Quote:


Are sure about that ackerman solution, I thought the steering arms have to form an imaginary intersection towards the rear, if i understand your suggestion the intersection would be in front with stock ball joints and this is one of the big hurdles with front steer on a mopar. Did i miss something?



Yup, you missed it. You're thinking of swapping ball joints side to side, like the spindle/caliper relocation trick. I'm talking about leaving the ball joint installed on their correct side, but rotating the tie rod end forward, thus putting it outboard of the ball joint, retaining the ackerman triangle. However, this is speculation on my part because of the relative location of the tie rod mount. I have not graphed it to see how accurate it is.


Quote:


The problem with using a front steer rack is mostly a packaging issue. Your either have to raise the engine for the rack to go under the oil pan, lower the rack and kill the tie rod (horizontal) angle, or shove the rack too far forward for the outer tie rods to stay parallel to the lower control arms.



This actually is a good solution, IMO. You raise the engine, fit the rack. So now you raised the center of gravity, right, so how is that good? Well, you drop the car lower around the engine. An engine is, lets say, 500#. A car is 3400#. So you raised 500# up two inches, now lets drop 2900# 2 inches since you have increases oil pan and header clearance with the lifted engine. Which will have a greater impact on the COG, 500# or 2900#?


Quote:

If you read this article, you will see it's nowhere near that simple. To get the Ackerman effect, the tie rod ends need to be inside the lower ball joints on rear steer, and outside on front steer cars - this puts the tie rod mount on the spindle into the sidewall of the tire.




Not necessarily. It depends on rim diameter and the relationship of the tie rod end location to the rim location. With my suggestiosn above, there is no reason to think it wouldn't fit simply from rotating the end forward a similar amount forward compared to how far it is set back stock. With differing set ups, that may have some impact, but with the increasing rim diameters we see on many performance cars, it may become even less of an issue.


Quote:

Maybe a better discussion is how critical is ackerman in a hp "handling" car, forgetting the grocery getters, and I don't know the answer to that.


Quote:

Even on a road race car is not a huge deal. It's biggest purpose is for heavy sedan street cars at low speeds. At higher speeds and pushing the car to it's cornering limits, slip angles change and traditional Ackermann is out the door.

And open wheel Indy car will not have Ackermann.



Bingo! Competition cars typically do not even bother with ackerman.