I was wondering if anyone has installed the tubular control arms or bump steer kit from Held or RCC, and if you have what are your thoughts of these items.
Was gonna post a link to my thread but realized Sourmug already did. Thx.
I'm still in the process of grinding down the second spring perch. I think I stated in my build thread that I'm fairly disappointed at the amount of grinding I had to do to get them ground down to size. I've kinda held off on finishing the rest of the install on the suspension since I've got other things to do first (Wiring my garage for a compressor and welder which I got for Xmas). If everything goes well I'll probably have one side installed this weekend. I'm a little concerned on the travel of the coilover shocks. To be honest I'm sure it's more paranoia than anything. I'm a strong beleiver in Murphy's law.
The bump steer kit isn't really much more than modified rear inner tie rods to change the pivot point. I was reading an older thread the other day that mentioned that they welded the blocks in place. I went out and put the bump steer kit in place on my engine cradle and agree that they should probably be welded in place. If you buy the bumpsteer kit you'll see what I mean. I'll probably get pictures of that on my thread by this weekend.
IP: Logged
01:14 AM
Electrathon Member
Posts: 5236 From: Gresham, OR USA Registered: Dec 2002
That's on our car that we welded the blocks in place.
The blocks are just extensions of the old pivot points outwards and bolt on to the existing mounts, then they use shorter tie rods. Just looking at it, to me, it appeared that would put a lot of leverage on the mounts so we milled a steel plate to fit snugly between the block and cradle and welded the two together.
I don't know if this is a problem or not, there may not be enough force on that block to cause any problems, it just looked to me like a better way to do it.
John Stricker
quote
Originally posted by Soelasca:
The bump steer kit isn't really much more than modified rear inner tie rods to change the pivot point. I was reading an older thread the other day that mentioned that they welded the blocks in place. I went out and put the bump steer kit in place on my engine cradle and agree that they should probably be welded in place. If you buy the bumpsteer kit you'll see what I mean. I'll probably get pictures of that on my thread by this weekend.
The whole reason for tubular arms is increased strength and decreased weight. But on HMS site they try to defend the decreased strength of their tubular arms by saying that using the much softer metal turns it into some sort of crumple-zone. I don't care what their excuses are, their tubular arms are weak and prone to bending. I would worry about the weight as well. My pieco-of-$hit HMS drop spindles weighed twice as much as the OEM spindles, more than negating any improvement to be had from aluminum racing calipers.
As I said earlier. I'm a little disappointed at the amount of grinding I have to do to get the spring perches to fit. However the springs and shocks LOOK incredible. I think I posted on my build thread that I'm a little worried about the travel distance of the shocks. I'll only really know when I get them installed.
As for the rears. I bought the WCF KYB struts and their performance springs. Haven't put those together yet.
For all out racing the expensive addon parts may have some advantage. For daily driving or even occasional SCCA runs just replacing the shocks and struts can do a huge amount and it is fairly cheap. You'd be amazed what a few simple and relatively cheap things will cure. I know I was.
Controling wheel motion automatically controls bump steer. If the wheel only jumps 1 inch instead of 4 over a bump you get that much less bump steer as well. Better shock/struts can also control body roll under certain conditions reducing bump steer effect from that source. At the least they will slow body roll and make bump steer more managable.
Current Gabriel and Monroe premium gas units are better than any of the OE ones and that's likely including the WS6 shock/struts. Both are available thru most parts stores and don't cost much compared to other option. Even with other options you still need shocks and struts so you may as well try shocks/struts alone as a start.
Putting polyurethane or metal cradle bushings in an 84-87 will also help. Rubber in the cradle was a bad idea from the start. Even GM did away with it for 88. (Likely from cost as much as handling improvement.) BTW... You should install poly in the cradle dry. It will never move enough to squalk.
Of course all this assumes you don't have other problems like bad bushings balljoints or alignment. Once you change the struts you'll want an alignment just to be safe. (See my cave. You can often get the new strut settings close to the old ones but you should still have alignment done.)
------------------ The only thing George Orwell got wrong was the year...
