2nd gen F Body 1970-81 camaro/firebird tubular control arms inquire?

[harry k]

Have a pro touring 74&80 trans am that has all the suspension goodies that is an upgrade to oem parts set up, it has energy suspension poly graphite bushings in all over.
my inquire is: would an aftermarket tubular front control arms(uppers and lowers)make a noticeable/drastic difference in handling over what i have is oem control arms with allready same kind of bushings that will be in the tubular ones?

Yes i understand where tubular ones are stronger and main benefit is alignment adjustments are compensated with them a lot easier but again i don't have any issue there with my current wheels set up.

So bottom line is it worth to spend the $$$?

thanks in advance.

[BMR Sales]

Good Tubular A-Arms (American Made)will be Stronger, Lighter and will have Geometry Corrections. So, Yes there will be a noticeable difference or "feel"

[mert.celet]

I am so happy with my SPC uppers and QA1 lowers. 5.5deg positive caster 1.25 deg negative camber & toe set at zero. You can not achieve these #s with stock arms. Also the SPC uppers are shim free. So much easier to get to where You want.

[Skip Fix]

Trying to get more than 3 degrees positive caster with even 1/2 degree negative camber and factory arms get pretty tough. Rear bolt on the upper is not long enough or it starts rubbing on the steering shaft.

As far as being lighter that factory I've got Globals and Pro Touring F body's and the weight difference is very minimal between them. Global's drag uppers are a hair lighter.

[TheJDMan]

The answer to your question is, "it depends". It depends on what specifically it is you want to accomplish with your suspension setup. The RIGHT tubular A-arms are well worth the investment. But just buying a set of cheap no name tubular A-arms off ebay will NOT help you. You need to do some research to find those parts that will accomplish what you want to do with your setup. Suspension geometry is a very complicated subject and just bolting on some random parts is more likely to degrade your handling than to improve it. There are only a handful of people on this forum that I consider to be suspension experts and I am not one of them. But I do know enough to consult with those experts before considering any suspension upgrades. I recommend you spend some time reading the suspension threads here on PT written by Ron Sutton for some serious information concerning performance suspensions and upgrades.

[UMI Tech]

At UMI we build a traditional style upper and lower with 6 deg caster and keeping the spindle pin centered. We also have a tall ball joint option if you want more camber gain (some do, some don't, since the spindle is already quite tall as compared to an A-body).

We also have a competition version that uses only a coilover and offers up to 10 deg caster. We have these on Brent Pursifull's Efbird as well as Leslie Jones and David Pereira's Camaros.

For bushings we have poly (medium stiff) and Delrin (hard plastic).

The caster makes it pretty worth it as these cars go arrow straight at triple digit speeds with no trouble.

ramey

[Ben@SpeedTech]

I noticed you mentioned the $$$, sounds like you're making sure the value is there for dropping the kind of cash that a GOOD name brand set of arms calls for. As has been said yes they will make a decent improvement and are a great starting point to improving the car's performance. All of the common Pro Touring parts will make some improvements on their own. To keep expectations in check consider this too- much like building a powerful engine, there's no one part that will turn a street car into a track killer, it's all a combination of the right parts and then a little tuning to really optimize that combo.

Control arms are a great way to start as stated in the above responses. The real improvement though could be said to be the geometry built into them rather than the ability to adjust them more as you mentioned. Combine their design improvements with a good "pro touring" alignment and you've got something going. Don't stop there though, the next step and something often overlooked by folks getting into the sport is shocks. As you are able to dive into that part of the suspension you will find that their design and valving has a significant influence on the handling and responsiveness of the car. If you can move into coilovers there are even further advantages. Combining the control arms with decent springs and shocks, or even better using coilovers, will give you a compounded overall improvement. This is a large reason that although we sell parts individually Speedtech leans towards supplying suspension packages whenever possible.

If you ever need advice or understanding of pro touring suspensions our tech guys are happy to help go over your questions without any sales pressure. Feel free to give us a call at 435-628-4300. One of our guys, Jay, has a 2nd gen F body himself, and a long history of building and racing cars in his family's history for some time, Good luck with the build!