Your opinion: stock upper control arms vs. Firm Feel tubular

[bull]

Just wondering if anyone here can give me some insight on the difference between the handling when using stock upper control arms to the Firm Feel tubular upper control arms. Is there really a $300 improvement in the positive caster you gain?

[bull]

Nuthin'?

[runningman]

There was a recent thread on this over on Moparts I believe, I will see if I can find a link.

[runningman]

http://board.moparts.org/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=5183562&an=0&page=1#Post5183562

[runningman]

   Sorry just realized that was your thread over there.......I didn't get much sleep last night 

[suntech]

I do not have any experiance with the firm feel upper arms, but increased caster will normally give you much better direction stability, specially in higher speeds. Aftermarket front ends has normally more caster than stock. The XV has app 8 degrees, if i remember right, and i would assume Bill Reilly has something in the same ballpark.

[Ghoste]

You could always be the guinea pig Curtis and just dive right in there and let us all know what you think.  You know, all that "take one for the team" "chance to be immortalized" stuff. 

[b5blue]

Is your front end way out of wack? If not my vote is no, not needed...off-set bushings can be indexed to correct most problems. One of the things I like about B bodys is how easy to rebuild everything and how hardy it is when done! 

[bull]

You could always be the guinea pig Curtis and just dive right in there and let us all know what you think.  You know, all that "take one for the time" "chance to be immortalized" stuff. 

Take one for the time or team?

Is your front end way out of wack? If not my vote is no, not needed...off-set bushings can be indexed to correct most problems. One of the things I like about B bodys is how easy to rebuild everything and how hardy it is when done! 

It's not out of whack but it's going to be completely torn apart and put back together with all new stuff so if I'm going to "take one for the team" now would be the time to do it. I know it was a sales pitch that I got from the Firm Feel guy but he's also telling the truth about the improved handling, and I do plan to drive the thing whenever I get the chance...

http://firmfeel.com/tubuca_b.htm

[b5blue]

I looked into it too (wile my car sat in storage for years). Finely decided to just keep it stock and go with all Moog repair parts, I got a driver and really like how it handled and drove (Had some 1,000 mile road trips on it and really enjoyed the ride) I'm no "G Machine" racer tho. Just like the brakes...I've got everything except the calipers and hoses to swap to 11 3/4 slider disks to go on...cheap, hardy, easy to fix. If you go the route keep us posted, I've always wondered what you would run into doing it, don't you have to modify bump stops and keep taking the arms off to adjust the screw in mounts and such?You doing uppers and lowers? Brembo (sp?) has a new set up for B bodys that looks insane! Good Luck whatever ya decide!     

[bull]

I've always wondered what you would run into doing it, don't you have to modify bump stops and keep taking the arms off to adjust the screw in mounts and such?You doing uppers and lowers? Brembo (sp?) has a new set up for B bodys that looks insane! Good Luck whatever ya decide!     

I'm not sure but I'll ask. Can't say I'm into messing around with stuff all the time so if it is high maint. I'll probably skip it but if I do it I'll probably just do the uppers.

[Tom Q]

Tubular arms are better, Why?? Because they improve the "drive" quality of the car. Plus it's easier to get more + caster.
Your money your choice, however modern technology is usually better

[HPP]

Tubular arms have been around since the early 70s, so they aren't exactly new technology.

Are they worth it, depends. This question is along the same lines as what is better, a Holley or AFB? What do you do with the car?

If you drive your car to the show and shine or cruise it in parades, you probably won't notice $300 worth of improvement out of them. If you drive your car semi-regularly it might feel better, but the $30 for offset bushings and a better alignment can get you there for a tenth of the cost. If you drive it hard, autocross or do road events, then they are worth it, barely. $300 is ridiculous for arms, IMO, especially when there is only $50 worth of material in them., but that what the market has determined is the price point for them.

Once installed they can still be adjusted with the upper eccentrics like stock arms. Some do have screw in hiem joints which provide even more adjustment, but you still dial in the final adjustment with the eccentrics.

[Ghoste]

You could always be the guinea pig Curtis and just dive right in there and let us all know what you think.  You know, all that "take one for the time" "chance to be immortalized" stuff. 

Take one for the time or team?

lol, team.

[b5blue]

Now "Hodgkis" (heck I don't know how to spell it) has some for 700.00!Even more better- betterer- best-ist!!!  

[SFRT]

i like mine.

[John_Kunkel]

Some pretty scary pics on the Moparts board:

http://board.moparts.org/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=5210269&page=0&fpart=1&vc=1

[b5blue]

AARGH! What a mess! 