I plan on changing the worn suspension parts as needed, more than likely all the balljoints, tierod ends, struts and stocks, I was just doing some research into tubular control arms for my 85 GT. So I thought of asking some of you here to see what your thoughts and experiances were. I figure these parts are made for a reason and they all can't be for racing. IMHO aftermarket performace parts are there for people like me who just want to make there car perform the best that it can. So what is wrong with that, there are thousands of people who replace even good OEM parts with aftermarket performance parts to get the car to corner and stop like a race car, but never race or even drive fast all the time. Sometimes it is just the knowledge that you can.
I just wanted to know if anyone has first hand knowledge about RCC, Held, Carrera or Hal parts.
For all out racing the expensive addon parts may have some advantage. For daily driving or even occasional SCCA runs just replacing the shocks and struts can do a huge amount and it is fairly cheap. You'd be amazed what a few simple and relatively cheap things will cure. I know I was.
What he said. I'm in the process of installing Eibachs and Tokicos, and poly bushings. I'll take that over tubular arms any day, until I learn tool & die and make a set of my own that I know will be reliable. But I guess if you want to throw away money and maybe even reliability just for looks, to each his own...
[This message has been edited by Hulk (edited 01-12-2005).]
Well if you think a tool and die person would be good at making tubular control arms maybe you should stick with just stocks/sturts and springs. What is needed is a good fabricator, and that is really what I am trying to find out is who is better at fabricating tubular control arms, Held or RCC, and if anyone knows anything about Carrera Springs and shocks and how good they are. Also if anyone has first hand knowledge on the items I mentioned, Carrera, Hal/QA1 and so on.
Most of the buildups on suspension that I have read start by throwing out the stamped metal control arms and replace them with tubular control arms. To me if you throw on good shocks, struts and springs on to the same old control arms is the same as building a great house on a weak foundation. In other words your final product is only as good as the weaks link.
IP: Logged
08:46 PM
PFF
System Bot
Jan 13th, 2005
Soelasca Member
Posts: 455 From: Edmonton Alberta Canada Registered: Sep 2004
Well, I'm closer to getting all my front suspension together. Go the hubs and wheels on tonight. Jacked the car down and let it rest on the ground to see how it looks and feels. I'm satisfied so far with it. I had some paranoia about the shocks bottoming out, but I'm fairly confident now that they won't be doing that. Pictures will be posted on my build thread as soon as my website is up and running again.
As far as the argument for tubular control arms go. Here's my two bits......
The reason why I chose to go with tubular control arms was strictly for looks. Obviously, I didn't want to get control arms that were lower quality than stock. I just didn't think those stock, stamped things looked too good for my project. I also wanted to go with coilover shocks in the front. This tubular setup from RCC allowed me to do that.
Well, if it's a skilled fabricator you are looking for, don't look to HMS. Like I mentioned above, my HMS drop spindles were a piece of crap in every category, quality of fabrication included. Not to mention that HMS refused to receive them back and refund my $2000 or give a credit for their pieces of crap. Look elsewhere.
IP: Logged
09:54 AM
TG oreiF 8891 Member
Posts: 776 From: Cleveland, Ohio; USA Registered: Aug 2004
Originally posted by techman2: and if anyone knows anything about Carrera Springs and shocks and how good they are.
porsche carrera shocks and springs.. sortof speaks for itself.. but they are pretty much a standard in the industry, and if they aren't good enough then upgrade to aftermarket porsche carrera shocks and springs because they are designed to race.
My stuff came from the current owner/managment. When I purchased my spindles, the brothers Held were still being kept on as "consultants" to the current owner, but it was wholly owned and operated by the same person who has it at the very moment. Nothing has changed, he is still using the same jigs, techniques, tools, etc. that the Held brothers were using. There were a lot of complaints about the quality of their stuff, too. Originally the tools, jigs, designs, etc. were out of Ryane, who it seems knew their stuff quite well, but they got out of the Fiero market and sold their stuff to the Held bros., who immediately set about screwing up the designs and sending out bad quality stuff. Sorry, but if you think things have changed there are plenty of threads showing pictures of the crap coming out of that business. Archie quit using them a looong time ago and DKOV posted pictures of a drop spindle/brake setup that would make you puke. If you can get ahold of the old Ryane stuff, go for it, but anything newer is bound to have serious safety and quality problems.
there is another thing that you can get out of tubular control arms that isn't mentioned yet I think and that is a slight overlength in the arms; that would move your 'kingpin inclination angle' farther out toward the centreline of the tire. Fiero fronts (84-87, anyway) don't have the greatest setup for scrub radius and doing this can help reduce or eliminate it. You would likely want to get custom or at least OTHER wheels to take advantage of it.
