I've had it with trying to educate some people on this board about the so called traction/toe rods made by LSD, JIC, Stillen etc.

These are more accurately named a RADIUS ROD.

These rods do not adjust toe. Due to thier mounting point they cannot adjust toe WITHOUT affecting the caster of the rear spindle.

The radius rod (sometimes called toe rod) attaches to the spindle right on the pivot point between the upper and lower ball joints. It does not attach in front of the pivot point like some believe.

Lengthening or shortening of this rod only changes the caster of the spindle because the rod is below the rear axle. So, lengthen the rod and the less caster you get.... Shorten it and you get more caster.

Sure... some say that they have lengthened it and it adjusted toe. That is only because the caster has changed so much that the pivot point between upper and lower ball joints has been relocated..... due to the traction rod not being mounted perfectly centered between the upper and lower ball joints the entire rear geometry gets changed to the point that toe was affected.

This is the WRONG way to adjust your toe. I would call this a static toe adjustment. This may work as long as your rear suspension never moves. As soon as you corner hard, accelerate and squat or hit bumps and cause your rear suspension to become dynamic things can get nasty.

The proper way to adjust toe is with the stock toe cam.

In some cases (depending on how much your Z is lowered) the stock toe cam is not enough. The only way to get more toe at that point would be to reduce the length of the lower spring cup arm. Not an option on the stock Z and as far as I know there are no aftermarket lower spring cup arms yet.

camber arms are sufficient and in my opinion the radius rods are not a required mod.

What needs to happen is the camber rods need to come bundled with a set of shorter spring cup arms. That would make a complete toe/camber package. The Camber/Radius rod package only addresses the camber side of things.

I do not pretend to be a master at suspension geomtetry but I have spent alot of time underneath my Z and have a very good idea on it's geometry and how it all works.

in closing I'll say that it's my opinion that the camber rod is a great piece but the radius rod is just a pretty piece of steel that merely looks good.

 

In that case even though I lowered mine I do not/cannot get anything to fix what is out which ended up being just the rear toe and it was just slightly out, don't how much so don't ask. I was lucky and the front was at the max camber and the rest was al adjustable to within specs.

Thanks for explanation, I was looking at the new items coming out to see if I could do the final touches on the rear toe.

 

I just received my camber rods and toe cams. Although the camber rod install is an easy DIY, I'm not sure if I can slot the hole myself, and may have an alignment shop do it for me. On another note, do we install the toe cams at the inner cup arm connection? The instructions do not include any pics.

 

I know this was 6 months ago.. but for the completion of the archive YES the toe cam bolt is at the inner cup arm connection (lower cantrol arm).

Respect
JET