I'm not too familiar with them, so any input on what they do, do they make a noticiable difference? Are they worth it and how exactly they work?

 

http://www.spohn.net/category.cfm?categoryid=1032

All of our LCAs outperform the flexible, stamped-steel arms and soft rubber bushings that come from the factory. Eliminate wheelhop and increase traction with an easy bolt on installation. All ends fitted with grease fittings for easy lubrication of the fluted polyurethane bushings. Available powder coated bright red or gloss black.

Yes very worth it, and i felt a difference.

 

Upgraded LCAs are just stronger versions of the factory ones, which by themselves wont make a huge difference, will help with wheel hop.

The bug difference will come with LCA relocation brackets(LCARBS). From the factory your LCAs are almost parallel to the ground, which puts your Instant center towards the front of the car. I just cut and pasted this from what I wrote in another post:

It has to do with your instant center, or imaginary lift point on your car. When you launch the LCARBs help you because they move the instant center(IC) towards the back of the car.

The farther back the IC is the harder the tire will hit on inital launch(before the affects of weight transfer come into play). This is from pitch rotation(resistance to wheels turning, pinion climbing the ring gear) So, before the tires move, the pinion tries to climb the ring gear, lifting the rear of the car and actually slamming the tires into the ground for intial traction.

After that happens weight transfer takes over and keeps the tires planted from the weight of the car as it accelerates. Like I said in the begining the farther back the IC is the harder the tire "hit" initally, but also the less affect you get from weight transfer. So conversley the Farther out the IC is the less slamming affect occurs and more weight transfer happens!

 

Exactly what i need as the car has wheel hop even with the 9" wide Yokohama tires out back, SFCs and STB

Thanks

Any opinions on Hotchkis VS the other brands available?

 

I just did a complete suspension upgrade to get ready for my ls1(hehe me and you just did it backwards), cant tell you if the lca's made a huge difference cause i did it all at the same time but if your going to do it which i would recamend cause with that power you need to put it to the ground. Either Spohn or BMR are the best suspension companys out there fot that. Spohn seems to be the more popular for the 3rd gens and BMR seems to be the one for the 4th gen's. From what i've seen they are basicly the same, both use very high quality on everything so which one you can get the better deal on i would go with. Now for the LCA's i would get the poly/spericaly like i did, that will eliminate almost all bind and make little noise. I can only notice a little more road transfer on the freeway but nothing that is like OMG i can take this. Also you will NEED relocation brackets, expecialy if your car is loward that will make a huge difference. Hope this helped.

 

I just ordered a set of lakewood LCA's from jegs. I will let you know how they are.

I'm doing so much at once I have a feeling I won't be able to tell.

New springs, shocks, LCA relocation brackets, lcas, posi, and 3.73s...I think it should feel like a different car

 

your problem is NOT the LCAs.

its the LCA ANGLE

your car is lowered... so the LCA angle has the rear of the arms pointed UP instead of the rear of the arms pointed DOWN.

what you NEED are LCA relocation brackets.... new LCAs are nice, but they wont fix your problem of improper geometry

 

wheel hop is a little more complex than just the deflection in the LCAs (which is all that LCAs offer, is a arm with a little less deflection)

The geometry needs to be right, that is LCA angle, and pinion angle, are the criticle peices here. the PHB is not really important here.

the BIG issue that people forget to mention, is the rear shock valving and spring rates. we can go into real depth on what wheel hop is, but you need sufficent dampening for your springs, to controll the osilations. i noticed you are running drop springs, which are most likely higher-rate than stock. i did NOT notice shocks listed. if you are still runnign a stock shock, you need to upgrade. you need something that can control the higher spring rates.

 

Speaking of pinion angle, are thier any side effects to normal street driving with a -2* pinion angle (which is recommended for track use)?

 

i dont' see a problem with runnint -2*, if you were to possibly get a vibration at speed when you are cruising, you might bring it up closer to 0, but i wouldnt' worry about running -2*.

 

Nice call and indeed i am running stock shocks

Would the LCA's or new KYB shocks/struts yield me better suspension improvement?

 

Being as low as your car is, you will notice more from Brackets, than you will from arms.

i don't know that KYBs will be enough to really control a set of stiff springs, but that depends on how stiff they are. Putting a pair of new higher performance shocks on vs 12year stockers, will make a big diffrence.]

being that rears are so cheap, you might consider getting something like the bilsteins.

 

yup, i agree with dewwy 100%

you wont see a lick of diff from diffrent arms, atleast right now you wont. you will get less wheelhop and possibly no wheel hop from brackets...

they will help your straight line only drag launch...

however going down the road, your car will still feel the same.. if you still have your old shocks/struts, change them to a performance set... it will make it feel like a whole new car... huge diff. it will corner better and just feel better all around.. might cost you a tenth in the quarter, but for a mostly street driven car, thats not too bad for the daily driven benifit.