tie rod angle question

Lowered front end of Dakota tie rod ends are now angling up apposed to stock location angling down will this cause any issues for a drag vehicle.

It can cause some bumpsteer problems, measure the toe at ride height & then lift front up to just touching the bump stops & remeasure the toe, .5 toe change is not great but is tolerable, I set the toe with front up like making a pass.

I like to see less than .125 toe in or out changes from sitting dead still and then up to the front tires coming off the ground measuring every 1/2 inch up until the front suspension is top out
.500, 1/2 inch, is a lot of toe change

Yes, "bump steer" will be the result. However, the severity of the angle or, the "out of level" tie rod condition you have will determine the amount of bump steer you'll have. I would suggest you remove the tie rod end from the tie rod (on one side of the tie rod), set them both (as separate parts) at level with the truck on the ground and then measure the "height" between the end of the tire rod and the tie rod end. This will tell you the amount of height offset you have between the 2 parts. There are some options for correcting this depending how far the tie rod to tie rod end is.

- Bending the tie rod end arm on the spindle (by using heat)
- There is an off-set tie rod end that I used in this same situation but I'm not sure about the "fit" on a Dakota
- Aftermarket dropped spindles

There may very well be other options that are Dakota-specific.


- EM

Wow....is that really an “OK” thing to do?

A arm steering as on the Dakota(and pretty much everything else) is purposely engineered to change tow on compression. This is to lessen the effect of pulling the steering wheel out of your hands when one wheel hits an abnormality in the road surface. This is done by placing the steering arcs in offset plain of the a arm pivots. The more extreme the bump(change from factory ride height) the more the toe change. You can change the rack height, the spindle arm height, or both to lessen or eliminate the intentional toe change.

Unfortunately their is lack of aftermarket front end parts for the Dakota no lowering spindles for the 97 model. I may be able to raise the rack up but probably not enough, so then I should be trying to get the tie rod as close to level as possible.

Wow....is that really an “OK” thing to do?

Yes, it's done all the time and I've never heard of an issue with any brand, model or year.

- EM

Agreed, we bent dozens of them for out circle track cars to correct issues, and I don’t recall ever breaking one. That kind of racing didn’t generate the speed of drag racing, but they got smacked around waaay harder than anything I drive now. Jim