'90 240sx sudden turning radius decrease

[silencer.1]

I'm having a hard time determining the cause of my problem so I'll throw out the symptoms and see what you might think it could be.

Under normal driving and braking conditions my car drives normally, no bad tendencies, but in high speed cornering and hard braking, it all changes. When taking right hand corners at high speed (aka, 75-80mph in a 45mph curve), the turning radius will suddenly decrease. It turns normally when I turn left. This leads me to believe it is a problem with the front left assembly since it only happens when the weight is transfered to that tire. Also when I brake hard, the car wants to turn right, but only to a point. If I turn the wheel 20 degrees to the left, it corrects this until I slow down and the stress is lowered, then I wants to steer normally again.

Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

Edit: Forgot to add that there is a very small leak in the rack on that side and I'm ever so slowly losing power steering fluid.

[dareo]

First place i'd check is the tie rod ends. I went in for an alignment and they wouldnt do it cause i had bad tie rod ends on my '89. I ordered up some TEIN Tie rods and put em on, problem solved.

[NISTECH]

tension rod bushings are smoked. Bet you get a loud clunk when you hammer the brakes at about 2 miles per hour too huh??

Not to be a prude but you are driving hella wreakless for a stock vehicle. consider getting your suspension dialed in before driving like that. Safe for you and anyone else you could possibly kill should something snap under the car.

[silencer.1]

Thanks for the info NISTECH and dareo. I have a second '90 240 that I am using as a parts car since the engine is toasted and it's an automatic. And you're right NISTECH, I do get a clunk at low speed braking.

I'm also aware that I'm driving overly hard on a stock vehicle and I won't try to justify it since I probably can't. I'll just say that I only drive like that out in the wide open country (BFE) and the falken's that are holding me to the ground work great. I won't be continuing driving like that until I fix it saturday.

[NISTECH]

Thats definitly your tension rod then. When I said get your suspension dialed I was reffering to upgrading it for better grip when hugging a corner that hard. Like tein suspension or something along those lines.

[silencer.1]

Well, I got it fixed. Took about an hour to do with all hand tools. I really wish i had an impact wrench for that stuff. Anyways, it seemed my problem was the bushing so i just swapped it out and now it works fine. I can dive into corners with no problems. I just threw an extra set of 215's on the rear end and it seems to hold the croners even better than before. Thanks for all the help guys.

Oh, just out of curiosity, what's wrong with the stock supension? A set of strut bars and new shocks pretty eliminated all understeer and it holds the road like a champ.

[hotshot240sx]

well i have tokico blues...with suspension tech. springs, tower braces, stabalizer bars...and believe meeh...its a whole new ball game..makes stock suspension look "wreckless"

[NISTECH]

What I have seen more recently on 240's and 300z's Is the adjustable tension rods with ball mounts at the end. Those I believe would make that cars cornering ability 100 times tighter.