Ford Racing LCA's - opinions please

[FastEddie09]

Who is running the FRPP lca s?

I was considering the MM ext dut adj.............but i like the fact that the frpp's actually change the rear end geometry according to ford. Plus they are half the cost of the MM's.

Someone stop me if I am making a bad move.

link to product http://www.fordracingparts.com/parts...tKeyField=5922

[DarkShadow]

Those are the Mega Bite Jr control arms. I had them on my Mach and they are great.

Joe

[wcjr]

what price can ITLRUN offer them for?

[rich1]

The Ford FRPP lower control arms are made by HPM . I have used their stuff on my last 3 Mustangs including the Mach . Fits ..works .. good price ..and no failures of any kind.

[FastEddie09]

Originally Posted by wcjr

what price can ITLRUN offer them for?

Just send him a pm............I already did

I was just posting here before I purchased them. The price is good.

[Pontisteve]

The Metco lowers have about the same design, but look better being clear anodized aluminum. They can also be used with or without the drop-down brackets.

Changing the instant center of the car can, and usually does, add traction and puts more "hit" into the tires. This is great for cars with somewhere under 500 - 550 rwhp. Above that, you might give up precious traction once you get out a ways. The extra hit definitely helps maintain traction on the shifts better.

The design will add extra traction, at the expense of not keeping it as long. On lower powered cars, that's a good tradeoff.

[FastEddie09]

Alright, I've got the FRPP LCA about to be installed.............what kind of UCA should I get to go with these?

[Pontisteve]

In my humble opinion, there's more to this question than most people think. If I could offer some food for thought, here's a couple things you want to think about.

1) Double-adjustable. I would recommend this every time, for every car, simply because any change in ride height or suspension geometry, or even just in bushing durometer, will require a compensation in pinion angle. Plus, they're really not that much more money than a fixed length arm.

2) Realistic vehicle usage. Spherical rod ends are always the best for performance, because they allow full suspension articulation without binding. But they jack up NVH considerably, and will drive you nuts in a daily driver. In a weekend racecar or dedicated racecar, a rough ride may be tolerable. If not, stick with poly bushings on the body side of the control arm.

3) On the rear end ears side, you can either keep the stock bushing, switch up to poly, or go full on spherical bearing. Keeping the stock bushing is kind of a weak link, but due to the amount of work required to get those bushings out of the rear end, it's an option. Switching to poly is good, but if you like road racing or handling, it can cause some binding if you have poly on the other end as well. Going spherical bearing will add some NVH to the car, but if you kept at least one end of the arm using poly bushings, you've still got a lot of the NVH absorbed by the one bushing. I like the idea of running spherical bearings in the rear end ears, but keeping the poly bushings on the body side.

4) Torque boxes. Switching to a full-on race upper control arm with spherical bearings on both ends might be a great race car trick, but you had better weld up the torque boxes, and preferably weld in the torque box reinforcement kits as well. Otherwise those spherical bearings will pound away at the stock torque boxes.

5) Poly bushing design. They're just not all equal. Due to the economics and availablity of energy suspension poly bushings, most control arms use them. Some arms might find even cheaper bushings to use. Some arms even use fluted bushings, which is a real loser. That's just a predetermined stress crack point. The idea being that the flutes give some reservoirs for grease to be stored in, but if it's a stress riser, then who needs that. Spherical bearings don't have this problem, but many prefer not to have a ride that rough. My CHE arms use a real innovative bushing design, which I think sets them apart from the rest. They have a slightly softer (longer lasting) proprietary poly bushing, but no grease or grease fittings, and no flutes. Instead, they use a Dupont Delrin sleeve between the control arm bolt and the poly bushing. Delrin is a very hard, self-lubricating Nylon that Dupont spent like $50 million bucks developing. (Many solid race bushings are made out of nothing but Delrin). The fact that it's self lubricating eliminates the need for any grease, which helps bigtime in the longevity of the poly bushing because over time grease does break down the bushing. Particularly if it's a fluted bushing. Another small benefit is that you reduce the amount of space the poly bushing has to use up by replacing some of that space with the Delrin sleeve. Like this...




Poly bushings by themselves will squeek like crazy if they're installed dry. You either have to grease them (which I think causes premature breakdown of the bushing), or have something like the Delrin sleeve that allows the poly bushing to stay in a fixed location, and allow the bolt and the sleeve to pivot inside the bushing. But somewhere along the way, something's got to pivot.

For the average street car that likes to drag race, my favorite recommendation is a double-adjustable upper with poly bushing on the body side and a spherical bearing in the rear end ears. That gives you the non-binding suspension articulation, the smooth ride, and the near elimination of flex.