Call me a noob, but spent 4 hours on Tie Rod today

[dongoesby]

I'm in a learning process of hobbying in working on my own car (S14). After numberous errors and trails for removing the old stock tie rods and installing the new SPL tie rods, I spent another 6 hour on adjusting the toe.

There are couple interesting, yet weird, problems come up. First of all, the right wheel is more "toe in" than the left wheel when the left and the right tie rods are preset to the same length (approx 13-1/4", stock length). The result in a test drive is a lot of front tire roar when turning (even in a slight turn), and a lot of free play on the streering wheel. The problem turned a lot better by solely shortening the right tie rod length by 1/8". It killed the front tire roar and the free play of the steering wheel. However, the car leans toward the left now.

Second, the SPL tie rods w/ z33 inner provide a major increase in steering agle (steering ratio). While the steering ratio only change when changing the privot point, the length of the tie rods can only change toe; however, my right wheel seem to get more steering angle than the left. The right wheel is noticebly closer to the tension rod and inner wall when fully turned (observed while the car is lifted up). It even rubs the tension rod in the beginning when the right tie rods were set up 1/4" longer (more toe-in).

Third, the car makes a sound when I turned the wheel to limit and the engine sounded stalling at that same time.

1) Base on the problem above, is something wrong with my car?

2) I have done all the measurement by eyeball. I turned the knuckle a lot when the car is turned off, is the steering porportion messed up?

3) I tried to match the steering wheel by turning the knuckle to the limt (ie full )right, then turn on the engine on, then turn the steering wheel full right. Is this able to synchronize the steering with the wheel to the steering wheel?

4) Theoretically, suppose both the left and right tie rods be the same length?

Possible solution I can think of: I have installed a spacer (1/4" thick) to the inner tie rod, but I did not remove the locking plate. Would that be the problem of causing different steering angle for left and right wheels?