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turning radius improvements ?

M

MadDog

Veteran CEG'er
Joined
Jul 27, 2012
Messages
618
Location
Augusta, GA
Over the years, it has slowly dawned on me that the turning radius on the CSVT seems rather poor. Our Sienna minivan will out-turn my CSVT easily. Is there anyway to improve this ? I dont know if the issue is a lack of space in the wheel well, or bad design.

Mad Dog
 
As I recall the CSVT has different steering stops than the rest of Contours :idea: maybe they could be modified . or do as blu_ suggested :laugh:
 
Or maybe zero turn with a pair of casters like that lawn mower I want
 
Tie rod spacers, longer tie rods, modified knuckles. I'd say after market pieces, BUT, we all know that those aren't made for our cars.


I just get that stuff from my drifter buddies. A friend of mine has a new setup that added like 23 degrees extra steering angle.
 
I was hoping some sort of odd wheel spacer + longer tie rods might provide some relief, but that was an uneducated guess on my part.

I will try the e-break idea, but it might not work out so well in the parking lot at work.

thanks,

Mad Dog
 
YOOOO said:
Think our turning radius is bad? Try driving an Evo lol
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Or a 95 buick century like my last car, that had a solid rear end, that thing had almost no turning radius, and felt like impending death turning anything faster than 15 or 20. My contour now can do those same 15 MPH curves at 35-pushing 40, and the whole time feels like the tires are glued to the road with hot tar. I will agree though, I have had a few times where I've approached a parking spot and had to back up and try again, it would seem they engineered these things to stick in curves at higher speeds, but they engineered that van for soccer moms trying to park it in a space rather than taking curves at high speeds...
 
I've been trying to figure this out with my SVT. My 98 SVT has a HORRIBLE turning radius (lowered with 18" wheels) and my girlfriend's 2000 SVT has a perfect turning radius (stock height with 17" wheels).

Both cars have SVT inner tie rods and steering rack. I honestly don't understand how it can be so different all because of a 1.5" drop. :shrug:
 
X2. The radius is with wheel INside well, space it out and you hit edge of fender faster. Most of the time tire hitting inside fenderwell will be your problem, safety issue once you start crabbing on that.

Funny that someone can't see how wider or taller wheel with lowering done around it limits radius even more. Objects cannot move as much with less space around them..............simple physics.
 
the difference with lowering is not that the tires hit the fender before the lock, but rather the change in the steering geometry. when you lower the car you are also lowering the height of the rack, and changing the distance and angle between the knuckle and the rack.
 
striker2 said:
the difference with lowering is not that the tires hit the fender before the lock, but rather the change in the steering geometry. when you lower the car you are also lowering the height of the rack, and changing the distance and angle between the knuckle and the rack.
Click to expand...

It is common practice to shim the steering rack on lowered cars in the SHO community. Don't know if anyone here has tried that.
 
SHOspazz92 said:
It is common practice to shim the steering rack on lowered cars in the SHO community. Don't know if anyone here has tried that.
Click to expand...
That was a bump steer fix, which at least for SHOs, I'm pretty sure that I invented. :laugh: Raising the rack on a lowered car improved the tie rod to lower control arm geometry so a wheel was less likely to go into toe-out as the suspension bumped.

First gen SHOs also had steering travel limiters in the steering rack to prevent their wider tires from rubbing the inner fenders at full lock.

Like many strut suspension vehicles, lowering can sometimes improve center of gravity and roll center issues, but often times, extreme lowering screws up the camber gain curve, and the suspension now tends toward positive camber in bump, and while it might look cool at a car show, it doesn't really improve steady state cornering behavior. Another SHO trick to improve camber gain curve was to raise the inboard pivot point on the lower control arm, which you could do either by slotting/welding the inboard mounting bracket, or thinning the front subframe upper mounting pucks, effectively raising the subframe. Raising the subframe simultaneously raised the steering rack, which helped with bump steer too.

Some of these tricks could help the Contour suspension, but they aren't going to reduce turning radius.
 
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