sideways on accel/decel
 

i've always noticed that when weight is transfered to the rear of my fd, the nose pulls left, weight to front nose pulls right. never thought much of it until it got real cold the last few days and it became much more pronounced. the pull is visible when looking over the hood of the car, and has a very unsettling effect on the car when accelerating/deccellerating in a turn. what causes this and how can i stop it? oh, car is stock with recent rebuild and 130k on chassis. don't believe the shocks have ever been replaced.

alignment would do that ;) uneven tire wear as well

replace the shocks for frick's sake - that's more than likely the culprit. Torque is what does it (I assume that when you decel it's while it's still in gear) - that's why you see drag cars lift one wheel off the ground when the accelerate hard... the engine is trying to turn the car over.

First step: check your tire pressures.

-Max

if it were tire or alignment problems, would it not pull one way all the time? with the wheel in the same position, the difference between accelerating and decelleration produces a noticeable change in the direction the car travels. its as if i turned the wheel an inch in that direction.

Listen to Max & check your tire pressure. If the pressure is ok then you could have lots of slop in the bushings changing the rear toe angle under accel/decel making the car basically crab...

when u acclerate the rear adds some to where the car is going when u brake its mostly your front end thats steering. unless your brakes are lockign up diffrently.

When you brake, the front end comes down, creating a specific wheel alignment. When you accelerate, the front end comes up creating a different situation. Either way, the car should go straight. Tire pressure is easy enough to check. Start there. That probably won't fix your problem. An inspection by a competent alignment mechanic should tell you if there are worn parts, or a bad alignment, or both.

The shocks can't be any good with that many miles.

Adam

Go with Max. I discovered a (fortunately) slow leak in one of my back tires because when it lost enough air pressure, the tire's rolling radius shortened and this created unequal torque. On even light acceleration / de-acceleration the car wanted to turn back and forth exactly as described by tulin.

thanks for all the info guys. i will check the tires in the morning and go from there.

how can u drive your car and not remotely know what your tire pressure is, it shoudlbe at teh very least be cheked weekly!

This is true----of course you can get obsessive about it---like me and install one of these----------->
http://www.tirerack.com/accessories/...artire_all.jsp
:D :D :D