nstrahan

Hey guys. I just wanted to share my recent experience with the SPC adjustable upper ball joints. Please let me know if this is posted in the wrong place.

Most buyers will note that SPC claims their product is only compatible with 17" wheels in the rear, but compatible with the AP1 16" wheels in the front.

THIS IS FALSE (AT LEAST) AS OF WHEN I PURCHASED MY BALL JOINTS 9/5/2018!!!

I followed this advice, and installed my AP1 wheels in the front, and this happened:


After about 2 months of fighting with SPC and Tire Rack, who sold me the ball joints, SPC finally tried it out on an AP1. Turns out they made some design changes and the ball joints they currently produce are no longer compatible.

So, buyer beware!!!! If you have SPC ball joints on your car and want to put on 16" wheels of any kind, I implore you to call SPC and check compatibility. Perhaps they can tell you if your joints were produced before the aforementioned design changes.

I hope this saves someone else the headache I went through!

Car Analogy

Thank you for posting this. This is the sort of information that makes this forum such a valuable resource.

The level of detail is appreciated as well. Kudos to you sir!

nstrahan

You are welcome!

I should also add that the SPC product is great, and I am sure the company meant no harm with this error. I just wanted to make sure users are aware and contact SPC when making wheel purchases.

B serious

Did they make them taller?

None of these companies do much REAL R&D. Which shouldn't be surprising.

Good info though.

nstrahan

Great question, that's the only thing I can think of that would make them interfere with the wheels. But they are already pretty damn short. I know they have had issues with the bolts backing out (or at least i've read that on this forum). They may have made the top plate thicker to help prevent this issue.

roel03

They also don't fit rear 17" TC105Ns. I shaved the top of mine to get it to fit.

jsaric

sh*t..

thanks for info

i bought them but haven't fitted them yet.

i bought Eibach ball joints, but on them is printed SPC.

i will check in 2 weeks then i get back

@ nstrahan - can you make picture of ball joint?

nstrahan

Sure thing! As you can see it was pretty boogered up.

Just make sure you call SPC. The ones you have might be compatible. The claimed that the joints worked with 16" at some point in time.

engifineer

my issue with them is they slip. For street use they are probably fine, but under hard cornering, I know multiple autocrossers who had issues with them slipping. i have a set that came with my car (in a set of spare control arms) that I never used because the previous user could never stop them from slipping. To the point they pretty much overtightened them to an extreme amount. They were on hoosiers, so this would happen less with street tires, but street tires have gotten a lot grippier over the years.

so, I cannot say from experience, but input from multiple people with them has kinda made me leary of using them for autocross.

nstrahan

This may have been the issue SPC fixed that has caused the interference. I ran them in a few autocrosses and had no slip issues. Granted, i'm only running 200 TW and i'm not a good driver, but increasing the grip length of the fastener would definitely prevent load loss and reduce slipping. And it would explain why they rub on 16"s now.