rrthorne8

in for a full package 08 s2000

s2000ellier

mmm

andrewhake

Beauties. Those Civics mentioned in the first post take an absolute beating at the track and have continued to do so for years. Definitely peaked my interest. I need to go for a ride in Mac's car sometime I think.

Jei any chance you have photos of the sphericals on your car that have seen the most use so far? Are they essentially maintenance free? How do you think they would handle the car getting airborne?

jei_s2k

Thanks for the kind words Andrew. Yes those Civic's do take a beating! You're welcome to test drive my car as well.

Great idea on taking photos of my 2 yr old sphericals. Give us a few days to do this. Yes they are essentially maintenance free. We've seen and have received recommendations from race teams who use a liquid Teflon spray lubricant like Tri-flow to wipe the bearings down with. This spray acts as an effective dust repellent sort of like what we use for bike chain lube. I have yet to wipe my set down. I'll be sure to take pics before I do any cleaning.

With regard to your question about getting airborne, assuming you're referring to control arm interference to the frame or bearing to misalignment spacer, these sphericals were designed to handle control arm travel far outside of what the average shock, bump rubber, sway bar, frame and tire limits. Our design used measurements from a stock S2000 to the average common bolt on's (various coilovers, sway bars, F/R RCA heights, rim & tire combos). Under compression, the tire will hit the frame before any control arm or bearing interference is realized. Likewise with droop, the shock and sway bar will limit the travel before interference. We recommend to everyone who purchases and installs our arms to perform a suspension travel test by removing the coil spring and sway bar and run arm through it's swing arc. You'll find the amount of travel to be absolutely ridiculous. So unless anyone plans to dump the car's frame on the ground with air ride or building a lifted baja trophy truck, I'm sure you'll have all the control arm travel you need.

With regard to bearing loads. The bearing's radial static limit load capacity range is spec'd in at 21,280 lbs. for UCA's to 41,960 lbs for FLCA Compliance. Lowest rated to highest rated.

MMisencik157

These are absolutely beautiful pieces and I have heard nothing but great things from everyone who has been testing them. My concern with sphericals has mainly been the durability but these seem to hold up very well. I am very temped to upgrade to these

jei_s2k

Yes, durability is a common concern however, the information spread out there are likely from enthusiasts who have tried poor quality bearings and off the shelf units. Some require a high tonnage press to press into the arm. We don't hear much from professional race teams because most of them take it upon themselves to machine them, one-off and purchase high quality spherical bearings and rod ends. We are now providing these quality components for the S2000 exclusively. Consider this, if it requires high tonnage to press in a sleeved bearing, what sort of pressures are applied to the bearing itself?

The Kingpin/BlackTrax sleeves are fitted according to our spec which we've determined works. What I can say is that our sleeves are not pressed in using high tonnage. This eliminates the possibility of the bearing getting "squeezed" or bound which can lead to excessive Teflon wear and galling resulting in loose bearings and/or intermittent binding moments though the swing arc.

We know machine shops have the capability to hold tight tolerances on steel. We aren't going re-invent the wheel by getting into spherical bearing manufacturing business. We leave that up to Aurora and New Hampshire Ball Bearing to supply us with consistent tolerances they hold for commercial, industrial and mil-spec markets. What we can control is the fit tolerance from bore to sleeve as well as the tolerance from sleeve to bearing. This is why we require the arms to be sent to us. So that we can control the fit tolerance, resulting in a higher quality, longer lasting part.

The aforementioned Civic has been subjected to 3 consecutive N.A.S.A Honda Challenge (full time) race seasons. We have yet to replace the bearings. A simple wipe is all we've given them.

Check out Kingpin's FB and homepage for more information. You'll see other people's comments which may help in your buying decision.

BlackTrax Performance

Here are status pictures of the Kingpin Machine sphericals on the 2 year test car. Pictures taken today. No cleaning since the install 2 years ago.

Front UCA




Front LCA Forward




Front LCA Compliance




Rear UCA




Rear LCA Foward




Rear LCA Shock




Rear LCA Rearward Disregard the washer on our prototype set. All the sets currently sold come with the proper width spacer.

andrewhake

Thanks Jei!

//steve\\

Awesome! Would there be issues with only doing one set of control arms vs all 4? I'm most interested in the spherical compliance bushing on the front lower arm.

BlackTrax Performance

As mentioned above, we would entertain two FLCA's which would include 2x Forward bearings, 2x Shock and 2x Compliance. Please PM if you're interested. We're putting in an order for components at the end of this week. Thanks.