who here has installed the LCARB and had results (good and bad) also which brand did you buy? were they bolt on or weld on? thanks guys. just wondering if they are worth the money or put it in something else

 

Of all the rear suspension mods I have ever done, that was both the least expensive, and the most effective.

Compared to new rear springs, new rear shocks, bigger sway bar, new LCAs, replacement torque arm, SFCs.

An individual who will remain temporarily nameless (not least, because his name gets changed anyway every few weeks as he gets banned) will probably come on here behind me, as usual, and talk all about how dangerous they are, how they "increase roll oversteer", etc. Feel free to ignore all that. It is drivel and not to be taken seriously, and does not apply to straight-line traction. I haven't figured out yet why he's on such a vigorous campaign AGAINST the most sensible thing you can do to get these cars to hook up by ending wheel hop, which is to repair the defective factory geometry. (defective as far as torque hookup, that is)

Get weld-in ones. You can bolt them in yourself, and drive gently to someone who can then weld them for you, if you want. They CAN affect the wheelbase, and cause the rear end to be mounted at an angle to the centerline of the car by affecting it differently on one side from the other; so it's best to get somebody that knows what they're doing (frame shop or race car chassis builder) to do the welding for you, if you don't know how to go about getting that right yourself.

Mine are the Spohn product.

See {link} for discussion, including the aforementioned diatribe.


Hmmmmm, can't make the link work.... just scroll down the list of posts, it's not more than 15 posts earlier than this one. It's about "source of wheel hop".

 

I have the Spohn ones but have yet to install them. I was waiting to see if I was going to get the rear end swapped out. I think most will bolt in but need to be welded. The Spohn product comes unpainted, which is logical because you need to weld them, so you will need to get some good chassis paint for them after the welding is done. I have used Spohn products B4 and have been pleased with the quality. The peices you get that they weld together are second to none. Like sofakingdom explained, they are a must for lowered cars to correct the LCA geometry to prevent wheelhop. IMO they are a great inexpensive mod.

 

would the help if the car is not lowered? i just put in boxed lca's, do i need to have relocation brackets?

 

Hmm, yes, my thread asking about sources of wheelhop
www.thirdgen.org/techboard/suspension-chassis/418464-confirm-my-suspicions-source.html
That's weird the links are getting weird stuff tacked on to the beginning... Cut and paste the above link into your browser, or just scroww down to my thread titled;
"Confirm my suspicions of source of wheelhop"

Spohns are a really good price, $70? and Spohns stuff is renowned for being very good (albeit heavy sometimes, but in this case I wouldn't worry about that).

PS - My car isn't lowered, it has taller rear tires actually, and new rear suspension.

 

never seen ANY lca's for 70 bucks. the cheapest ive seen are the Lakewood boxed LCA's for 90 bucks or so at Summit

 

they are talking about the relocation brakets like in the link below, not the actuall arms them selfs

http://store.summitracing.com/partde...5&autoview=sku

 

Lakewood has been the least expensive that i have seen. i haven't heard anything bad about them....yet. but i havent tried to launch my car since ive had them, so i cannot say they have helped me or hurt me.

 

yea, LCARB's
such as
http://www.spohn.net/product.cfm?productid=1290

I'd rather give my $ to spohn than summit, if I had the choice. He's a board sponsor, and spends more time on 3rd gen F-bodies than summit does.

 

yeah realized that after i posted, but was too lazy to edit it

89formula350b2l - do a launch, i want to get these. tell us if they helped or not

EDIT: so could you just buy those brackets for 70 bucks and then get Lakwood boxed LCAs for example and bolt them in place of the stock arms? im assuming those brackets make you use the old arms, just relocating them. ive seen relocation kits that come with arms for for $250+, this could save a lot of money

 

Yup; that's exactly my setup. Except the Lakewoods aren't "boxed", like you'd take a stock sheet metal POS that you can bend in your hand (literally) and box it in; they're actual square tubing.

 

i havent heard anybody say they havent helped....and it will be kinda hard to do so because my car needs injectors and fuel pump right now.....and front end suspension rebuild....and torque arm.....lets see what else......

 

my car is lowered with tubed lca's, no relocation brackets, new kyb shocks and no wheel hop

 

I've got the UMI bolt-ins,BMR tubular LCA's and adjustable panhard bar with stock worn out springs and sensatrac shocks in the rear.The ONLY way my car hops is if I try a burnout backwards.Other than that my car hooks up well.I like my UMI's,easy installation and they look good as hell from behind the car.

