Project Toyota Corolla AE86

Adjusting the lateral link arm's length to control pinion angle also has an added benefit of altering anti-squat characteristics. Since the upper arms are at such an extreme angle and are at the upper range of their arcs, any extension will lessen the angle between the top and bottom links noticeably. This helps to reduce binding resistance and anti-squat. But there is a limit-extending the upper arms too much will push the pinion angle up, as well as increase the likelihood of axle contact. We could take out more anti-squat by shortening the lower arms (which allows the upper arms to be extended further without compromising pinion angle), but then there would be changes to the wheelbase, which we're not ready to play with yet.

Anti-squat is not always a bad thing. Drifters take advantage of it to help aggravate the car and break the rear tires loose to initiate a slide. This method is obviously more useful with greater grip and power. If we were drag racing, we'd leave it at a slight downward angle, so as the car reaches full squat from launch, the pinion lines up with the driveshaft. But we aren't drag racing and we have no power.

For those with power and/or drag racing aspirations, Whiteline also makes a set of brackets for the axle side of the lower lateral links, which allow the back end of the lower link to be remounted at two even lower positions. By lowering the pick-up point, the angle between the arms increases, adding more anti-squat without altering the pinion angle. We installed these brackets to each axle end, but kept the stock end-link position, so we could at least keep the lower link parallel to the ground if we decide to lower the car more in the future and change the pick-up points.

We also replaced the front and rear anti-roll bars. Although the stock bars worked well enough, the added roll stiffness is a good thing when running fairly soft springs, it helps with faster transient response. But a lot of roll resistance isn't necessarily desirable. As the car now sits on Hankook Z212 street tires, we wanted a limited amount of roll resistance since street tires have less traction. Too much would overload the outside tires in a turn, while not allowing the inside tires to provide maximum contact, causing the car to slide prematurely.

Whiteline offers two rear bars and three front bars-all solid. The rears are 18mm in diameter (with and without adjustable blades), while the fronts are 24mm (with or without adjustable blades). And there's also a monster non-adjustable, extra-heavy duty 27mm bar that looks more appropriate for something bigger-like a 240SX. We're not sure why such an item is available. Even on race tires, a large front bar should make any car push severely. We opted for the adjustable fronts and rears, adjusted to the least resistance for street tires (and decided to save the monster front bar for testing, when we have a lot more rubber). Both bars have Whiteline end-links with polyurethane bushings and reinforced body mounting brackets. For this particular application, the well thought-out brackets offer two attachment points for the end-links.

Depending on which of the four adjustment settings chosen, you can use a different attachment point to avoid end-link bind and body contact. We have noticed that, depending on how much twisting resistance there is, the front bar might have clearance issues with the frame rail on severely lowered cars.

The main advantage of all this is a greater range of adjustability as we progress through different levels of power and grip. We still have enough adjustment to better dial in the car for the characteristics and driving purposes we have in mind.

Quaife's QSR rack-and-pinion kit is designed for manual racks only. The steering ratio is reduced by increasing the pinion diameter, which means more travel per rotation of the steering wheel. The gear teeth are cut at a different angle to accommodate the larger pinion and inductance-hardened to reduce wear.

Side by side, the power steering rack (top) has a larger-diameter housing as well as taller pinion housing. The red manual steering bushing on the right won't fit into the power steering bracket.

The Techno Toy Tuning Derlin manual steering conversion bushing is much larger to fit the original power steering brackets. We drilled holes on each half of the bushing and inserted pins to keep the halves in place.