[HollyWoodCharger]

This just made up my mind on what to do with my 68's front suspension...

Rebuild the stock parts with better quality Bushings and Ball joints, and just upgrade the strut rods......

[Mike DC]

Regardless of how good or bad the aftermarket stuff is, there is validity to increasing the caster. 

The factory set the caster setting (not to mention the steering wheel size) because they were gonna build plenty of manual-steer cars on that platform.  That means compromises to make it easier to turn at walking speed.  Stock caster was virtually nil for that reason.  Modern cars, sports cars & otherwise, invariably run way more caster than our old Mopars. 




But I do agree about some of the poopy aftermarket arms out there.  There seems to be almost no understanding in the aftermarket that fragile parts are a problem on the street.  I guess it's just a product of what sells and what doesn't.  They'd sell a fiberglass rollcage (complete with a carbon-fiber-looking outer layer, no doubt) if they thought it would sell. 

   

[b5blue]

The engineers understood all the loads each section of a part were under and how those loads transferred through the system.Remember when you have to slam on the brakes at 50mph, the torque on the upper control arm forces it forward, the lower has a strut rod to handle the rearward stress, add bigger brakes and better gripping tires, a bit of a turn, and some over-angle (The front drops and the rear raises..or wants to) and think about the stresses on an upper control arm (or lower control arm) I'm not pro or con what anyone wants to do, that's there deal...I had several years to think about what I could do before I did it and the only reason I still have a Charger (I realized) was reliability, I need reliability so I can sink 99% of my money into my kids and their futures. So please don't anyone think I'm knocking what anyone has or want's to do to their cars!     

[bull]

The engineers understood all the loads each section of a part were under and how those loads transferred through the system.Remember when you have to slam on the brakes at 50mph, the torque on the upper control arm forces it forward, the lower has a strut rod to handle the rearward stress, add bigger brakes and better gripping tires, a bit of a turn, and some over-angle (The front drops and the rear raises..or wants to) and think about the stresses on an upper control arm (or lower control arm) I'm not pro or con what anyone wants to do, that's there deal...I had several years to think about what I could do before I did it and the only reason I still have a Charger (I realized) was reliability, I need reliability so I can sink 99% of my money into my kids and their futures. So please don't anyone think I'm knocking what anyone has or want's to do to their cars!     

So which do you have on your car?

[Mike DC]

     
It's not hard to make a decent aftermarket A-arm.  And the factory probably avoided welded suspension arms at least partially because they didn't wanna have to quality-control the welds well enough. 


Just fabricate the stupid things out of decent diameter mild steel tubing, with a decent 1/10th-1/8th" wall thickness, with decent full-penetration welds all around the joints, gusset where it's beneficial, don't run solid rod-ends in place of the rubber bushings, don't drive the car like your last name is Duke . . .  and breakage is not gonna be an issue. 



 

[b5blue]

All stock with Moog repair parts, I did use reinforcing plates on the LCA's because "boxing" the assembly should help handle the weight of the 440 and I'm changing the front drums to 11 3/4 "slider" type disk brakes with the "correct" A/E body spindles (there again sticking to factory spec.) The rear springs are MoPar HD 440/Hemi and the torsion bars are standard 440/Hemi also, I just really like the way a B body rides and don't have any handling issues. (granted mine is a driver, I'm not racing super cars through the "S" curves) I've driven it to VA. in 3 days putting 350/400 miles a day on it and loved it's ride, I've had it up to 125mph and it felt like it was on rails.  

[Mike DC]

             
Yeah, I agree that the stock setup was very good in the big picture.  The engineers knew what they were doing in the 1960s. 


Virtually every improvement we make to the chassis nowadays is basically related to either the radial tire changeover, or the compromises that were forced by the corporate bean-counters.  There's almost nothing actually INCORRECT about the original engineers' thinking.   

[firefighter3931]

Never have been a fan of lightened weight bearing suspension components on street cars. The stock stuff has allways served me well ! 

Some interesting reading on this very subject in the thread below :

http://board.moparts.org/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=5210269&an=0&page=2#Post5210269


Ron

[b5blue]

I think the narrow front rims spaced outboard on that car would put allot of stress on that upper ball joint by transferring the load in and up? Shame to see such a nice car eat a tree!

[Hemidog]

Never have been a fan of lightened weight bearing suspension components on street cars. The stock stuff has allways served me well ! 

