cegha

Hey guys, haven't posted or really been on the site in ages. Haven't done much to my car in the last year or 2. Got a bug up my *** & want to do a few things. Few months ago I ordered new drilled and slotted rotors & had already had new pads for over 6 months & had been meaning to change my pads out as I could tell braking was starting to get noticeably worse & also wanted to replace rotors with drilled & slotted as I love the look & rotors are supposed to be replaced or turned with pad install.

I'll have to clean up the wheels & get some pics, but I got the e-lines from R1concepts.com. They look top quality construction wise & much better than OEM. Got the new rotors & pads on this week. Anyways, while working on the fronts I looked at my tie rod. My driver side tie rod rubber boot is busted open & even the yellow bushing inside looks busted apart. I've been having bad vibrations in my steering wheel for months & figured it needed an alignment (which is does) & now I also know I need a new outer tie rod. Checked passenger side & that rubber boot is starting to crack & part of the rubber is already broke in half, so that one might as well get replaced too.

Now I want to lower car in the future & was looking at replacement tie rod ends, but after reading a bump steer kit is nice to have once car is lowered. I'm willing to spend the extra money on the Steeda bump steer kit to replace the OEM tie rod ends. Now because there is no rubber and bushing they would never wear out like the oem design correct? Do you just lube/oil them every now and then to keep them going? What is recommend maintenance on bump steer kits, like x amount of miles for oil/lube or x amount of months in between?

I hear people say that when installing bump steer kit you should also install the Steeda x5 ball joints. Right now i'm only concerned with fixing my busted outer tie rods, lowering the car will be within the next year or so. For just fixing tie rod situation & leaving stock springs, shocks/struts, & everything else would x5 ball joints be needed? After further reading I believe it’s NOT recommended to install x5 ball joints if car isn’t lowered. Can anyone confirm this?

Like I said I just changed pads & rotors with help of a friend & it wasn't bad. Bump steer kit looks like easy install. Anyone done bump steer kit install & could comment on difficulty of install? Looked over AM.com install tutorial & it seems easy. I don't think mine would be stuck on too bad. Says they can be tapped off with a hammer. Only 42K miles on my car. I also have some PB Blaster, I used it on rotors and rotors fell off when removing caliper retainer brackets, so that should get the old tie rod ends off pretty easily.

I believe I would still see a slight performance/handling difference in regards to bumps and stuff with bump steer kit vs stock OEM tie rod ends?

Now that I see how bad the tie rod end is I want to get this done ASAP. I don't know how the driver tie rod hasn't snapped and killed me yet. I have done 100mph+ numerous times with that thing in that condition not even knowing it. Now i'm scared to even drive the car at 45mph, lol. Thanks for any help on this.

thuxel

I used the Steeda bumpsteer kit, but mine is lowered.

cegha

Well I placed order for the Steeda bump steer kit. I tried searching as much as I could & didn't see anything saying you couldn't run a bump steer kit on stock ride height. I mean it's really just an adjustable tie rod end, that should be able to easily be adjusted to the stock tie rod spec when getting my alignment done.

They just look much beefier & won't wear out. I will report back on how well install goes & if there are any problems after, as car will be drove straight for an alignment after I get them on.

whosniffedme

My car isn't lowered and I'm running the Steedas. I definitely got less bumpsteer, but after installing them I felt a little more disconnected from the steering, not sure if anyone else experienced that. Not too difficult of an install, I would just give yourself a day in case you run into complications.

cegha

Can you explain what you mean by feeling "disconnected"? Well that's good it does improve bump steer without anything else being done, so that will be nice. Yeah I plan to do this on a day off when I have a full day to dedicate to the install. I'll let you know how mine feel after I get them on.

cegha

Got the tie rods (bump steer kit) installed last night & got an alignment done on the car today. The steering wheel feels a little stiffer to turn, mabye rods need breaking in. Yes these do work on the car with all other suspension components stock. You just don't use any washers. You install all the washers UNDERNEATH the ball joint part of the tie rod end. Guys at my local shop were a little unfamiliar with a bump steer kit. I brought along the instruction sheet from Steeda that came with them. That helped them with adjusting them & once they figured it out it was easy.

I would recommend getting these done lowered or not. My stock tie rod ends were trashed with 43K miles on one & the other had been previously replaced around 20K miles ago & the rubber on that one was already cracked open. These will never wear out & provide better handling of the car, & will provide adjustability once the car is lowered.

Writing a review for american muscle, with some installation tips to decrease install time. Once I figured everything out, the other side took 30 mins or less to get done.

whosniffedme

Good that everything worked out well for you. Do you have that disconnected feeling I mentioned? It's sorta hard to explain without having your hands on the steering wheel, but like when I installed mine everything was much more fluid but I had less input feel and when I turned it sorta felt like the car was steering itself.