Custom Adjustable Lateral Rod

The short stroke and RX7 brake caliper conversion's done..

Only need a touch of spray paint to make the struts look better. A note about the conversion, notice how close the caliper is with the hub's wheel mounting face.

You need to get the two as close as possible so that the Land Cruiser brake pads, if you use them, gets as much contact as possible on the rotor. You'll need to machine the hub a bit to maximize the brake pad contact. Come to think of it, Mini Cooper S rotor would be better than Civic's for this conversion as it has 7mm extra radius. That's just perfect and allows all the brake pad surface to clamp the rotor.

The work now shifts to making the adjustable lateral rod, or panhard rod for some of you. Took only a few hours to end up with this:

Based on my measurements, with Corona RT132 axle, the lateral rod needs to be 840mm bolt hole-to-bolt hole. Apparently the T-series axles between AE86 and RT132 are not identical! At least on the lateral rod mounts as AE86 and Charmant standard lateral rod is 800mm long. This explains why my stock rod is too short when i did the axle conversion. Note that this is on standard height. Lowered height would need shorter rod as the part of the rod attached to the axle actually moves in arc with the rear suspension travel and will shift the wheels a bit to the left. Here's an explanation:

You can see that with suspension stroke, the wheels are shifted to the side. The same goes if the rear is lowered. To return the whole axle, and subsequently the wheels and diff pinion gear, to its original position, you need to shorten the rod. You won't need to shorten much, a typical value is 5-6mm with 2 inch of lowering. I figured i need the adjustability as my wheels are already poking through the fenders. Wouldn't want to find out that i rub the left tire on the fender when i lower The Dog later.

So, knowing that, i designed my lateral rod to have 820mm minimum length. This is with all the lock nuts threaded all the way up. Don't go too short or you'll lose the threads on the rod-ends when you go stock height.

Notice that i drew the thread directions different between the left and right rod-ends. Obviously you need this if you want to be able to adjust the lateral rod length on the fly.

Other than that, everything is the same with AE86's part like the rod-end size used (POS16 LHD thread for chassis mount and POS20 RHD thread for axle mount), spacers for the rod-ends, etc. Here are some important stuff you need to know about spherical rod-ends. I shamelessly copy these from AEU86.org

I won't give you the measurements for my rod-end spacers as it maybe different from yours. Be safe and measure the actual numbers on your lateral rod.

One thing done differently on my lateral rod is that i use non-hollow steel rod. Most aftermarket rods, including T3, Battle Version and Ultra Racing, use aluminum tube. As such, mine is very heavy. This may not be a good idea but i couldn't find any aluminum tube. The rod-ends won't last as long with the extra gravitational load but hopefully it's ok. I need to read more on sprung-unsprung weight theory to have any idea how bad my rod is. You'll also notice that there's a grease nipple on my rod-ends. Yes, i am not using the self-lubricating type unlike others. I figure it would be useful when they start to squeak.

Next stop, custom rear 4-link..