Boxed Lower Arms +25mm
Our all new front control arm design is a fixed 25mm extended and features a fully boxed arm made from only 4 welded components, the Spherical mount, two main beam halves and the lower ball joint nose section. By keeping components to a minimum and maximizing formed metal, we've reduced welding, increased strength and can deliver an extremely strong arm without the higher cost that comes from lot of welding.
A lot of manufacturers tout "TIG" welding as the only way to fabricate, but we find they usually have poor engineering with welds on every corner. Mig welding can be hard to do consistently on outside corners, so they've made it difficult for themselves, and more expensive for you. You can use the "Best" process, but it doesn't compensate for bad designs. By moving the welds away from the high stress corners, we increase strength and dramatically increase the arms ability to take impacts with no worry of a corner weld splitting. Fabricating our way also significantly reduces heat in the material from extensive welding which causes it's own material stress and distortion. If you fold a cardboard box and tape the top and bottom shut right down the middle, it's quite a strong box, now cut the sides off and tape those back together. Which box do you want, the one with the formed sides or the one with taped sides?
We've used a replaceable Teflon lined spherical bearing for the chassis mounting point instead of a bushing. This is intended to keep deflection down and allow for good articulation of Caster. Typically when you pull arms forward to increase Caster, the inner rubber or Poly bushing will pinch on the corners and cause premature wear and possible failure. We've also used Stainless Steel spacers on the spherical to pass the main bolt through. This is not the place to use softer aluminum that can deform over time from the impacts front wheels can see. The stainless also ensures that any water and grime won't rust up and seize up the bolt, making it hard to service.
The outer ball joint is a factory type unit. They have greater articulation angles than heims and are sealed and greased. If you've ever had a factory car go 100K+ miles on a stock ball joint, you'll understand the benefits of using them, not to mention they're readily available at any auto parts store.
The 25mm extended length has become a commonly known standard. While we had made arms with the ability for more width, we found that we always came back to 25mm and wished we just had simple solid arm with long life components, so that's what we've made.
The arms can use any tension rod that mounts up to the factory lower control arm mounting points, such as our single rod OEM style adjustable tension rods. You can get plenty of Caster adjustment while maintaining an ultra simple design that has extremely low component wear and failure rate.
The arms are offered in either powder coat Emerald Metallic or powder coat Chrome. We also have matching adjustable tension rods.
Tube Lower Arms
Our innovative Tubular control arm design uses two easily replaceable/adjustable heims and massive taper adapter along with a proprietary tension rod to give you a big range of adjustment from stock track width up to +2" (50mm) wider per side.
With our unique design using two heims and a dual position tensions rod, you can maximize wheel clearance to the tension rod and chassis while keeping the tension rod axis of rotation in a reasonable range helping with alignment and Caster. If you've ever tried to do cut and welded stock lower arms, you know how bad it gets when the tension rod gets off axis.
We've also included new heim sway bar end links and incorporated steering stops. On our test car we were able to get just over 8 degrees of Camber at full arm extension with coil overs and camber plates.
While these arms are built to handle abuse, they are designed for primarily for track use. Daily driving is typically more abusive then track time due to the constant repetitive shock, exposure to prolonged vibration and road grit and debris. Yes, public roads can be worse then track time. Solid components such as heims and taper adapters do NOT absorb any of the constant vibration associated with daily driven road miles and can cause component failure and expedited wear. There's a reason factory parts for road use are fully sealed, greased and mounted on rubber.
The tube arms are complete with matching tension rods and all required hardware.
Things to know
Due to the combinations of steering arms, track width, steering rack and inner tie rods, you will need to adjust your inner or outer tie rod ends to match up. We have a few choices to help solve the problem. Our standard version Heim tie rods typically work up to +1.25" track width with either of our steering knuckles. The long version Heim Tie rods will work for +.75" to +2" with either of our steering knuckles. Both are figured with MX83 factory inner tie rods. For specific combinations, please contact us with your details via email. Check out our listing for steering arms and parts for tie rod options.
If you're still rocking those factory front tension rod bushings after 35 years, you may want to maintenance that situation. The additional load from a wider track will cause an increased possibility of failure. If you're bushings are still in reasonable condition without any cracks, you can use our inserts to fortify their lifespan and maintain suspension geometry. If they're cracked already, or you just plan to use the car a lot, it's best to do the full replacement bushings. Adding adjustable tension rods to the Boxed arms is a good idea as well to keep it all lining as new.
