hey guys. i recently got $180 for x-mas. i was thinking i might put it into the suspension side of the car. would lakewood lower control arms help me any? when i floor it out of the hole i can feel the car hop a little and it just spins for like the first 20ft. i want to work on trying to lower my 60ft times. i know they cant be too good now with all the wheel spin.

 

they are ALLOT of fun, and its a useful tool for tuning. I paid 95.00 NIB on ebay, I think they run around 140.00 thru Summit

 

Which do you do most with it??

Daily driving/cornoring, or track racing.

If its driving/cornoring, I would go with sway bars, STB, wonder bar

Racing, I would do traction arms, etc


I'm saying this so you would beneft it better.

 

i think im gonna work on trying to get it to hook up right now. so im gonna go with the lower control arms. one other Q? a panhard rod helps with cornering not drag racing right? i know its a stupid q but i dont know.

 

I dont know, I would try different tire psi or maybe a set of coil over spring for pre load, the stock parts should keep wheel hop under control even with a big motor.

our cars are much better than the pre 80s cars and even then you had to have a hell of a motor to get wheel hop or bad leaf springs.

4.10s would improve your 60ft times.

 

Thought about rebuilding the front end? http://www.energysuspension.com or http://www.p-s-t.com

Thought about new struts & shocks?

You could probably have a welder "box" your current lower control arms AND panhard rod for cheap. Even better, if you get a junkyard car's LCA's, then you could actually drive to the shop. "Boxing" involves welding a plate over the open end of the lower control arm to turn it from a U-shape into a box-shape, which is just what the lakewood arms are. Tubular (round) LCA's and panhard rods are even stronger, but I dont think our v6's need that. Many v8's don't even need it.

But you can't really beat the look of those powdercoated LCA's!

 

Vegas, Baby, Vegas!

 

so the tubular lca's are stronger than the square lca's

 

OH G0D YES!
Reason.
Ya can box the stock ones.
Where is weak point?
Connection to vehicle cause SO LITTLE & WEAK metal there holding the pivot/point of extreme torque to break that point, cause ya removed the "weak link" by "boxing" it.
For probably same labor cost, replace with correct & be done.
Look at the ends of a "GOOD & PROPER" LCA to see why I offered my response.
I'd suggest buying proper racing "SLICK" & see what happens.
If good, buy two!
Ya have Posi on car? I got lost in amount of mods in list !

 

Karl, what the heck are you talking about?? A "good & proper" control arm? What do you think that is? Magic? Superior engineering? How do you think they make a boxed LCA, KED? Take a rectangular piece of tubing and weld the ends shut. Aftermarket ones are usually thicker steel, but there's no magic to it!! And besides, if boxing the stock lower control arms was So Bad, then why does SLP sell stock control arms that they boxed?? For a huge ticket price of $110? Link is here:

http://www.slponline.com/view_produc...&SHOWEMAIL=Off

Here's the pic:

Are you aware there's two flavors in the aftermarket, tubular LCA's and square LCA's? I'm assuming not; because you compared the boxing of a stock control arm to a tubular arm. Well, the aftermarket makes both! And here's pictures of them!

Edelbrock's LCA's (similar to Lakewood's, but Lakewood is cheaper):


Steve Spohn's LCA's:


What's a good joke is that all these arms are the same price (about $110), so make sure you shop around to get the best deal. If you do go with aftermarket, the Spohn LCA's are definately the best deal out of all 3 of these. (SLP is making a hell of a ton of money off their arms, from just $25 worth of bushings and $5 of steel and 10 minutes of a weldor's time and a bit of powdercoat.)

[edit] Oh, and besides, In ANY application, tubular is stronger than box, not just for lower control arms. Race car frames aren't made out of round tubing because it looks prettier!

 

Tom,
By removing a "weak link" twist, the extreme force goes to the ends.
There isn't enough strong metal there to take the abuse.
Of the three choices ya offered, which one would you really want to install. Once.

TO ME,
For the labor (if you do not own a welder) ya take to "box" a stock GM issued arm (sure lots of places sell about $.10 worth of metal you install for about $30 bucks)...
TO ME,
it's a wiser investment of my time to do it right, once.

