Major problems after GKTech steering kit install
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Joined: May 2021
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From: OH
Major problems after GKTech steering kit install
Hello all, I recently bought my first VQ, a 2003 350z, to start drifting! This is a long post, but I feel it is the only way I can truly convey what is happening. I hope that you read it and leave some opinions/ideas <3
BEFORE
After some basic maintenance, including the install of a clean CD009, I decided to delve into the suspension. The car was already lowered on some Raceland Ultimas, other than that, the suspension is completely stock.
I purchased the GKTech steering angle kit, (tie rod extensions), and steering rack spacers.
The angle kit
INSTALL
I started with the driver side. steering stop bolts, tie rod bolt, and compression rod bolt. Slapped the angle kit on, tightened it down evenly, and began threading the tie rod extensions into the new outer tie rod and steering rack.
As I was doing this, I unknowingly rotated the part of the steering rack that threads into the outer tie rod. I'm unsure if this matters, like if there's some kind of adjustment that was accidentally made INSIDE the steering rack, or if this is just designed to spin freely to adjust toe. I'm unsure.
Anyways, I began on the passenger side. Same thing, except this time I got hung up on the compression arm bolt. I had to cut it off, damaging the threads in the process, and had to change the passenger compression arm. Finally after replacing, I was able to slap the passenger steering kit on. (This time, careful not to accidentally rotate the steering rack, again, don't know if this actually does anything or not.)
TEST
I eyeballed the alignment, like literally, no tape measure. Straight looked up and down the wheel and was like, "yeah, that looks straightish."
I mean, it only had to make it a 10 or so minute drive to Tireman for the alignment, right?
I backed down my driveway and as I began to turn out to get onto the access road that runs to my house, I felt a disturbing feeling.
The steering wanted to fall to lock very fast as soon as any steering was introduced. For some reason, I decided to pull out anyways and continue my test drive. The car constantly hopping back and forth all over the road, me desperately trying to keep the steering from falling all the way to lock, jerking aggressively.
Me, frightened, carefully drive it back to my garage, pull it in, and sleep on it. (I realize now, this was incredibly stupid of me, and the jerking around was just immense amounts of toe-in.
THE NEXT DAY
I bought string and a tape measure and decided I would give it a ballpark alignment in my garage.
I ran the string straight with the car, off the rear center cap, to the front center cap, 1" away.
I adjusted passenger toe first. From the back of the lip to the front, a whole 1.5" difference. I got it down to a 1/8" difference and decided that would be okay.
Then the driver, not as much off, but ended up getting it to about 1/16" from the back of the wheel to the front.
ALIGNMENT DAY
I drove it to work the next day to drop it off for a real alignment after I got off.
While driving, I noticed something very very wrong. Steering between about 40% and 70% is an area where awful things happen. It feels like the trailing wheel (turning left, the right wheel. Or turning right, the left wheel) would scrub very aggressively. Almost like a pulsing understeer.
I noticed while driving in circles, that if I found that "sweet spot" in the steering, that the trailing wheel would skip and hop, but if I let off the throttle, the car would VERY abruptly slow down, feeling most of the slowing on that same scrubbing trailing wheel.
This would happen turning in either direction, more prominent with speed.
I also notice that if I rode the brakes while in this aggressive scrubbing turn, it would be even more aggressive, and I could feel the popping, skipping of that outside wheel in the brakes.
AFTER
The alignment:
Some photos of my suspension at full lock. Notice the new compression arm to differentiate passenger side from driver:
A video of scrubbing, with abrupt slowing, and another video of about 5 minutes into my drive, where the passenger side begins squealing loudly:
NOTICE: When I release throttle, how it pulses slowing down aggressively. That rough sound you hear is the tire scrubbing. This is all POST alignment.
Squealing after driving for a bit. Coming from passenger side.
