is anyone on here running stock boxed rear lower control arms? is it worth doing?

 

I am. I boxed mine with a strip of 1/4" steel plate and I installed poly bushings. Definately made a difference.

 

theres people on here using them, its an improvement over the stock design which flexes a lot. I dont know if you need 1/4" steel, sounds a bit heavy. 1/8" should do the job.

 

I was. Boxed it with a strip of 1/8"x1" I think, steel strip. Just stitch welded it with my baby 70A stick welder. Put in poly bushings too.
Helps tighten things up a bit back there.

 

I boxed my lower control arms and panhard bar [and that other bar that i have no clue what it is called]plus i also used poly bushings and it made a huge difference

 

I boxed mine and my panhard rod. Think it was 1/8" steel too. Getting ready to take mine off to run tube control arms to free up some space for my back tires (315/35/17). It was a lot cheaper to box my old ones ($15) thank to buy new ($100+) but oh well

 

i guess that answers if its worth boxing the panhard i was just about to ask that. i have the poly bushing kit so i guess everything should be pretty nice when im done.

 

I was going to box mine... But I got a set of BMR tubular arms with my 99 donor car. So i used them...then switched to spohn arms.

Just FYI in case you didnt know, all the rear arms from 82-02 are interchangeable. So if you want to search for used tube arms or box arms, you can search the 4th gen sites too...

But boxing in your own will definetly offer an improvement. You can twist the stockers in your bare hands...which probably helps soften on road driving, but doesnt do much for the twisties.

I dont think you really need to do the panhard bar brace, as it just provides some reinforcement to the panhardbar bracket, but it certainly cant hurt if you are already welding on the panhard bar.

J.

 

i havent pulled the lca's yet but they must be really weak from what im hearing.

 

since you have the poly kit, go for it. If you needed to buy the steel and the bushings, it wouldn't be a good value, since the lakewood lca's are like $90.

I used .120 wall 1-1/4 box tubing wedged inside the factory arm, and cut the factory outer "lips" off. That plus some poly bushings I had went as fast as a 1.66 60'.

 

Problem with changing the bushings is, you can easily destroy the LCA in the attempt; and of course, even if you succeed perfectly, you still only have ..... a stock LCA. Even if it's boxed, it's still pretty weenie.

I second the "bend with your bare hands" comment. That's EXACTLY how mine were. In fact, one of them was sort of "ballooned" out when I took it off, which made it even MORE flexible than the other. I could put it over my knee and visibly see it bend. It was humbling. It was no wonder the car was squirrely under power.

If you really care about stiffening that part of the car up, I'd strongly recommend getting rid of the stockers, and just replacing them with tubing ones. Either square or round tubing, I don't think it makes much difference. Poly bushings should be fine for almost any use, short of competitive closed-course racing.

 

i would get the after market arms but i am really on a tight budget right now so i have to make do.

 

I boxed my stockers, added a tubular panhard bar and added poly bushings and it made quite a difference from stock, the boxed stockers are only temp till i get a set of aftermarket tubulars. well, i gues that temp situation has lasted 4 years so far but they are still better than stock for time being.