That is a worthwhile feature, and as a few other guys said, coilovers which opens up a lot of possibilities for spring rates and shock adjustability.
IP: Logged
08:03 PM
jsmorter1 Member
Posts: 674 From: Creston, Ohio Registered: Jun 2004
What he said. I'm in the process of installing Eibachs and Tokicos, and poly bushings. I'll take that over tubular arms any day, until I learn tool & die and make a set of my own that I know will be reliable. But I guess if you want to throw away money and maybe even reliability just for looks, to each his own...
You wouldn't happen to have the parts numbers for those tokicos?
there is another thing that you can get out of tubular control arms that isn't mentioned yet I think and that is a slight overlength in the arms; that would move your 'kingpin inclination angle' farther out toward the centreline of the tire. Fiero fronts (84-87, anyway) don't have the greatest setup for scrub radius and doing this can help reduce or eliminate it. You would likely want to get custom or at least OTHER wheels to take advantage of it.
That is a worthwhile feature, and as a few other guys said, coilovers which opens up a lot of possibilities for spring rates and shock adjustability.
yes, something I've been thinking about also. I was gonna have a buddy make me a pair of rear tubular controls arms, and move the balljoint position out 3/4" on them. nothing outragous.
yes, something I've been thinking about also. I was gonna have a buddy make me a pair of rear tubular controls arms, and move the balljoint position out 3/4" on them. nothing outragous.
don't want to hijack but: be aware that the 'centreline' for a new A arm is NOT going to be the 'middle' of the existing A arm when you lay it out on a bench; the existing A arm is installed on an angle (the cradle framework) so you don't want to follow a simple line up the middle of the A arm.
The other thing is to be sure that the strut doesn't get 'swung out' so far that it puts the bearing/hub assy on so much of an angle that you can't get your wheel aligned/adjusted (to a 'vertical' position) again. The strut will 'pull' the top of the upright inwards. Anyway something to check. gp
IP: Logged
03:53 PM
Pyrthian Member
Posts: 29569 From: Detroit, MI Registered: Jul 2002
yes, I saw the axle line is not the "middle" when I had them out to put the poly bushings in, when I started thinking about making them. and the angle, thats why I only want to go 3/4" - so not to increase that angle to much, or change the spring load to much, due to more leverage.
IP: Logged
05:37 PM
vinny Member
Posts: 1690 From: starkville MISSISSIPPI Registered: Mar 2003
If. just if someone wanted to make there own tubular control arms were could you find material for this project? Lowe's? Wal-Mart? What kind of tubing? Also, if someone could do the measuring and was good at writing instructions a do-it-yourself booklet on building your own drop spindles that would be great! Just a couple ideas.
Vinny
IP: Logged
11:57 PM
Jan 16th, 2005
Exotic Rida Member
Posts: 563 From: new orleans louisiana, now displaced to atlanta Registered: Jan 2004
If. just if someone wanted to make there own tubular control arms were could you find material for this project? Lowe's? Wal-Mart? What kind of tubing? Also, if someone could do the measuring and was good at writing instructions a do-it-yourself booklet on building your own drop spindles that would be great! Just a couple ideas.
Vinny
steel yards for the right quality steel tubeing it should have a spec # for carbon % and other stuff added in [alloy] to get the right mix of strenght vs flex vs hardness vs cracking vs rusting copy what steel speck # 's nascar and or roadracers use on their stuff
------------------ Question wonder and be wierd are you kind?
But I guess if you want to throw away money and maybe even reliability just for looks, to each his own...