WHAT I THINK IT IS
When I got home, I sat still with the car running, and went through the steering. Towards full lock to the left, I would hear a pop sound. I could back the steering off, and steer back in, and it would pop again. I decided to drive it around my access road a couple of laps with my dad watching the wheels from the outside, He noticed something with the brakes, and I later was pulling up to him at about 5 MPH and hit the brakes, let off, brakes, let off, brakes, until stop. And every time I got on the brakes, I would feel a sort of "slip," then grab, almost like something was moving that shouldn't have been, but we couldn't find what it was. This feeling was even on both sides. A very strange thing that has never happened before the install. No brake lines get pinched through all of my steering angle, (Which is still factory angle as I never cut/grinded steering stops) There is no leaking, no cuts/gashes, nothing. My dad wanted me to ride the brakes while turning to see if I could feel the popping in the pedal. Not only could I feel it, it amplified it immensely.
BEFORE
After some basic maintenance, including the install of a clean CD009, I decided to delve into the suspension. The car was already lowered on some Raceland Ultimas, other than that, the suspension is completely stock.
I purchased the GKTech steering angle kit, (tie rod extensions), and steering rack spacers.
Spoiler
INSTALL
I started with the driver side. steering stop bolts, tie rod bolt, and compression rod bolt. Slapped the angle kit on, tightened it down evenly, and began threading the tie rod extensions into the new outer tie rod and steering rack.
As I was doing this, I unknowingly rotated the part of the steering rack that threads into the outer tie rod. I'm unsure if this matters, like if there's some kind of adjustment that was accidentally made INSIDE the steering rack, or if this is just designed to spin freely to adjust toe. I'm unsure.
Anyways, I began on the passenger side. Same thing, except this time I got hung up on the compression arm bolt. I had to cut it off, damaging the threads in the process, and had to change the passenger compression arm. Finally after replacing, I was able to slap the passenger steering kit on. (This time, careful not to accidentally rotate the steering rack, again, don't know if this actually does anything or not.)
TEST
I eyeballed the alignment, like literally, no tape measure. Straight looked up and down the wheel and was like, "yeah, that looks straightish."
I mean, it only had to make it a 10 or so minute drive to Tireman for the alignment, right?
I backed down my driveway and as I began to turn out to get onto the access road that runs to my house, I felt a disturbing feeling.
The steering wanted to fall to lock very fast as soon as any steering was introduced. For some reason, I decided to pull out anyways and continue my test drive. The car constantly hopping back and forth all over the road, me desperately trying to keep the steering from falling all the way to lock, jerking aggressively.
Me, frightened, carefully drive it back to my garage, pull it in, and sleep on it. (I realize now, this was incredibly stupid of me, and the jerking around was just immense amounts of toe-in.
THE NEXT DAY
I bought string and a tape measure and decided I would give it a ballpark alignment in my garage.
I ran the string straight with the car, off the rear center cap, to the front center cap, 1" away.
I adjusted passenger toe first. From the back of the lip to the front, a whole 1.5" difference. I got it down to a 1/8" difference and decided that would be okay.
Then the driver, not as much off, but ended up getting it to about 1/16" from the back of the wheel to the front.
ALIGNMENT DAY
I drove it to work the next day to drop it off for a real alignment after I got off.
While driving, I noticed something very very wrong. Steering between about 40% and 70% is an area where awful things happen. It feels like the trailing wheel (turning left, the right wheel. Or turning right, the left wheel) would scrub very aggressively. Almost like a pulsing understeer.
I noticed while driving in circles, that if I found that "sweet spot" in the steering, that the trailing wheel would skip and hop, but if I let off the throttle, the car would VERY abruptly slow down, feeling most of the slowing on that same scrubbing trailing wheel.
This would happen turning in either direction, more prominent with speed.
I also notice that if I rode the brakes while in this aggressive scrubbing turn, it would be even more aggressive, and I could feel the popping, skipping of that outside wheel in the brakes.
AFTER
The alignment:
Spoiler
Some photos of my suspension at full lock. Notice the new compression arm to differentiate passenger side from driver:
Spoiler
A video of scrubbing, with abrupt slowing, and another video of about 5 minutes into my drive, where the passenger side begins squealing loudly:
NOTICE: When I release throttle, how it pulses slowing down aggressively. That rough sound you hear is the tire scrubbing. This is all POST alignment.