 

Well from a drag race standpoint here's my experience with the relocation brackets. The only time I've ever had wheel hop was at the track on street tires with the stock 20+ year old bushings and when the 305 was still in the car.

Before the brackets the rear would hit the bump stops on a launch.


Now the back end actually lifts a bit driving the tires into the ground.


I went with Spohn's weld-ins.

 

Spohn product ...I don't know why you guys says this stuff is good.
Maybe you haven't seen good stuff. I mean if you don't have someone that knows what they are doing to install those things, your car will dogleg down the blvd.

They have nothing on them to locate them on the housing (they float) which will allow one side to be further forward than the other if not done by a sharp person.

The Globalwest pieces lock on to the housing as do the BMR's (no float) they just need to be tack welded after installation or the BMR bolt ons (no welding).
http://www.bmrfabrication.com/cabrackets/cab2-full.jpg

http://www.bmrfabrication.com/cabrackets/CAB001.jpg

And they do work as said previously.

 

They located just fine on mine and the car goes straight down the road. Now this is for the weld-ins not the bolt-ins which I'd never run.

 

EvilCartman:
Did you notice how the holes slant forward?
That means you had to push the rear end back to bolt the LCA'a back on.
Those holes should be straight down from the existing hole. + or - a fraction of an inch due to angle of the LCA.

 

You do realize that the control arm moves in an arc, in order to not move the rear end the holes have to be placed on an arc that matches the length of the control arm.

If the holes were strait up and down then the rear end would be pulled forward as you moved lower.

 

I bought the weld in UMI and what you do is place the rear end on jackstands and remove the drivers side LCA then bolt up the LCARB and place the LCA in the bottom hole then weld up the LCARB and the arc should stay factory. I'm going to have my camaro have a 4 wheel alignment with some laser system that a local speed shop has and let them adjust any dog legging with the adjustable LCAs that I have if even needed.

 

Not when the front is already lower than the rear.

 

its not so much wheel hop, you just want it to lift off the line.. not squat.. like i said on another post.. squat=tires initially wanting to lift=less traction.. have you ever tried to launch at a high rpm on drag radials?? squat is NOT the answer to that riddle.. i've been there many times and never been lower than a 1.81 60ft.. regardless that drag radials are not the best for manual cars but it still proves a point that squat does squat..

 

Yes the lower holes are more forward and no I didn't have to move the axle forward or back. When going from the stock hole to the lowest hole, the control arm moves in an arc lining up with every hole. Don't tell me that I had to move the axle forward or backwards since you weren't there doing the work on my car.

 

I'm pretty sure the lower holes are forward, and supposed to be, but only a fraction of an inch. I think I checked the math and it was ~.020" or something, per inch of drop. Are Spohns much more than that?

 

I am trying to get a 1.7 or better 60 footer with Mickey Thompson street/drag radials, LCA, torque arm and LCARB. Think it's possible?

 

So...the front of your LCA'a must be higher than your rear end...my mistake.

 

Global West brackets:
Seemed to help a little bit, at least the car feels better and the geometry is much better. Hard to tell from the pictures but the car is lowered and the LCA angle was totally wrong before.

 

Well, here you go... I had the Lakewood LCA's on my car for about 8 months and once in a while I would notice I was feeling like I was going down the road at an angle. Took the car to an alignment shop and sure enough my driver's side wheelbase was 3/16" shorter than the passenger side, pulled the LCA's off, measured them and their was 7/32" difference in lenghth between the 2. The weld quality on them was very poor and the rear end wouldn't "roll" in corners as naturally with them on compared to my new Spohn adjustable LCA's. The Lakewood adjustable PHR is much better made and hasn't caused any headaches so far, but beware of the LCA's.
BTW - Different question relating to the relocation brackets, do they ride better on the street? The reason I ask is because of the LCA arc difference. If the angle of the LCA let's a suspension absorb impacts at a rearward and up angle wouldn't it have more effective damping? I'm using the same principal used in front suspension caster for my thinking (I know caster is more straight line stability oriented) but the suspension should be more effective at absorbing impacts when the energy goes upward and rearward instead of up and forward. Is my mind not wrapping around this properly?

 

I didnt notice any difference on either of 2 cars, so if there is any its fairly insignificant.