He said he ran them for 45 minutes on the track at a practice session, and the car drove like crap. He said the ball and socket part was worn out like it had been on the car for 100,000 miles and was very loose. They were brand new that day, and he never asked J's about it, he just stopped using them and switched to the SPC part.

 

hmm thats intersting, i know many ppl on js and nothing like this has happened. maybe it was just a defective joint?

 

curious as well. josh, why did you say in d) that there is no need for the spacer?--are you saying it does not actually correct roll center, or is detrimental in some way?

 

it very well might correct the roll centers on cars that are lowered more then 40mm. If you absolutly feel you need the extra plate save yourself $150 and make them. In STR (autocross class) we arn't allowed to have the s2, just the s1. If you do go with the s2 or make your own buy the 20mm rear one from j's racing also. We arn't allowed to run them in my autocross class but from what a local said it really helped out on settling down the rear. A thing to keep in mind though, If you go with the s2 you may not be able to fit 16" wheels on your car if you ever choose to. Due to the fact it will lower the ball joint closer to the wheel.

 

The S2s are legal. The "L" series are not allowed.

 

I noticed some hard race camber joints on ebay the other day. They are selling for around $200 with the plate.

 

I only have SPC joints because of my experience with the J's joint. The one with the shim to "adjust roll center" makes the car handle and turn in like crap. If you purchase one I recommend the one without the shim, I ended up removing mine.

No problems with the SPC thus far, I find it very hard to claim one is "better" than the other here. Both are good products (coming from someone who's had both)

 

Correct me if I'm wrong here but the way I see it if you lower your car to the point that the roll center is below ground and you use the spacer/shim to correct this issue you may have inadvertently caused a bump-steer issue. Because the relationship of the rack and spindle have changed. I bet that a bump-steer kit or raising the rack would take care of this.

 

Yes. You can't change the Roll Center with merely a shim. That is why the labelling of the joint is somewhat off if one is to consider it an "RCA"/camber joint.

Easier correction is to just remove the shim. lol.

 

Ok, not as low as I thought. I'm on fresh rubber... which of course raises the distance from ground to fender and I'm at 24"7/8th. I can't imagine going any lower. I have wear in my outside fender well, and an area where I've rubbed off some undercoating on the inside fender. I don't rub control arms or anything though.

I've never had SPC's move out of spec.