altezzaclub Posted September 12, 2015 Report Share Posted September 12, 2015 So I'm looking at these WRC cars and thinking.."They bear no resemblance to stock models, the tyres sit halfway out of the guards which makes life soo much more stable!" ..and it popped into my head again as I sat at Great Western Wreckers going though seven 20 drums containing thousands of wheel nuts.. "Why", I hear you ask. Because when you have alloys with flat faces they need shank nuts. ..and 90% of the world runs 18.4mm diameter shanks on their wheels, but my 6x14" Cheviot mags I bought there a year or two back have 17.4mm shanks!! Not only are they like hen's teeth to find, but half the 17.4mm nuts have the fine Nissan pitch, not the coarse Toyota pitch!! ..and you lose more of what seem like the only fitting nuts because someone made them imperial and the actual stud diameter is a fraction of a mm smaller so the nut is loose on a Toyota thread!!! So this is trying to avoid buying a $36 new set from some guy in Melbourne... I did find three 13" Cheviot alloys on an old Mitsi Galant wagon which gave up their nuts, so if you want old school Cheviots in 13" they are there. After many hours I took a look over the newer Corollas he has in there. A tape measure showed that their FWD struts were about the same length from top to stub axle, and the steering arms were about the same length. So I started on Google.. Our RWD struts look like this- I had to hack it a little as the stub was not where they usually are, so I hope this looks like what you see. We have discs mounted on the back of the wheel hub so it sits close to the strut, the LCA balljoint is just under the bottom of the strut tube (blue line) and the steering axis from the top mount through the ball joint ends up inside of (towards the car) the mid-point of the tyre so the steering is light. Then we have the FWD version. With a driveshaft running through the centre of it, the LCA balljoint gets mounted lower. Actually, they are bolted onto the LCA in the newer Corollas. The steering axis goes through that balljoint, and hits the road in the middle of the tyre, giving zero scrub radius and that is why they have power steering on small cars if they are FWD. What you really see is a giant ventilated disc and a wheel mounted waaayy outside of the strut base! If you were after camber it is all there at the bottom two bolts, and if you want wider track you just make the LCA longer without having the camber ruined like we do currently. If you just cut off the driveshaft at the hub it would be easy... So I superimposed the two diagrams making sure the stub axles were at the same height. The LCA height is quite different, lower in the FWD case which is great if you are lowering the car. The disc and hub is much further out and if you ran RWD style wheels they would be waaayy out there! Then I hit the wrecker again... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
altezzaclub Posted September 12, 2015 Author Report Share Posted September 12, 2015 (edited) So, back to Great Western. I'd selected the nuts and went to see Jase. I asked him how much and he said "you'll be right mate!"... which I really can't argue with! I then shot a few photos of one of the new Rollas in there- Then I pulled a strut off an early 2000s Avante and a KE70- The FWD is sitting on its balljoint, so it has the disc off the ground and it's hub center is higher. Other than that they are very similar lengths. Its a 51mm tube, same as the Celica. Edited September 12, 2015 by altezzaclub Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
altezzaclub Posted September 12, 2015 Author Report Share Posted September 12, 2015 The KE70 strut before I pulled it off looked like this. The red lines are the center of the disc vertically and the center of the hub horizontally. Then I fitted the FWD strut on, using one bolt at the top as they don't have the strange KE70 non-circular bolt pattern at the turret top. The balljoint was much too low for the KE70 LCA so I moved the hub up on its two bolts on the strut. Seeing I couldn't get the KE70's LCA balljoint out I took the FWD one off, and spaced it off the LCA with two nuts you can see sitting there. The red lines are the same, disc center and hub center. Here are the photos superimposed. I lined up the KE70 cross-member and LCA, & the plastic guard shield to get the photos in the same place. So the FWD hub is further out, as expected. In the photo the horizontal line showing the FWD hub center is higher, but that is because I have hung it on its top bolt to get the LCAs lined up. In reality it would have the hub axles in the same place (as the wheel would be on the road and the bolts in their normal place, but the LCA balljoint would be lower than a normal KE70. Then I tried a 13" wheel, which didn't fit, and hunted around for a 14". As I climbed up to see in the boot of a car on top Jase saw me and whistled... "We're going home and letting the dogs out..." Junkyard dogs!! So I decided to leave the rest of it until Monday! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
altezzaclub Posted September 14, 2015 Author Report Share Posted September 14, 2015 Back down Great Western this morning! A Yaris that had fallen on its side came in, but apart from checking it also had ventilated discs I couldn't get to it. Mabe some components are smaller than the Corolla. Anyway- I dropped the FWD strut down to its proper position adn took this shot of where the LCA fits. The LCA in the FWD is much longer.. 325mm plus the balljoint that bolts on, another 40mm The RWD stock one is 290mm Then rims... damm FWDs have 100pcd studs, so its stock 15" rims to check. and there is plenty of caliper clearance so maybe 100pcd 14" rims will fit OK. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
altezzaclub Posted September 14, 2015 Author Report Share Posted September 14, 2015 The steering arms are the same length- The FWD tie-rod end screws onto the KE70 rack end- and the LCA balljoints can swap nuts. Here's the overall picture of the pair. I should've put a 30mm block under the FWD as it has a flat top, and the KE70 strut has that round extension of the rubber that sits up through the turret. So the FWD is a tad lower on the ground. So the strut length to hub is the same, and the steering arms are also in the same plane. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
altezzaclub Posted September 14, 2015 Author Report Share Posted September 14, 2015 ...and that's about it. It would take a welded LCA to get the FWD balljoint in the right place, but it would need an engineering cert for the increase in track anyway. It seems like most everything else is a close fit, and you'd need a much wider diff to match!! So instead of chopping down wide diffs, just match them with FWD struts! Super-wide-track KE70 with vented discs, 15" wheels, large-diameter shocks and the more you lower it the better the LCA looks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
parrot Posted September 14, 2015 Report Share Posted September 14, 2015 Please tell me someone is going to give this a try? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ke70dave Posted September 14, 2015 Report Share Posted September 14, 2015 What about scrub radius. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
altezzaclub Posted September 15, 2015 Author Report Share Posted September 15, 2015 Well, I think ours is a positive scrub radius on stock rims Dave, and the FWD is a zero. It will make the steering heavier, which is OK as a KE70 is really really light. You can see the change in the third photo from the top, the red & green lines. I think FWD moved to zero to help with the torque steer and riding over bumps. Power steering gives FWD easy steering, but it always feels 'dead' and very smooth to me. Without using FWD rims that don't have dish we would get negative offset and make the steering heavier again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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