Some interesting reading on this very subject in the thread below :

http://board.moparts.org/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=5210269&an=0&page=2#Post5210269


Ron

That thread was mentioned on page 1 

[69bronzeT5]

I'm going for tubular on my Charger. I've heard they're better than stock ones. I'm pretty sure Mike runs tublular's on Mr Angry and Angrier if I'm correct.

[NorwayCharger]

I do repair crashed vehicle for a living and i see that kind of damage all the time.
The car hit something hard and front suspension and LCA/UCA´s break.
This happend to BMW, VW, or any other make.
To me i looks like the car hit something hard in the left front corner and made the UCA break.
Do you think the UCA broke and made the car crash?

[firefighter3931]

Never have been a fan of lightened weight bearing suspension components on street cars. The stock stuff has allways served me well ! 

Some interesting reading on this very subject in the thread below :

http://board.moparts.org/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=5210269&an=0&page=2#Post5210269


Ron

That thread was mentioned on page 1 

Yep, i noticed that after posting the link. 

[firefighter3931]

Do you think the UCA broke and made the car crash?

My guess is that the UCA broke first then steered the car off the road creating the damage to sheetmetal. 

I've been to many wrecks as an emergency responder and work on an extrication pumper with hydraulic tools (jaws/spreaders/cutters/rams) and have not seen a "stamped" stock style UCA broken like that. The stamped stuff tends to bend but not break. 



Ron

[Mike DC]

My guess is that the UCA broke first then steered the car off the road creating the damage to sheetmetal. 

I've been to many wrecks as an emergency responder and work on an extrication pumper with hydraulic tools (jaws/spreaders/cutters/rams) and have not seen a "stamped" stock style UCA broken like that. The stamped stuff tends to bend but not break. 

The broken A-arm causing the wreck is certainly a possibility, but I don't see how it's an automatic assumption judging by the wreck. 


I agree with you, the stock A-arms are liable to bend like hell and maybe even peel all the way off the balljoint without ever snapping apart.  But that doesn't mean the tubular A-arm on his car failed before the hit.  He hit something with that corner hard enough to break a good solid aftermarket A-arm. 

The aftermarket parts don't need to be unbreakable.  They just need to be strong enough so they don't become a weaker link in the chain than the originals were.  This hit remains inconclusive IMHO.


---------------------------------------------------------


I also wonder about the type of steel & the type of welds we're dealing with here. 

A thin-walled chromemoly A-arm with TIG welds holding it together is one thing.  A thick mild steel A-arm with gas torch (oxy/acetylene) welds is something very different.  These cases would produce two parts with similar final appearances, but with VERY different failure characteristics.

[bull]

In the end though I have to wonder if the added expense will really offset the improved handling.

[HPP]

In the end though I have to wonder if the added expense will really offset the improved handling.

Depends on what your doing with your car. IMO, no, there is not $300 worth of improvement in tubular uppers.

[NorwayCharger]

The true story is here..

http://www.bigblockdart.com/index.php/topic,38494.0/topicseen.html

[Mike DC]

Depends on what your doing with your car. IMO, no, there is not $300 worth of improvement in tubular uppers.

What's several additional degrees of caster worth?  Maybe a whole lot, depending on the guy & the car setup.

 

[HPP]

Yes, a few extra degrees of caster is important, but when that same imrorvement can be had for $30 for offset bushings compared to $300 for arms, then the value ratio changes, dramatically.


Something a lot of people tend to overlook is that there is only $50 worth of material in these things, so even with development costs, labor, overhead, etc, I don't see six times margin as a reasonable cost for these items. However, many, many people do or otherwise the price of these arms would have dropped because of no one buying them. Simple supply and demand. IMO, there is not $300 worth of improvement that is received by using these arms. For example a local shop builds tubular arms for many of the area oval track racers. Their price, $175. Granted those are chevy arms, but it doesn't take much alteration in design to fit the mopar layout and I could have some simialr arms for nearly half of what most compaines are selling them for.

[bull]

I hate to do this but maybe someone could explain their theory on what added caster does to improve handling and why the stock caster is inadequate? I'd like to go back to basics here if possible.

[Ghoste]

Not unlike the casters on a piece of furniture versus just a straight up and down mounted roller.  One has a tendency to try and stay neutral and going in the direction it's pointed (high speed stability) and the other is easier to turn at low speeds.

[bull]

Right, so positive caster would be backward angle on the wheel's center point, correct? What is the stock caster angle and how much more angle do these tubular upper arms create? The chopper pictured below has what looks like nearly 45-degrees of positive caster. Is it measured in degrees on a Charger? If so what's the number?