Am I incorrect stating the arm must be removed to be boxed anyway?

I can't stand band-aiding problems, they tend to fail, too quick, sometimes.

The prices for those three items are the same?
Including poly bushings on ends?
CHEAP and fairly priced solution!

If ya own the welder, you can easily make the stronger style of the LCA for cheap!
The metal probably is lying around the garage.
I helped a friend make those high priced LCA ones.
Took about hour of labor & metal stuff he had lying around, including bushings.
No they weren't powderer coated.
Spray cans!
Find a spare factory issued LCA and make it yourself.
Spend the $180 on the Welder!

 

From your sig and the amount of work put into the car, I would say you and your father have a lot of tools. My father also has a lot of tools.

But if I had the $180, I would keep 50 or so around for that unexpected break down.

And I would seriously look into getting myself a few nice tools. I have a good assortment now. But I still wish I had things like a decent timing light, flange kit, good strong arm, a really nice 2-3ton jack with stands or ramps, and a really nice grease gun.

I mean modding a car is great, but being able to change the oil, grease the front end and time my car is just as important.

Just my thought on the topic.

 

im plenty set on the tool side. i already have a couple thousand worth of tools myself. all mac and snap-on. my dad owns his own auto shop. and he has close to $50,000 in tools.

 

Do you guys also have a snow plow for that New Years money?!!

Try tackling making your own LCA's.

 

I dont think the suspension is a weak link nothing {worth} worring about anyway. A mod worth the money would be a set of SFC's.

 

If you've got a welder, you can fab your own subframe connectors, too. I remember reading an article in Hot Rod about a guy who took an old 'Vette body and put it on his OWN frame. Yep, he made a frame. They even showed two or three pictures of him doing it. He cut out 4 sides for each frame rail, and welded them together. Cool stuff!

Thing is; boxing your stock lower control arm's isn't a band-aid solution. It's a real solution. But I do agree with you that out of the three of those sets, it makes 100% more sense to buy the tubular arm. Especially SLP's rip-off deal. They're really making $$ on that one.

 

Tom..
Funny I was just reading an article of how they show how to make boxed arms....
I ALSO THOUGHT OH I'LL DO THAT..
It wasn't until I had a set of these arms in hand and saw how cheesy CHEAP stamped steel they are, then made a STRONGER set for nothing more than scrap metal & poly bushings this guy had in his shop, then I respected why the ones in your supplied pics are worth their weight in gold.

MANY pics of FACTORY trailing arms I've seen,

ALOT of them CRACKED at the bushing point.
WHY?
When those poly bushings inserted, ya abuse that point of the metal ends (for removal & insertion) and when the "car torque" attacks it back......
It wasn't until I made this set that I really found out the truth.
I know what ya mean about making a frame.
That 1956 Corvette in the Hot Rod article
I did that with a Cobra kit.
Chalk lines on garage floor, welder in hand....
Yeah, that guys ride is one sweet package.
That's my plan.
I will "build" my Birth Date 1956 Corvette.
I already have the passenger side door ($20 swap meet purchase!)

 

SFC's

 

well i just ordered a set of lakewood tubular LCA's and an asp crank pulley from summit. bill came to $134.29 i dont think its too bad of price. i just couldnt swing the $105 for the spohn LCA's

 

Are you guys talking about boxing the rear lower control arms or the front ones too? Does boxing reduce flexing alot?

 

how long should it take summit to send my LCA's and my crank pulley? i ordered them yesterday. i was thinking 4 days

 

What boxing a REAR Lower Control Trailing Arm does is strengthen the assembly.
BUT it is NOT reinforcing the weaklink of the newly installed poly bushing ends when bolted to vehicle & that's where the weakness will migrate to/crack the metal.

 

V6camaroman, it usually takes me two days to get a Summit order. You can go to their website and track the order; there's a "Check your Order" red link on the left side of the main summitracing.com page. I think you need your customer # and order #, it'll spit a tracking number at you. But the holiday might have interfered with quick shipping, let us know how the parts work out!

 

i just checked it and it was sent out yesterday because of the holliday so it will be her in a couple days