when i first started building my car, i was lured into buying lakewoodindestries traction/lift bar setup for it. it looked cool and i was sold. i am hearing now that they are not worth a damn and being that i have almost no traction with a good set of sticky tires, im am looking into other styles.

with LCA relocation brackets, is there any real change in traction?

is there a better/worse style of LCA to buy? i am partial to spohn quality and am planning to buy from them, though i dont know wether to look into the poly/spherical adj ones or the full spherical ones? my car is not a daily driver and i am looking for the best performance possible from there LCA on the street. i am liking the poly/spherical ones because of the poly body side mount, for ride quality, but is there really a difference?

what is the best way to go.

thanks

 

You are on the right track with Spohn. I have his LCA brackets, boxed stock arms, and stock torque arm, and I net 1.54 60' times.

 

For a handling application, get spherical ends. The poly ends don't allow for as much twist as is needed for really carving corners.
For drag race on anything less than a full-on slick, run the poly bushed. The bushing absorbs a little bit of the shock associated with the launch and tends to help street-type tires stay planted.

- I heard that the lca length of the "traction action" bars may be the same as regular lca's. If this is true you could just drop the bracketry off and use them. Lakewood makes a good factory replacement box lca.

 

take the "traction aid" clamp off, and you already have a decent LCA.

next step is figuring out whats broke, and fixing it.

generally i start with new tires (et streets or similar bias plys), new REAR shocks, drop the front swaybar (at the track or permantly) and new poly bushings in the rear swaybar.

that alone makes most mild power 3rdgens hook.

 

by "drop" do you mean lower, or remove. i drive the car on the street and i dont know how well it will work without a front sway bar.

do LCA relocation brackets do anything?

 

These are the ones i bought on ebay.They are a compromise between spherical & just a standard poly bushing.The ball acts like a spherical rod end allowing the LCA to twist,while the two outer bushings work to allow the arm to articulate up/down.The seller is hotpart.com

 

- based on appearance -
The idea is sound, but if the outer bushings ar the same OD as the "ball" they would negate twist other than the slight amount of bushing flex. - So basically unless the outer bushings had no lip and the "ball" is contained within the arm without the outer bushings, it can't act any differently than regular poly bushings. - The poly "ball' bushing is a good idea, but it would have to be the sole bushing to come incontact with the arm for a period of travel (twist) to work as stated.

A close pic of the end installed in the lca would be nice......

 

by drop i mean remove.
the swaybar limits the frontend from lifting as quickly.. and that limits your weight transfer and ultimitly your traction...

the car does lean more in turns, but its not undrivable or unsafe. (assuming the rest of the suspension is upto snuff)

best way to find out if you can deal with it is to remove a endlink and try it yourself.... just removing one endlink is enough... once its disconnected, it'll have the same effect as it not being there.... remove the drivers side one. and try.


and yes, LCA relocation brackets move your IC...

 

thx mrDude!

i will look into the sway arm idea once i get my new tire... and the temp goes over 20

thanks for the input, i think im going to remove all the worthless bracketry from the lakewood bars and i have a set of relo brackers on order. i'll see what happens when its all togeather

 

The outer bushings are much softer than the poly ball,which is much harder than a standard poly bushing.The softer outer bushing deflect much like rubber OEMs(but not as much).This allows the arm to twist as well.The poly ball is very hard.In a straight line accellerartion.The ball does NOT deflect giving much better response.The inner section of the outer bushings is concave.So each one encapsulates half of the ball.The whole package is like one solid bushing,meaning there are no gaps between each.All 3 the same dia as well.As for the pic.It just looks like any other poly bushing(from the outside).Just like in the posted pic.The auction on ebay will give you a better description of how this work though.

 

Those new control arms are being advertised on the www.camaroz28.com home page. Haven't heard much about them though.