[Mike DC]

 
Stock caster was essentially zero.  I don't remember what the technical specs were but it's little or none.  Maybe 1-2 degrees.  (Factor in the car having a non-stock raked stance, and your caster is potentially going all the way into the other direction past zero.)


I don't know about the specific Mopar A-arms in question.  But geometry-corrected aftermarket arms for muscle cars are generally something like 8 degrees.  That's the kind of number that tends to be favored by modern sports cars. 

 

[b5blue]

My recent Goodyear alignment spec. is 0.3 to 1.3 (+) just remember if you increase that angle you also angle the part of your lower ball joint that goes to your outer tie rod, too much + = on a manual steering car hard steering, on power steering indirect cause of low-speed shimmy, increased road shock and high-speed wander. (per MoPar chassis book)  If you really want to get into this look up "steering axis inclination" and check out "slip angle" as camber has an effect on "the angle of steering axis inclination" and that effects "lateral load deformations of tires" 

[HPP]

Stock alignment spec called out negative caster to a lesser or greater degree depending on power or manual steering, and a camber that was zero to positive. Don't forget that these specs were for rock hard bias ply tires and that radials will tolerate a wider range of adjustment than a bias ply. Currently with radials, you would want as much positive caster as possible up to around 5 degrees with a slight amount of negative camber to improve road holding capability. Geting caster out beyond 5-7 postive degrees in a vintage mopar puts unusual stresses in the steering linkage that could possibly create premature wear.

Steering axis inclination is going to contribute to high speed stability and return to center capability to a greater degree than caster will. Greater SAI will also provide a greater "jacking" effectas the wheel is turned and more dynamic caster is introduced in to the set up. This jacking effect will reduce the amount of lateral deformation of the tires and help reduce slip angles by raising that corner of the car slightly during cornering. 

The only way to icnrease SAI is to swap out the early style disc brake spindles for the later B, FJM spindles or go with a custom design spindle $$$.

[b5blue]

If I'm not mistaken if you raise or lower the rear ride height you will "change" S A I. The issue is the arch that the spindle makes as it turns, too much and that sweep plows down on one side and up on the other. That's why jacking up the rear end of a car is a no no. 

[Mike DC]

 

To understand how raising the rear end affects the front end's aligment, think of the way that raising the rear end makes the headlights point farther downwards.

The camber & toe & SAI are relatively unaffected (as long as the amount of rake is within reason) but it causes a caster problem. 

[b5blue]

Right, the chassis now has the front suspension moving up and forward in jounce if the rear is up too high. 

[kcederwall08]

I'm using some tubular adjustable controll arms form Magnum Force, and I think there pretty good. I was running a rediculous amount of negative camber in the front due to me lowering the car, but now its much better. As for an performance incease, I cant say I have really noticed anything, other than high speed stability, which is probably due to a new good alignment.

[b5blue]

Did you lower the rear also?

[Mike DC]

other than high speed stability

A gain in caster will do that. 

It increases the front steering's tendency to center itself whenever you're not putting pressure on it one way or the other.  Like because of the vehicle's speed.  The same way a shopping cart's swiveling back wheels wanna fall back to being centered whenever you push the cart and let it roll. 

[Yeahmate]

heres my suspension upgrade, i went for a lot of firmfeel stuff, not long had it back on the road and i'm more than happy with the high speed stability and the flat out cornering, on like roundabouts. can't even get a howl out of the tyres. 
with the wife bouncing off from the arm rest and my shoulder and back, the next job is to get some decent bucket seats the original just don't cut it. back on topic, with the ff uca i got 6.3 +ve degrees and 1/2-ve degree of negative camber

[freddyd02]

So i see this thread was started two years ago but did you end up with the firm feel arms? I just ordered them and wanted to know what ya thought of them

[bull]

So i see this thread was started two years ago but did you end up with the firm feel arms? I just ordered them and wanted to know what ya thought of them

Not sure if you're asking me but I ended up going mostly stock other than I reinforced the LCAs and Firm Feel reinforced the k-frame. I also upgraded the shocks to Edelbrock IAS, used polyurathane sway bar bushings and again from Firm got the .94 torsion bars and had them rebuild my steering box to a Stage 2. I also got some adjustable strut rods and will be getting a rear sway bar.

[Musicman]

If I were to go with Tubular Uppers, it seems to me that I would use the Hoitchkis design... since they are the only ones (that I have seen anyway) that actually change and correct the plane of angle at the attachment point. The rest of them are just tubular versions of the original with a little added caster, in which case I would just work with the originals.