Okay so I am looking to replace my front tie-rods since I have holes in the boots and a little shimmy when braking going on. I have been torn between the Whiteline or GT Spec now I was leaning toward the GT spec before I found this piece on another forum "Re: GTSpec Front Roll Center Adjustment Kit The design of the tie rods is flawed. Putting a drop or dog leg in the tie rod does not change the steering geometry. The tie rod swings in an arc between the two articulating joints, the one in the rack and the one in the tie rod. Proper bump steer correction will change the space between the steering arm on the knuckle and the ball in the tie rod. This can be seen in the Whiteline kit. The tapered bolt that attaches to the steering arm is longer, spacing the joint downwards. The GTSpec tie rods will have the exact same geometry as the stock arms and bump steer will change significantly from stock. I have not measured bump steer on a stock geometry Impreza, but I have read that there is very little, thus installing the GTSpec ball joints with either stock or the included "dropped" tie rods will have a large negative impact on bump steer. This is a pretty rookie error on their part and really doesn't inspire confidence in their engineering skills." Now I am looking for a more detailed breakdown so to speak before I decide and I figured who better to ask on their opinion than you guys. I was leaning toward the GT Spec's because they seem to be built a little sturdier i.e. the boots look better and they are Forged compared to the whitelines. Hopefully someone here can either verify the dogleg in the GT Spec to be a bad design or not. Thanks ~Cat
Could have been a little more helpful by putting your personal opinion on the build quality. Hands on actual visual and feel of them does the boot look cheap like in the photos and videos I have seen they look very thin.
hmm i've got the whiteline alk and the rollcenter kit on my 06. Sure they're not as fancy looking as the gt-spec ones, but they made a dramatic improvement in handling and feel of my car. I can't really comment on durability as ive logged maybe 400miles on the parts, but so far no problems. I recall reading somewhere that some people had failures but whiteline being whiteline, replaced the parts, but I haven't the slightest idea what went wrong
I have no problems with Whiteline build quality nor did I have a problem with the first set I had which was their earlier version.
Cool I might just get the whitelines and thanks for you guys input. Still hoping that one of the suspension gurus will pipe in on their take on the design differences.
local who use to own 6gun which made RCK's you have 3 choices listed from cheap to WTF$$$? Whiteline, for reasonable drops 1"-2.5" $250.00+ LICmotosports, revised knuckles $1K-2500.00 MSI, billet knuckles custom geometry $just buy a GTR35
LMAO definitely not paying over 4-500 I love Whiteline I have their Sways and had their endlinks which i didn't really like so I changed them out for Kartboys which were definitely worth the swap in my opinion. So it looks like I'll be rolling with Whitelines. I still would like someone to comment on GT Spec's "design flaw" if we have someone that knows a lot about suspension geometry.
I am the type of guy who attaches part "A" to part "B" because the guy with the 10lb brain designed it that way. I have no clue where to even start on figuring out what effects what by ? Amount when at this degree of angle etc etc etc you get my point lol. I might be able to figure it out if walked through it a time or two but probably not on my own.
I recall Myles at TIC noted the defective ones were removed from market; mine were purchased afterwards. i now have 2.5+ years in car, same setup as yours look and feel new; 25k miles on alignment to date - even on atlanta intown's terrible streets
whitelines, run them on my legacy. Its the tried and true, typically reliable, aftermarket answer to most of your suspension and chassis needs.
Woo hoo! congrats on the buy, I'm sure you are going to love the parts, it really cleaned up the steering and suspension feel, and increased overall confidence in the car for me.
So I drove up from Warner Robins last Thursday and they were on my front doorstep I must say they are good quality and definitely not cheap like the videos and pictures online portray them. I installed them Friday night and got my alignment Saturday to the same specs as I had before F&R -2.0 camber and 0 toe. It is like night and day compared to before and I highly recommend these to anyone that has lowered their ride. They are undoubtedly worth the money I can't believe the difference they made in the handling of my car.