Hancha Rear Toe Link

[akuhei]

Okay, now that there has been a ton of engineering discussion about this, I have a quick question that will go back to the basics and possibly help people like myself that are new to sports cars, upgrading, suspension, and more. What is a "rear toe link" and why should I be interested in replacing/upgrading mine?

[DEnd]

Originally Posted by akuhei

Okay, now that there has been a ton of engineering discussion about this, I have a quick question that will go back to the basics and possibly help people like myself that are new to sports cars, upgrading, suspension, and more. What is a "rear toe link" and why should I be interested in replacing/upgrading mine?

It's the link that determines what your rear toe is. If you track your car then you would be interested in it because it makes adjusting the toe (in or out) a lot easier.

[Hancha Group]

Originally Posted by akuhei

Okay, now that there has been a ton of engineering discussion about this, I have a quick question that will go back to the basics and possibly help people like myself that are new to sports cars, upgrading, suspension, and more. What is a "rear toe link" and why should I be interested in replacing/upgrading mine?

As DEnd said it is used to align your toe setting. The adjustments become easier and you can get rid of the lobed eccentric toe bolt for a standard 14mm bolt which is a lot easier and cheaper to replace than the OEM piece.

A few side benefits from our design is if the rod end wears out, you can just replace the rod end for about $20 dollars (which you may, but don't have to buy from us; it's a QA1 AM part) rather than having to buy a whole new toe link from Subaru/Scion/Toyota if the ball joint or bushing goes bad. Our design also eliminates the rubber bushing for better suspension articulation because we don't rely on bushing deflection to damp vibrations. So NVH may increase slightly, but for the toe link it is minimal. If you have coilovers, I doubt you'll notice.

[SubieNate]

If one has a mixed use daily/weekend track car, is it advisable to run heim joints in the suspension?

[Hancha Group]

Originally Posted by SubieNate

If one has a mixed use daily/weekend track car, is it advisable to run heim joints in the suspension?

The NVH increase is negligible. If you're worried about bearing longevity QA1 Endura rod ends use a self-lubricating, self-sealing Teflon/Kevlar race. From QA1's brochure, "In addition to providing added strength, the injection molded race won't 'pound out' like traditional PTFE (Teflon) liners, increasing the longevity of your rod ends." I know a lot of dirt track guys use QA1 without ill effect, so it is a well-proven, quality product. However, if you want extra protection against the possibility of dirt getting into the bearing, we can add a rubber rod end boot as an option. It would be about $30.

Please remember, this is an off-road product designed for motorsport. However, we know people will daily their cars no matter what we say, therefore, we have kept that in mind when designing the product. We try to be prepared for all scenarios, including collisions. We take your safety very seriously.

[King Tut]

Originally Posted by akuhei

Okay, now that there has been a ton of engineering discussion about this, I have a quick question that will go back to the basics and possibly help people like myself that are new to sports cars, upgrading, suspension, and more. What is a "rear toe link" and why should I be interested in replacing/upgrading mine?

The OEM rear toe adjusters only provide so much adjustment especially once you start lowering the car and messing with your camber arms to set the camber. These combined with camber arms will give you full adjustability of your rear cabmer and toe.

Isn't Whiteline coming out with some rear toe links? Are they out yet?

[OrbitalEllipses]

Originally Posted by King Tut

Isn't Whiteline coming out with some rear toe links? Are they out yet?

Camber arms and toe links still aren't on their website, but there's vendors that have them on their own websites despite having no stock as of yet.

[AZFA20]

Originally Posted by OrbitalEllipses

Camber arms and toe links still aren't on their website, but there's vendors that have them on their own websites despite having no stock as of yet.

Some do have them in stock (Toe links) because I have em on my car

[Hancha Group]

Originally Posted by King Tut

The OEM rear toe adjusters only provide so much adjustment especially once you start lowering the car and messing with your camber arms to set the camber. These combined with camber arms will give you full adjustability of your rear cabmer and toe.

Isn't Whiteline coming out with some rear toe links? Are they out yet?

The Whiteline kit is available. The MSRP on their product is $400, but you can probably get it for about 10-15% less depending on your preferred vendor and what their discount structure is. Whiteline makes a good product, I have quite a few Whiteline products on my personal track car.

Now, you may be asking why our product costs so much. There are a few reasons for this:

1. Materials. The Whiteline turnbuckle is aluminum. While I cannot be certain, typically if a manufacturer does not specify the alloy, it is 6061, otherwise they'd advertise the fancier, more expensive alloy. We use a trade secret aerospace grade alloy that is more expensive than 6061 but 20-25% stronger. They use polyurethane bushings and a mild steel ball joint. We use aluminum rod ends and a trade secret high-strength stainless steel. All our materials are fully traceable and the supplier supplies metals that go into IndyCar and NASCAR teams.

2. Volume. We do not produce the kind of volume Whiteline does. They are a large manufacturer and can afford to buy hundreds at a time and have it sit in a warehouse. Unfortunately, we do not have the capital at the time.

3. Manufacturing. We produce everything in the US by quality assured manufacturers. Our parts are made by an ISO 9001 certified manufacturer in Indiana, QA1 is also an ISO 9001 certified manufacturer. We could export our production to an overseas ISO certified manufacturer and maintain quality, but being in America it's easier to communicate with manufacturers, do transactions in the same currency, faster lead time, no long shipping times to fill containers, no expensive air freight, no customs hassles. Nothing against enterprising countries, but America is losing manufacturing to developing nations, so we try to do our part to support our country.

Now here are some benefits to our product over all other products on the market:

1. Strength. It will take about 20,000 lbf before the turnbuckle will buckle. That's the equivalent of a 7G crash directly through the tie rod. At 50,000 lbf of bearing load, the shank doesn't even break a sweat. The rod end is rated to 8600 lbs, but we can upgrade to a heavy duty aluminum rod end for extra money and a few extra grams of weight that's rated at 19300 lbs. Or we can swap to a chromoly rod end rated to 18000 lbs which is twice the weight.

2. Corrosion resistance. We're using clear anodized aluminum and stainless steel for protection against the elements. We're not going to say it won't ever rust, but it offers much better protection than any other product on the market, all of which use alloy steel. While this product is meant for motorsports, we have considered people who use their cars on a daily basis and live in the salt belt.

3. Stiffness. Our toe link is stiffer than the OEM toe link and uses spherical bearings, offering better feedback for the driver because it eliminates deflection in the link and bushings.

4. Low weight. Our toe link is probably the strongest one on the market, but still manages to weigh in under 1.5 lbs. It may not be the lightest on the market, but it has excellent strength-to-weight and stiffness-to-weight ratios.

5. Rebuildable/Modular. We use a standard 5/8-18 RH and LH thread rod end. If a rod end ever wears out, you can buy it from QA1 directly or from the rod end manufacturer of your choice; you're not obligated to buy it from us. With other manufacturers, if a ball joint or bushing wears out, you will need to buy it from them and it may end up being much more expensive than the QA1 AM rod end we have selected.

Another notable: while we are not currently offering a shank with bump steer adjustment, for a small design fee, we can supply you with the CAD model and 2D drawing according to your specification and you can have a local machinist make it for you. However, we may offer it as an option in the future.

Our product may not be for everyone, but it will work great for everyone, whether you daily the car or use it only on the track. We spent a lot of time, thought, and care into designing and manufacturing our product. Nothing against our competitors, but we believe it is the most comprehensively engineered toe link available on the market.

[Hancha Group]

For those worried about using aluminum for the link, it's about the same thickness as the axle. These things are engineered to take anything you can throw at it