What is a Watt’s Linkage Kit and why do I need one?

A Watt’s linkage is a part of the rear suspension that provides a more consistent and stable lateral location to your entire rear end while cornering. With a Watt’s linkage kit we can not only help locate your rear end suspension and give you more predictable cornering, but allow you to quickly and easily fine tune the characteristics of your car to suit different tracks, conditions and even fuel loads.

Why is this necessary?

As the car moves through its full suspension travel, other parts such as the panhard bar, leaf springs and diagonal bars moving will cause the body to shift sideways over the rear end. 

Using two equal length bars with a central bell crank as a pivot a Watt’s linkage forces the body to move in a more even up and down motion following a central vertical line. By providing a consistent, centralised roll axis this helps create almost identical handling between the left and right-hand corners.

With a Race Products Watt’s linkage kit you can then easily fine tune the handling of your car by quickly and easily raising and lowering the rear roll centre. By moving the rear roll centre you can manipulate the car’s handling between understeer and oversteer in whatever way most suits your vehicle’s mass distribution, driving style and the track conditions.

A Watt’s linkage kit will also allow more adjustment and control over rear roll couple and roll stiffness, quick and accurate centering (or biasing) of the rear wheels and an improved transient response. 

All these features provide more consistent, precise, tune-able handling directly resulting in greater “trust” and faster lap times.

Watt’s Linkage movement animation courtesy Wikipedia

Panhard bar arc causing body to move over rear end