WHAT I THINK IT IS
When I got home, I sat still with the car running, and went through the steering. Towards full lock to the left, I would hear a pop sound. I could back the steering off, and steer back in, and it would pop again. I decided to drive it around my access road a couple of laps with my dad watching the wheels from the outside, He noticed something with the brakes, and I later was pulling up to him at about 5 MPH and hit the brakes, let off, brakes, let off, brakes, until stop. And every time I got on the brakes, I would feel a sort of "slip," then grab, almost like something was moving that shouldn't have been, but we couldn't find what it was. This feeling was even on both sides. A very strange thing that has never happened before the install. No brake lines get pinched through all of my steering angle, (Which is still factory angle as I never cut/grinded steering stops) There is no leaking, no cuts/gashes, nothing. My dad wanted me to ride the brakes while turning to see if I could feel the popping in the pedal. Not only could I feel it, it amplified it immensely.
Last edited by gagerr; May 13, 2021 at 05:27 PM.
Oof. GKTech. They are some guys that have some pretty good ideas and then drop the ball on support and quality. The squealing is most likely your dust shield got pushed into the rotor during install. Just bend it back or trim it.
These are the adjustable ackerman adapters. I would be willing to bet that your currently on the parallel steer option with the rod ent point in the outboard position. You need to change it to the inner position for street driving. For actual drifting you will want it in the outer position. Get you a set of toe plates and get used to adjusting your front toe yourself.
Dont worry about spinning the inner tie rod. There is a ball spherical that allows it to spin without damaging the rack at all.
These are the adjustable ackerman adapters. I would be willing to bet that your currently on the parallel steer option with the rod ent point in the outboard position. You need to change it to the inner position for street driving. For actual drifting you will want it in the outer position. Get you a set of toe plates and get used to adjusting your front toe yourself.
Dont worry about spinning the inner tie rod. There is a ball spherical that allows it to spin without damaging the rack at all.
Thread Starter
New Member
Joined: May 2021
Posts: 4
Likes: 0
From: OH
Oof. GKTech. They are some guys that have some pretty good ideas and then drop the ball on support and quality. The squealing is most likely your dust shield got pushed into the rotor during install. Just bend it back or trim it.
These are the adjustable ackerman adapters. I would be willing to bet that your currently on the parallel steer option with the rod ent point in the outboard position. You need to change it to the inner position for street driving. For actual drifting you will want it in the outer position. Get you a set of toe plates and get used to adjusting your front toe yourself.
Dont worry about spinning the inner tie rod. There is a ball spherical that allows it to spin without damaging the rack at all.
These are the adjustable ackerman adapters. I would be willing to bet that your currently on the parallel steer option with the rod ent point in the outboard position. You need to change it to the inner position for street driving. For actual drifting you will want it in the outer position. Get you a set of toe plates and get used to adjusting your front toe yourself.
Dont worry about spinning the inner tie rod. There is a ball spherical that allows it to spin without damaging the rack at all.
I don't believe the squealing sound is the shielding, because it only started after about 10 minutes of driving from the alignment shop, I think it was the pad itself from braking while making the video showing the trailing wheel slip. To clarify, it is a very violent feeling when turning, not just like the wheel slipping, but also like the car is aggressively pulsing brakes on the trailing wheel only, which is conveniently the wheel that started squealing (passenger) after turning left in a parking lot for a 3 minute demonstration video of the issue
The GKtech instruction videos show how to adjust the Ackermann on them. If you set it to parallel steer, or have the V2 version it will mess with traction control and you will need to disable the yaw sensor.
Thread Starter
New Member
Joined: May 2021
Posts: 4
Likes: 0
From: OH
Thread Starter
New Member
Joined: May 2021
Posts: 4
Likes: 0
From: OH
Last night I trimmed brake dust shield covers, no more touching, changed pads on passenger to fresh OEM ceramics, and driver side I didn't notice anything loose and wanted to ensure I eliminated as many possibilities so I went and purchased a whole new caliper. Tomorrow I replace the driver caliper and pads and bleed the system.
All the ball joints look fine, I recently changed the transmission so I don't believe the issue is slack in the driveshaft, as I didn't notice any when I was changing everything.
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