PRI 2017: Adjustable Floater Dials In Better Cornering

Floating rearends are beneficial for performance cars, because they divorce vehicle load from the axles and give them one job — transferring the power to the pavement. These setups also deliver more consistent brake feel at the edge by reducing brake piston knock-back under cornering. Now Strange Engineering offers an Adjustable Alignment Street Floater Kit that retains those benefits and allows corner-carving enthusiasts to dial in their cars.

This adds the ability to change the alignment and make the car faster. — Jeff Capek, Strange Engineering

“It’s weld-on flange like a floater spindle or housing end, but there’s toe plate that allows you to adjust from zero toe to 1/16 total toe or 1/8 total toe in,” Jeff Capek, Engineering and Design at Strange Engineering, told us. “They are interchangeable spindle ends that deliver anywhere from a half degree of negative camber to 2 degrees of negative camber. That allows the user to change their alignment to gain traction in cornering and straight-line stability.”

For enthusiasts who spend time on the autocross and road course fighting for every second on the track, this level of adjustability will definitely come in handy.

“The purpose of the original Street Floater was to eliminate piston knock-back so the brakes feel much more confident in an application with high cornering loads,” Jeff said. “And a floater spindle offers more safety thanks to the strength and stiffness. Now this adds the ability to change the alignment and make the car faster.”

The team at ABC Performance helped develop this adjustable kit, thus the company will have the exclusive rights to selling this unit for the first year.

“We have had good results with Tony Grzelakowski at ABC running it in his Chevelle,” Jeff said. “He has constantly made the car faster and more competitive at various autocross events.”

Though the new adjustable system proved out on a classic muscle car, these systems will work on more modern cars as well.

“The Street Floater is ABS compatible and it actually uses a Mustang sensor — ’05-’10 or ’11-’14. For the Mustang it can be nice because it is a direct bolt-in and plug and play with the ABS,” he added. “We actually have a guy in our shop with a ’13 Mustang and he is running that on the street. He road races it and it’s been an improvement as far as how it feels in the corners.”

The Adjustable Alignment Street Floater Kit should be available in the spring of 2018 and you can learn more about Strange’s floater setups right here.