s MPTCC championship winning B14 we replaced the Nissan ball joints with some much longer Chrysler parts to lower the pivot. This required some fabrication as Chrysler ball joints don’t just drop into a Sentra.
|
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| If you are lucky, Whiteline makes longer balljoints and bump steer correction tie rods for your car and you don’t have to fabricate anything!
|
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| If you have a Nissan S chassis, Driftworks makes some knuckles that lower the car, correct bumpsteer and fix the roll center.
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| Nissan S chassis guys are lucky. This car has an SPL lower arm the corrects the roll center as well as a Hariguchi knuckle that lowers the car and corrects the roll center. Parts like these are how some Formula D cars can be so low and still work.
|
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| SPL has a rear lower arm that corrects the roll center on the outboard pivot. |
The roll center can be adjusted on cars like the 240Z-300ZX, 240SX, AE86, Late model Celicas and probably others by using custom fabricated control arms or spacers to adjust the pivot locations of the control arms. SPL, Whiteline, Perrin and a few others make kits to do this for many cars. Remember, if you can adjust the roll center you can lower the car and still reduce the roll couple and lower the center of gravity effectively at the same time.
Adjusting the roll center is a little known but effective way to change you car’s dynamic balance by reducing roll couple and weight transfer. It can do this just as well as springs and swaybars within limits. But remember it is just as important to remember that over lowering a car will create more problems than it solves, unless you can afford the esoteric parts and fabrication to compensate for the geometry issues the over lowering causes.
Until next time, happy Motoring!
Be sure to check out the rest of the Ultimate Guide to Suspension & Handling series
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