custom tube control arms

[jut80]

wondering how many people would be interested building a set help from family uncle master welder all metals and cusin a machinist me the deginer current unenployed do to heath auto immune deciese so i tring to do some to suppurt wife 3boy 1girl on way not good time to find out that slowly becomeing crippled did flooring 14 years and now cant do it so fallen back on my 1st love biulding things

[doi_doi]

any pics?

[NicholasJackson]

Aw man ive been waiting for a thread like this. (Except all the crap you're going through)

YES YES YES!

Ive been looking at some a frame stuff and would love to design high performance suspension.

[zoom zoom]

Has potential, could be a way around needing certain axel sets for swapped cars, thats the whole reason for the headache isn't it? Because they have to be the right length? Custom length lca's would fix that..?

[NicholasJackson]

Has potential, could be a way around needing certain axel sets for swapped cars, thats the whole reason for the headache isn't it? Because they have to be the right length? Custom length lca's would fix that..?

Pretty much.

[Safety Guy]

Another idea would be to have removable ball joints, so that when they go bad only the ball and stud need to be replaced instead of the whole control arm.

Karl

[FB71]

Another idea would be to have removable ball joints, so that when they go bad only the ball and stud need to be replaced instead of the whole control arm.

Karl

pretty sure the 323/Protege/Escort LBJs will fit the Festiva/Aspire knuckle.

[IdealSociety]

wondering how many people would be interested building a set help from family uncle master welder all metals and cusin a machinist me the deginer current unenployed do to heath auto immune deciese so i tring to do some to suppurt wife 3boy 1girl on way not good time to find out that slowly becomeing crippled did flooring 14 years and now cant do it so fallen back on my 1st love biulding things

im sorry, dont know about the rest of you but i cant bring myself to purchase a major suspension part designed by someone who cannot spell every other word correctly.

[hamburglar]

ditto

im sorry, dont know about the rest of you but i cant bring myself to purchase a major suspension part designed by someone who cannot spell every other word correctly.

[IdealSociety]

Heres a real question, a single part is easy to machine and build, particularly if it can be kept as simple as possible.

how much variation in a control arm do we need? ive been sketching something up in solidworks that could replace a factory LCA with an adjustable unit, but how much in/out would you guys be looking at? It would have to retain the stock sway bar for simplicity but would at least be tubular and adjustable for different hub selctions (of course moving the hub in/out you will also need to use adjustable camber top hats.

[IdealSociety]

there are a couple ways to do it, ive been working on a couple variations of this for some years now so theres been some thought into it. either one depends on how much you need to move the BJ either in or out (most likely outwards). keeping the stock front sway (or using an aspire one ideally) is the cheapest way to keep costs down so at that point you can either make the adjustability in the arm itself or in the balljoint placement. escort BJ's are cheap and easy to mount up requiring only a small width and about 3-4 inches in length for mounting surface.

At that point however if you need to move out alot the arm adjustment length is not an option because youre putting alot of stress on the sway/arm bushing which will cause it to just wear out prematurely. For small movement this would probably be fine and a non-issue, however for longer movements you need something more akin to this: (i apologize for how bad it looks, its a quick 5min sketch up in solidworks and is in no-way proportional to how the real piece would look since i dont have measurements offhand here at school).



giving the balljoint itself a surface for adjustability is the best idea to keep costs down, no nuts or bolts, heim joints etc to jack pricing up. using a stock BJ also helps. the mounting plate for the BJ would have ideally just the slot, since the escort has 1 stud in the BJ to start with, then you would place it, mark where you need the bolt hole at and then drill the bolt hole wherever you need it to be (that way once its set theres no room for movement of the joint under heavy lateral loads).

there are a couple other options, but for pricing (us festiva folks are notoriously cheap) this is the absolute way to keep pricing as low as possible while utilizing stock parts AND giving adjustability of the balljoint location.

[getnpsi]

Quite a few members have replaced control arms multiple times, even with the more expensive non ebay ones. A <$300 end all solution would still be a good purchase especially if it has adjustability.

[IdealSociety]

i know, im on my 2nd or 3rd set in my BP car

thats one of the reasons i decided to come up with a tubular and adjustable design, but it had to be close in price to the factory part to even be plausible. i know i wouldnt spend much more than 300$ and with the adjustable slot im positive i can get them closer to 200.

[getnpsi]

If you can make one with ears for 2 different sway bars that would be slick too. a way to keep cost down is just to make up a list the buyer has to go get on his own so its not a huge initial investment, even if it was complete. If you can go buy ball joints and a bushing kit elsewhere...even if it costs more most of us would piece it together when we're ready.

[IdealSociety]

that could be doable. all i really need to know is how much adjustability the average person is looking for. i was planning on working escort hubs so i suppose i will likely start with those as the extension length and stock as the inset length