I would like to see 2 or 3 position adjustable to make things easy, but great work so far.

 

it will i have a similar setup on my car and it made a difference ...

 

im sorry but it doesnt. the arm will move the same wether its on top or bottom. you arent changing any pickup points for the suspension.

 

it does you changing the height of where your knucle sits therefore you need to reajust your coilover in order for your car to be at the same height

its pretty much like a rca spacer on a corolla but less aggressive

 

No, it's not like that at all. those sit between the knuckle and the balljoint so it actually spaces out the distance of the pivot.

swapping top and bottom of the control arm doesn't do much of anything. and it definitely doesn't change the height of the car. Not even a true roll center correction does that.

in order to actually fix the roll center on an FC you'd need a balljoint like mine:

 

I started drawing this diagram. then gave up. but you get the idea. the pickup points are in the same place. it doesnt change anything. it just moves the arm down. not the coilover up.

 

Agreed. It does nothing, and does not change the ride height.

 

Well then, How about a roll center correcting version?

 

dat REIB design tho...

 

Nicely done. Like others have said, 3 fixed positions, ball joint MUST HAVE DUST BOOT. I can't stand exposed heim/rose joints they don't f'n last. (They look sexXxy but that's it)

 

Agreed^ do look awesome though!

 

+1

rod ends don't make good ball joints...

 

Nice stuff but he is right. They are meant for axial force. If there is up and down force, it will most likely fail!

 

Not only that, they're meant for force against or outwards of the threads, not side loading them. The threads of the rod end cause huge stress risers and will cause cracks to form

 

I have a suggestion. Ford Focus have McPherson strut suspension said to be similar to Mazda. Wouldnt it be easier and more beneficial to make something like these? After market Tubular control arms for the ford focus. This company charges 400$ which Is a reasonable price. I feel like the price of custom ball joints would be nearly 3/4 of 400$ anyways.

 

Yea you guys are all right. This design has actually led to a much better final design that I will post soon. It does not include a rod end. And I am also designing control arms much like the ones ford does in the post above. Stay tuned and thanks for the feedback and constructive criticism!

 

Those are arms are $400 because they have a heim as a ball joint. PBM has tubular front arms and they want $1000 for them. This ball joint for a few hundred bucks is a great solution.

There is really no need to throw away a perfectly good, super light cast aluminium A arm in favor for a tubular steel replacement. I'm saying that as a road racing guy, not a drift guy though. I don't need any more angle.

 

The only reason to replace the stock control arm is to get a better rear bushing (the stock one sucks and binds without a lot of work), or adjustable camber/caster in the arm.

the control arm above looks terrible.

 

That said, what are your feelings on the Energy bushing on the FLCA? Bind to much with say coilovers? S4 FLCA.

 

I wouldn't touch polyurethane bushings... go strait to delrin/UHMW

and then work on the clearances until they slide on but aren't too loose. You'll need to grind the barbs off the control arm:



if you can't move the control arm up and down when it's installed on the pivots it's too tight.

 

Delete.

 

how about the AWR bearing design instead of bushing? Pref combined with the ball joint.

 

I would like correct geometry for my widebody project. Street car only, but I want it right by the time its done.

The steering tracks fairly strait. When you initiate a turn it's slightly stiff off-center with a quick little jump right after.
Seeks the ruts a little more then I wish, but not horrible.

Camber -1.8 and caster 5.5ish. stock toe.
295/30-18 on a 11" wheel offset with adapters is close to -17ish

Would this product in development help my geometry issues, and get the "line" to meet the center of my tire??

I do not need any more steering angle but,,
I figured that this would be the perfect place for this products Geometry to be looked at. What are the opinions on the Powered By Max (PBM) LCA's?

Multilink and Steering Angle for FC - Parts Shop MAX

Is this way overkill for my simple issue?

Here's a pic for those who wish not to navigate elsewhere, but there is a GoPro video
of the suspension in action. Cool driving too.

 

No that is for drifting. You should not need much geometry help unless you have the car stupidly low, and with that front tire you can't.

Your car is just tramlining a bit because of the large front tires.
Stock toe is toe in and will act as you are describing off center. It sounds like you have more caster than stock as well (via an adjustable plate I assume) which will increase steering effort.

What are your rear settings? Rear toe will affect steering feel as well.

I would make sure all your bushings are good and in working order and get a good alignment with 1/16 rear toe in rear and maybe 1/32 toe in on the front if you still have rubber bushings.

 

bearings are always preferred I'm going to be working on a set of controls arms for my car in a few months, subscribe to my build thread if you're interested.

First, really wide front tires are always going to track into ruts... some of it is your scrub radius, some of it is bump steer, but some of it is the wide tires themselves. (think about how much more leverage the outside of the tire has than a stock tire would.

It's very easy to make things worse instead of better when trying to "fix" geometry issues. unless you have a good (and I mean really good) race shop, or are prepared to start measure lots of tedious things yourself, stock is probably your best bet.

that being said, the best way to correct scrub, is by adding SAI. You can do this by adding camber at your camber plate, and then taking it our at the knuckle with aftermarket camber bolts. also, 2.x* of camber never hurt anyone....

the minute you start changing the roll center, bump steer goes crazy, so you'll need to tune that with adjustable height tie rods and a bump steer gauge (in thousandths of an inch... it's tedious stuff)

before you go changing any roll center or bump steer, I would buy a long acre bump steer measuring kit so you can see how bad your stock bump steer actually is. you'll need it anyway if you buy the bump steer adjusting tie rods. (blindly installing them and assuming they fixed the geometry isn't a good idea)

PBM parts are Chinese quality... and they make the steering faster, which will probably just make your problem worse.... I wouldn't use them unless you're a drifter on a budget. you'll get a lot better stuff having a race car fabricator fabricate stuff with circle track parts.