Quote:

Good point, but wasn't sure if you can use them on a streeter....

A very small %of the gains is (caster and its effects on camber of the outside wheel in a turn are obviously the 'big' factor) actually from relocating the front wheel centreline forward just a touch, which is not quite as good as but similar to moving some weight rearward, and getting a more advantageous polar moment of inertia (very basically the closer most of the weight is to the centre of gravity the quicker the car can turn in. If on the other hand you put just 10-20 kg of weight on a specially made bracket so that it sits say 1-2metres forward of the front axle centre line, it'd have great 'leverage' o the car and make it want to slide wide/understeer more significantly. Obviously nobody is suggesting really rigging up such a thing, but it's a good way to visualise why shifting (some, and of course it's all relative to a specific car) weight back a little, or moving the front wheels forward just a little bit can actually have some positive effects.

Short version of all that, if you can manage it, increase the caster by moving the bottom of the strut forward. If you can't the caster itself is the majority of the gains, so do it however you can manage it, you only miss out on a few % of the total gains.

benny, pretty sure any modifications to the suspention components is pretty illegal...that said i ran rod ends on my control arms so that they could pivot where ever they wanted

going to change back to bushes as the rod ends wear out pretty quick with no covers over them

Quote:
The castor setting is non-adjustable on the 1200 and on many other McPherson strut cars.

This doesn't mean that you cannot change the castor. You can, by cutting the tension rod bushing and tightening it up again. Or by re-threading the tension rod so it can be shortened up.

After doing this, the aligment must be re-checked (that is, the toe-out setting).

Castor is what the trolley cart at the market has: The angle of the wheel hub, so that the wheel tracks straight when the cart is pushed ahead. Datsun 1200 has minimal castor for a light steering action. But it is too light and does not track well at highway speed. More castor than stock is better. 2-3 degrees has been recommended. 4 degrees is the most I've ever heard of for a 1200.

The stock castor spec is: 20' to 1°50' for Sedan & Coupe

The Van specification is better: Caster: 1°05' to 2°05'

This explains why some 1200s track better than others... at 20' there is almost no caster yet it is considered "in specification".

Ange, here is a pic of the front end of my sedan as described in thread on page 1.

nice bump steer spacers, where are they from? do they suit stanza struts?

They are from B-Pro and are specific to the bolt spacing of the B110 struts [barrower bolt spacing compare to stanza]
From memory Datsport do some nice spacers for the larger struts...

It's quite common here tosee rose jointed bottom arms on race/rally 1200's. The problem that can be found though is as you pull the lca forwards, the castor rod angle alters, and becomes different to the angle of the bush pocket on the front of the chassis.
One bloke I met reckoned he used to use rack ends to correct that angle.

I had solid bushing on the inner of the lca and that made getting a bunch of castor a chore. Ultimately had to cut the bushin in half so that the front and rear of the bushing could rotate a bit. Also drilled out the "inside" of the bushing so that the bolt didn't have to line up perfectly except at theouter edgeof the bushing. Lots of grease. Car handled well.