Starion Strut Questions

Burabuda · Post by **Burabuda** » Sun Nov 02, 2008 1:22 am

i'm in the process of lowering a 1975 colt and modding the suspension a bit for street and mild track use

i seem to recall somebody telling me that early starion struts/brakes were an easy upgrade for early colts

but the pics i've seen show a 2-bolt steering knuckle on the starion vs. a 3-bolt on the old colt. what's up with that?

also, can somebody do a quick measurement of the top strut tower bolt pattern of a starion?

somebody? anybody!

Burabuda · Post by **Burabuda** » Sun Nov 02, 2008 3:47 pm

yeah if we could just get a flatty owner to respond

i've posted this on a few other forums and had zero replies ...

completely the opposite than a nissan forum where you'd get a bunch of replies in minutes

Burabuda · Post by **Burabuda** » Sun Nov 02, 2008 10:20 pm

ok, i got a reply from matt on starquest forum who drives a flatty

apparently, both the wide and flatty use the two-bolt steering knuckle, so that's that

i guess the strut to keep a lookout for would be the challenger, assuming it has the 3-bolt knuckle like the early colts

the brakes on the challenger won't be all that big, but at least it will have the larger spindle

i'm moving forward on big brakes with my original struts. although they use the smaller spindle, i'm not going to be competing with it

re: starion camber plates, unfortunately, the bolt pattern of the starion strut hat is too large for the old colts, so i'm looking around at other makes/models to find a small triangular bolt pattern

nissan is close, but would require some slotting (which i'm loath to do)

Burabuda · Post by **Burabuda** » Sun Nov 02, 2008 11:18 pm

oh, well it's the bottom mounting that's the problem

old colts use 3-bolts but starions use 2 bolts

Burabuda · Post by **Burabuda** » Sun Nov 02, 2008 11:43 pm

you lost me ... are you talking about the upper or lower mounting?

dwlee · Post by **dwlee** » Tue Nov 04, 2008 5:24 am

The big problem with the Starion struts into a GA, GB or GC colt is that the king pin angle is different due to different lower arm lengths. This means that you will end up positive camber. The ball joint taper is the same, but you must use the colt ball joint so it fits in the colts lower arm.

Dave

Burabuda · Post by **Burabuda** » Wed Nov 05, 2008 12:15 am

ok, so the issue is still not settled
i'm not going to worry about it as i'm working with my original struts

nobody on the jnc forum seems to be willing or able to measure their strut top bolt pattern, so i'll have to research that myself. maybe go to the wreckers and bring a measuring tape ...

dwlee · Post by **dwlee** » Wed Nov 05, 2008 12:31 am

To see the effect on camber if you bolt a starion strut into a GA, GB, GC or any of the early Galant have a look at this GTO which had starion struts installed.

Not a good look!

Dave

Burabuda · Post by **Burabuda** » Wed Nov 05, 2008 10:06 am

ahh, pictures!

so how long did mitsi use this 3-bolt steering knuckle and on what cars?