Thinking of purchashing one, just curious what positive and negative comments you guys might have. My car is pretty much stock at the moments except for those listed in bottom profile. Also is there any real difference between the spohn and Global West units??

I have installed the Global parts.....lengthy install but a solid unit and it DEFINITELY works on a road corse. I havent seen the Spon parts so I have no input on their set-up, but from what I have deal with Spoon....there stuff is QUALITY aswell.

was it a major improvement??

I would have to say so.....at the "Streets of Willow" (Willow Springs RaceWay, Ca) just installing that device only, cut 4-6 seconds off the lap time....thats like adding a hundred HP on a roadcorse car. I'll try and find the article that Doug released post this test......

I have the GW unit on my '97 1LE (dedicated roadrace car) and I love it. Only gripe is that it is not easy to adjust. Of course, on a roadrace car, once it's set, you rarely have cause to change it.

My drag car (87 GTA) has the spohn piece. Very easy to adjust and is available to suit various transmissions (a bonus to me). It's also a good bit cheaper!

Depending on what you're planning on doing with the car, either one is a great improvement.

Global wants $$$550 Dollars, I thought the Spohn unit was a little pricey at 450 for all the goodies on it (Spherical ends, front and rear driveshaft loops), but now it's looking very good. I was also looking at the Jegs unit.
I just put in a set of Jegs LCA's (Spherical frame end & solid diff housing bearing), and the quality was right one.
So hmmmm
BTW: the Jegs unit sales for 260 bucks.

Ron

how would one of these be for a daily driver?

I have the Spohn unit and aside from a little extra vibration from the spherical rod end it does fine on my daily driver(my only driver).

Random Technology here..no noise difference from stock but much improved traction

I have the Global West unit on my 88 Firebird. The car is mainly road raced. It works fine. For the street, you have to really weigh the noise/harshness over any advantage you would get to use very often on the street.

Quality and design get an A. Overall customer service gets a C, in my experience.

I have the S&W Racecars TA that works in conjunction with their SFCs and Crossmember setup. The price is a bit high since you have to have their SFC/CM setup to have it be a direct bolt in, but it seems to work very well for me. I really haven't had a chance to hit the road course with it, and I just swapped a T56 into my car, but the traction seems improved with it.

I also agree that the ride harshness and increased road noise are something people with daily drivers need to think about. The factory arm is pretty flimsy and mounts to the trans with a rubber bushing. The trans and engine, in turn, both mount to the rest of the car with rubber as well through the mounts. So the noise and vibrations from the suspension and driveline are very isolated from the rest of the car. With the TA bolting basically directly to the floorpan of the car, I can feel every bump in the road and hear every moving part in driveline of the car (the T56 is a bit noisier than an automatic trans as well). I mean it isn't anything that is so loud or harsh that you can't drive it on the street and have the radio on very low and not hear, but people that have never driven or ridden in a race-only car might be surprised at the differences.

I am really satisfied with my other Spohn stuff (LCAs, panhard, CM) but I do know of two people that have broken their Spohn TAs at the slip joint. Both cars have a lot of power, though, with one being a turboed 383 stroker LT1 and the other being a very healthy NA 388 stroker LT1.

I also broke a Spohn torque arm. However, that was the old design - now I have the current design Spohn torque arm - and it is a vast improvement over the old design - and the old design was light years better than the stock torque arm.

Not only that - but Steve was very accomodating in standing by his product (the broken torque arm) and I was very happy with the way he took care of me.

The current Spohn torque arms no longer use a slider tube type slip joint. It is now a rotating type. Much stronger and more durable. I can't see how anyone could break it. The Spohn torque arm is the best performance - best quality torque arm on the market at any price in my oppinion.

I have all the Spohn goodies with all of the parts being fully adjustable and all components with the chrome-moly rod-ends.

I love it all.

It is a daily driver, 1/4 mile drag car, and an autocross race car.

You need the best if you are going to do all 3 of these. And Spohn is the best in my opinion.

I have the Spohn torque arm. I have not had it on a road course but it has definately improved traction AND BRAKING. Increased stability under hard breaking was a benefit mentioned but I was surprised by the difference that the TA made. I have the spherical rod end so there is a little driveline noise that is transmitted but to me, it is sweet sweet music ;-)

-Schultzy

I have the Spohn one with the poly end, it seems to work well. It felt like taking a giant rubber band out the driveline somewhere. With the stock arm if I gunned it going down the road and then just as suddenly let off, it felt like an awful lot of stuff was moving around under there; now if I do that, it feels crisp and solid. I can't tell about any improvement to traction directly due to it, because I had other traction issues at the time I put it on; but the car hooks up great now. It's very hard to spin the tires, it launches hard, and there don't seem to be any bad side effects at all.

I have the Spohn arm with the rod end. It helped out in a major way with wheelhop problems, and nosedive during braking. It was well worth the money I spent on it, and to me is the best torque arm on the market.

Hey Schultzy, exactly what type of driveline noise is being noticed since the torque arm was installed?

I have a question... Well, a couple of questions .

Where does the front cross member for the T/A bolt up? Is it a good, strong location? Do you think this location is good for a HARD LAUNCHING car? When I say HARD, I mean HARD.

Thanks!

I have a stock one that I boxed in with 1/8" mild steel, it's pretty easy to do and with a poly front bushing it helps traction a lot, if your on a budget and it's not a high HP car that's the way to go. The adjustable ones may work a little better though.

Sorry that I missed your question earlier. Hard to explain... you can just hear some of the 'whine' from the driveline, tranny, etc. being transmitted.

Have you ever been under water in a lake/river and a motor boat went by? You know the sound of the propeller? Kinda like that but very muted.

:shrugs:

Like I said, sweet sweet music

-Schultzy

The Spohn cross member mounts to the same location as the stock crossmember but it is much stronger as Karl mentioned. The actual forward mount of the torque arm is welded to the new crossmember i.e. it does not attach to the tranny itself.

Hard? I want to see the car that busts this thing!

-Schultzy

I ran an LG Motorsports torque arm in my 97ws6 and it helped out tremendously. only had one set back installing it, the 2 washers for the rear bolts had to have one side of them grinded down to sit flush. just a 5 min setback thats all.