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1G Issues with car pulling to one side when on the brakes hard

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talon77

15+ Year Contributor
254
100
Sep 12, 2004
annapolis, Maryland
Hey All,

Just wanted to pick your thoughts on my situation. My dedicated roadcourse car has developed a weird brake-pull issue that I am noticing within the past year, that I've never noticed before. At the track or on the road, when I'm on the brakes medium-to-hard, the car pulls very aggressively to the right. The car exhibited the pull behavior at my last track outing slowing down after the front straights at around 130mph and it was kind of *puckering*. Has anyone experienced this on their dsm before?

Background:
My mods are in my profile. In attempt to fix this, so far I've replaced all (4) brake calipers and (while I was at it) I also installed the 3g MC. The car pulled to the right before the new parts and continues to do so now. Relatively fresh brake bleed, new tires, newish alignment and the car still pulls. The old tires wore relatively evenly and the brake pads wear evenly at the front from left side to the right side (even though the pads suffer from pad taper on both front sides, but they are still even between left to right). Rear pads wear evenly between left and right as well. The brake sliders are in good shape and well lubricated. The only things brake-related that haven't been replaced are the front (14-year old though) stainless flex brake lines (rear lines are new) and the proportioning valve, but I have no reason to suspect either of those things. There is minimal brake "drag" that I can detect when I spin the wheel by hand when the car is lifted.

I called Baer brakes (I have their big brake kit) asking about this issue and the tech responded that 99% of these type of brake pull issues are related to worn out SUSPENSION parts (where suspension/pull issues are magnified severely under hard braking). Suspension-wise my car has 1-year old rebuilt JIC shocks/struts, no detectable play in inner/outer tie rods by shaking wheels or pulling the rods. No detectable play in front lower balljoints. The suspension bushings were swapped out to poly bushings years ago and I don't detect any play in them either. While in the air, I pried around the front lower control arm for play in the control arm bushings, but no detectable play there either. No weird play in the front wheel bearings either.

I recall years ago, when I replaced the poly bushings for the front lower control arms, that the rear shaft at the control arm (where the big marshmallow-looking bushing goes) looked a little corroded and not smooth. I suspected maybe the corrosion got worse maybe causing some play, so I pried around that area with a pry bar, but again no detectable play. I may just buy a new set of 1aauto control arms and install poly bushings on them and call it a day to rule out the control arm and ball joint, but I'm starting to run out of ideas besides blindly buying replacement parts or another new set of calipers (I would upgrade, of course, but that's beside the point here). Thoughts from anyone that has experienced brake pull before, and how you fixed it?
 
My car did this and it ended up being my hub centric rings were gone. Just an idea. Probably not your issue but just thought I’d throw that out there. I never paid attention if my rings where in when removing wheels. Then I looked and one was missing. Again just my situation. Good luck
 
My car did this and it ended up being my hub centric rings were gone. Just an idea. Probably not your issue but just thought I’d throw that out there. I never paid attention if my rings where in when removing wheels. Then I looked and one was missing. Again just my situation. Good luck

Thanks for the reply, but I just checked... the hub centric rings are still there, no dice. I didn’t even think about that, so I appreciate the suggestion. Any other ideas are welcomed from those that have experienced this.
 
Do you have the little brace on the subframe right next to the north/south brace you need to take off to remove the trans? I think it has 5 bolts that hold it on.

Without that piece the subframe will crack and do exactly what you’re describing.

You must be logged in to view this image or video.
It’s not circled in the pic but you can see it clearly.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Thanks Donniekak, yeah I definitely have that 5-bolt brace for sure. I just ordered a new set of front control arms with fresh ball joint and poly bushings from energy suspension and whiteline. I may also pick up fresh outer tie rod ends to rule out any remainder suspension issues (those components could use refreshening anyways so I don’t mind). Hoping that does the trick to eliminate any slop. In the meantime, keep the ideas coming if you got them, in case I’m missing anything. Thanks
 
Did you figure this out?
Not yet. I’ve been meaning to do some upgrades anyways so I went ahead and bought new CTSV calipers, new front control arms with new poly caster bushings and ball joints but I haven’t had a chance to install any of it yet. I will make sure I update this thread when I figure this out.
 
Not yet. I’ve been meaning to do some upgrades anyways so I went ahead and bought new CTSV calipers, new front control arms with new poly caster bushings and ball joints but I haven’t had a chance to install any of it yet. I will make sure I update this thread when I figure this out.
Thank you I also had issues ended up being we had a hose collapsing fixed the problem.
 
I was going to post on your thread the day you started it.
Glad you replaced your hoses (all of them), stainless will take longer but they do frail on the inside, just as the rubber ones, come on 14 years. I really hope you replaced all of them, even the stainless with all their benefits, should be replaced every couple of years in a track car.
 
Update, I replaced the 14 year old stainless hoses with fresh new ones during the off season and just brought the talon out of hibernation and off the jack stands….and it still pulls the same to the right.... like a mother. I can get it to pull easily, even at 40mph if I'm on the brakes hard. I may consider replacing the A-arm bushings but I gotta say I have a hard time bringing myself to do it because there doesn't seem to be any abnormal play in the front control arm or balljoints area when I pry on it, but I'm running out of ideas. Still thinking about what to do next to try to fix this.
 
I just went out and check and confirmed that my left rear parking brake does not work at all. Notice when I pull on the parking brake pulley assembly that the left side of the pulley gets pulled all the way up (because it has no resistance since it doesn't work), but the right side stays behind? I don't have any experience with playing with the automatic parking brake adjuster inside the rear caliper mechanism, but I wonder if that affects the rear braking performance at all. I downplayed it before because I can kinda see both rear calipers sliding a little (ie: piston moving correctly) when I bled the rears so I just assumed they were both working correctly, but now I'm wondering if the malfunctioned auto adjuster can be causing the pull. Both rear calipers are fairly new reman calipers but I guess that might not be saying much because they are remanufactured. You guys think a bad rear auto adjuster on the left could cause brake pull to the right that is only experienced when I brake hard. When I brake "normally", the car stops just fine, no pulling at all.
 

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