I have the TC Design upper control arms. While they seem straightforward enough, I cannot get them to fit without rubbing. Before I removed the stock arm, I set the TCD piece up there and picked what I thought was the orientation that most matched the center line of the stock balljoint. I installed them as they arrived from TCD, with each heim joint about a turn and a half from fully 'in' When I put everything together, the inside of the arms touched the shocks (KW v3's) at full droop, and not just a minor rub. There's solid contact. I didn't think that was normal, so I flipped the TCD arm over. Now, shocks don't touch the arms at full droop. Instead, the inside rear of the tire touches the arm a little before full lock. Any suggestions? I'm in a bind, trying to get the car ready for it's first event on Sunday, and one of the stock arms is no good.

Thanks!

 

Mine touch at full droop. But how often is that a problem?

 

I didn't want to damage the shocks. My racecar lives on my lift most of the time, with the wheels off. I'll flip the arms back around.

 

Ok, I flipped the arms back around the way I had them (shorer 'leg' to the rear), and lengthened the heim joints at the chassis by another turn. I now have clearance with the shock and no tire rub.

 

I always had interference at full droop. I didn't think the chassis was ever in that position when on the track so I didn't have to worry that the arm would come crashing into the shock body. Making the inside joints longer has now limited your max camber gain.

Is this car only auto-xed or road raced also? Auto-x you might not have a problem because of the low speeds/forces.

You have seen the Laguna thread (the good content--before the pissing match/ daytime tv drama) and my pic? Inspect the turnbuckles or replace them with something less complicated.

 

Yea, I don't expect the suspension to droop that much in normal use either. I store the car in my garage on a low-rise lift that picks the wheels up off the ground, and I didn't want the arm to damage the shock body.

I just bought my arms a couple of months ago. Mine did not come with the turnbuckles -- just 3 heim joints directly in the arm. I measured front camber at -4.4 L and -4.3 R, and I have the bottom adjusters maxxed 'in' right now. I haven't done a proper alignment on it yet, but that's planned for the next few weeks.

It will be an autox/hpde/timetrial car, with ambitions of wheel-to-wheel in a year or two. Yesterday was the first time it moved under its own power in over a year, so there's plenty of stuff yet to get done.

 

I know, but I did the same thing when I installed mine. As I said, they still slightly touch at full droop. But not nearly as much as they did before I screwed the joints out a bit.

I did ask Tony how far he thought it would be safe to unscrew the joints. There is obviously some increase in load on the Heim (larger lever arm), and a correspondingly smaller number of threads to take that load.

 

What was his response? I'm running 3 full turns out on each joint.

 

Bumping this thread. I experienced a failure yesterday at an autocross. The rod end pulled out of the aluminum arm, taking all the machined threads with it. The knuckle punched a hole in the wheel and jammed it against the back of the wheel well. It looks like 'all', I will need is a complete LF suspension (control arms, knuckle, rotor, caliper), abs sensor, and a new steering rack. I'll know for sure once I get it off the trailer. I'm not sure if it was autocrossing in general, or the fact that this surface was grippy concrete that did the arm in. I bought them new, and they had 5 autocrosses on asphalt, one wet track day, and 2 autocross runs on concrete before the failure.

 

Ouch

Was it the single outer end or one of the inner joints?