Quote Originally Posted by Greg Amy View Post
Got it. In that case, I'd agree that it's legal.

You have to understand that especially in the case of FWD it's very, very, very unusual to have struts like that. Most manufacturers, to improve production and decrease costs, will have separate strut and knuckle assemblies and the ball joints and and tie rods attach to the knuckles. The primary reason for this is that FWD knuckles also have to not only accommodate the strut, ball, joint, and tie rod attachments, but the drixe axle pass-through and wheel bearings assembly. Thus, it's much more cost-effective to build a separate casting (and it makes replacement struts very easy and cheap). In fact, with the noted exception of the Audi, I can't right off the top of my head think of another FWD car that does what's illustrated above...

Further note that if the tie rod and ball joint attach to the knuckle, changing the location of its attachment to the strut has zero effect on the suspension geometry; moving the strut up and down relative to the knuckle only affects the location of the piston rod and the position of its stroke within the bore. So, no geometry advantage.

I'd be all over redesigned front struts on the RX-7...and I even might go so far as to suggest it not get the strut subtractor... - GA
BMW's also use a forged knuckle, which bolts to the strut and a ball joint pressed in the control arm. The solution from James Clay is to replace the ball joint with a spherical bushing (sound familiar) and put spacers between the knuckle and the control arm to regain the correct angle. This neccetates a kit to correct for bump steer. I'd argue that it's perfetly legal under free bushing material.

As for Tristian, you can slot the holes in the rear, but not the front. That should get you a little more that ecentric bushings would.