Got some more bling bling for the car yesterday, my Techno Toy Tuning MX83 RCAs arrived:
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/29104-1/IMG_0822_s.jpg[/IMG]
What are RCAs? Do i hear some people ask. Well thats a good question young Jimmy.
Basically when you design the suspension layout of a car you take into account the angles of certain components relative to each other at the usual ride height.
One of these is the angle between the steering arm and the tierod end, and this is quite important, as the tierod/rack end will travel in an arc with the rackend at the center of that arc. However, the steering arm while also travelling in an arc uses the LCA inner bush as the center of the arc. At various points on these differing arcs the difference in angle isnt overly great, and the car is designed to be operated within that range. However when you lower a car you take the operating range out of that designed area. We commonly hear the term “bump steer” thrown around, and this is exactly what it is. On a lowered car the steering arm is commonly in a different section of the arc to the tierod/rack end, and therefore during suspension travel the tierod/rack end and hence your steering is pushed around, and changes angle. You can commonly feel this as a jerk in the steering wheel as you go over rough ground.
So how to RCAs help this? Well the idea with an RCA is to help to push the steering arm down and back closer to the original arc of travel for both the steering arm and the lower control arm. “Hey what”, you say, “that sounds suspiciously like raising a car again, i want my car to be hektic and lowahed bruv”. Yes little Jimmy, it is like raising a car, only now you are basically pushing the axle upwards on the essentially lengthened strut. As this diagram helps to show:
[IMG]http://www.technotoytuning.com/media/rca_diagram.gif[/IMG]
Pretty spiffy huh.
And one gratuitous shot of one sitting in place:
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/29107-1/IMG_0823_s.jpg[/IMG]
I got these RCAs, and indeed a whole bunch of other stuff that i get regularly from [URL=”http://www.technotoytuning.com”]Techno Toy Tuning [/URL](free plug there Gabe), a company in the US which manufactures top quality gear, and are really nice people to boot.
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/29110-1/IMG_0824_s.jpg[/IMG]
Ive bought a fair swathe of gear from them in the past, and never had any issues with any of it. Top notch.