bump steer/ control arm length?

Edited: 2/3/2010 11:38:21 PM by teckn9ne

Alright Max I have come up with an idea to correct a lot of the camber on my truck. Its an 06 colorado and the front setup has been butchered since i got it, currently its good enough to daily but Im still not happy with it. My idea is to take the upper control arms and lengthen them 1.5" BUT keep them on the current swing arm length. I haven't actually looked to see if there is even room to do this but I was wondering what about the bump steer? I know the pivot points arent perfectly aligned with ball joint pivots and bushings but just for refernece heres a picture i drew up
 

How would lengthening the arm like that affect the bumpsteer? By the way everything in that pic is just rough numbers, nothings exact or anything like that! Thanks for the help and I hope this makes sense lol.

One thing I can tell you is that you need to consider how important positive camber is to you.  By lengthening the upper arm all of the negative camber you are removing will just be added at the opposite end when you are lifted.  This might not matter to you but something you might want to think about depending on your turning radius

--------------------------------------------- Originally posted by msturg One thing I can tell you is that you need to consider how important positive camber is to you.  By lengthening the upper arm all of the negative camber you are removing will just be added at the opposite end when you are lifted.  This might not matter to you but something you might want to think about depending on your turning radius --------------------------------------------- +kinda, it wont be at the opposite end, it will pos camber when the armsstart to get close to parallel to the ground, when they are parallel,and right after they are parallel to the ground. the only time youaren't going to be pos cambered is when you are at the top end andbottom end of the range of motion. If you correct this with thealignment adjustment you are moving the UCA pivot point witch will endup giving you bump steer. This is all assuming that your tie rods havethe extra threads to lengthen to what you would need for the longer arm

mkay if i put the truck at zero camber with the stock mounts and extend the control arms down the swing arm the positive camber would be even less than before, and also less negative camber... Im just wondering if it will throw off my bump steer to bad to do it... and its got a rack and pinion so no changing where the inner pivots are!

Edited: 2/5/2010 10:17:02 AM by dB Zac

--------------------------------------------- Originally posted by teckn9ne mkay if i put the truck at zero camber with the stock mounts and extend the control arms down the swing arm the positive camber would be even less than before, and also less negative camber... Im just wondering if it will throw off my bump steer to bad to do it... and its got a rack and pinion so no changing where the inner pivots are! --------------------------------------------- it would be imposable to diminish pos camber and neg camber at the same time by only changing your UCA length. You aren't making any sense  A good example of this is a lowrider set up to hop. Those guys extend there upper a arm, that all they did. They no longer have neg camber anywhere in the travel but they have pos camber threw most of it. Now they extend them 2" but its still a good example of how the UCA length affects the camber. 

Your bumpsteer will absolutely be thrown out of wack if you misallign the pivot points. I would get all the actual data and feed it into a program to see how much its going to affect it. You could also make mock up parts with thin wood or cardboard to see what changes will occur.

I will probably just do that, beleive me my bumpsteer is not great right now, I understand it is not possible to dimish positive or negative camber but what about the guy  running 22s on first gen rangers? Theyre making there own setups i know BUT they are based on a long swing arm and a high uca length to lca length ratio and since they make there own steering bump steer is not much of an issue, Im trying to mimick this with the factory rack and pinion without coming into to much bump steer, anyone know where I can find a free suspension program???