Tall Balljoints

[Bad94]

I was wondering if i can run the Howe tall balljoints in my stock upper arms.

I want the SP&C uppers, but im going to have to wait a few months.

[megaladon6]

what do tall ball joints accomplish?

[Apogee]

You can, but I would think that you'll have a hard time getting it aligned. I went with the SC&C Stage II+ kit on my 73/4 Nova project and without the SPC uppers, I don't think that there wouldn't have been any way to get the caster where I wanted it. I think you might max out your ball-joint travel as well, if not at rest then certainly when bottomed out.

Maybe Marcus or someone else will chime in here, as he can probably tell you exactly what will bind first...and second...and third...etc. You could always give him a call at SC&C and ask him directly.

[Marcus SC&C]

Bad and Meg, tall ball joints can do the same thing as tall spindles. Simply put they alter the vertical location of their suspensio npickup point. That changes the suspension geometry and the changes can be huge! That`s a good thing when dealing with a lot of the older cars we love so much because the original suspension designs are often really poor. There`s a catch though (isn`t there always!) ,when you make profound changes and improvements in the suspension it effects the way the original parts such as the upper arms fit the car and it effects the static front end alignment. That`s why we usually recomend using the tall ball joints as part of a matched set with adj. tubular upper arms that have the right length,,offset and ball joint mounting angle to work with the new geometry.

Apogee,you hit the nail on the ol head! If the cars`s not lowered too much with springs and if it doesn`t already have a ton of shims on the rear stud and if you use offset cross shafts you can usually run a std. tall upper or lower ball joint and still get a decent performance alignment out of it. On A and G body cars I`d recomend running just a tall lower because on those cars it also improves the factory bumpsteer up to 80%,lowers the car about 3/4" and reduces lateral roll center migration. On most other GM cars I`d recomend the tall uppers which still still have a profound effect on the roll center height,front moment arm length and camber curves. If in doubt just give us a call. :) Mark SC&C

[megaladon6]

mark: once i have some money in the bank i'm buying your AFX kit for my 87 monte. what, if any tall ball joints or tie rods should i use for best handling? i will be putting hitchkiss springs in and C5 rims (w/spacers).

[racerbrown]

Okay, so the stock roll center on a second gen camaro is right around ground level. Has anyone did the rc measurements after installing the tall Howe UBJ's? Howe LBJ's? or both? Thanks in advance for any info. I'm a roundy round guy looking to raise my rc to 4 inches.

[86Cutlass383SR]

I have the f-body tller spindle and the GW upper arms with the C5 brakes. Would using a tall lower ball joint benefit my setup any?

Doug

[Marcus SC&C]

Sorry to take so long getting back to this topic. Somehow I missed this one.
Meg., the best ball joint package for the G bodys is the StreetComp Stage 2 http://www.scandc.com/suspensions.htm#streetcomp2

RacerB, RC is very dependant on ride height and even wheel width and offset so we`re dealing with really round numbers without more specific data. Very roughly though the stock RC is about ground level and we can raise it about 2" with the tall UBJs and pretty much duplicate the same geometry gains as the cut,grind and weld mods recomended by GM for SCCA TransAm race cars in 1970/1971. No need to do a lower ball joints too,you`re already where you want to be.

86 Cutlass, some people have used tall lowers to reduce the massive bumpsteer gain caused by the B spindle swap. It can put the bumpsteer back to nearly stock,which is still bad but it`s better than twice as bad! The problem is it also pushed the camber curves,RC height,FVSA length etc. past their best points and back down the other side of their curves making the geometry less than ideal. On a car that`s just driven around the bumpsteer improvement might be worth it. On a road race car it might cause twitchy handling at 9ths+. Mark SC&C

[MonzaRacer]

Bows to the Master Marcus of SC&C, and steps away from the "suspension " dojo floor.
Marcus, I hope to ship you out a Monza control arm w ball joint and maybe even a spindle so you can try some things with them for my Monza. my trouble is that my work has kept me starved for the winter but hopefully its getting better .