Drop Spindles and Control Arm Compatiblity

[The New Black]

Does anyone know if Global West '67 A Body control arms work with Heidts or Ride Tech Tall Spindles? I'm pretty sure they will, just looking for confirmation. Thanks in advance!

[Chevelle598bb]

I am wondering the same thing. I have a 71 with the G-plus GW control arms with stock spindles. I am looking to switch to a stock style drop/tall spindle.

[The New Black]

I've emailed both ridetech and Heidts... we'll see if I can get an answer.

[Vicinity]

I believe Heidts say "Will only work with Heidt's Control Arms" or something similar. No clue on ridetech's.

[Chevelle598bb]

Sounds good. I sent an email to GW, maybe they will know.

[The New Black]

Heidts contacted me and told they are a no go.

[Marcus SC&C]

It`s not so much the brand of A arms that matters but their configuration. Those intended for tall spindles and performance alignment will be shorter than stock (as the tall spindle raises the UCA it also causes it to swing outward in it`s arc of movement adding lots of + camber), have more offset toward the firewall (for more + caster) and have a flatter ball joint mounting pad (to prevent the ball joints from running out of travel and binding in bump). Those intended for the old B body swap will be shorter still because that spindle has more ball joint axis inclination than stock and tall aftermarket A body spindles. While they may work it may be a real challenge to properly align the car when using aftermarket tall spindles. The drop of the spindle doesn`t really affect UCA fit but the overall height sure does. The short answer is the GW arms intended for stock spindles won`t work out well at all, the ones intended for the B spindle swap will usually work alright (proper alignment depends on the rest of the set up), the ones for the Cat5 (same spindle but much more aggressive alignment) will usually cause you to run very severe race -camber settings when used with aftermarket A body tall spindles. It varies car to car and set up to set up but that`s the gist of it. Mark SC&C

[The New Black]

So, you're saying the best bet now is like an AFX stock spindle (since I want big brakes). What about a spindle like the tall AFX that has less than 1" of drop, that should be more manageable than the 2" drop, correct?

It`s not so much the brand of A arms that matters but their configuration. Those intended for tall spindles and performance alignment will be shorter than stock (as the tall spindle raises the UCA it also causes it to swing outward in it`s arc of movement adding lots of + camber), have more offset toward the firewall (for more + caster) and have a flatter ball joint mounting pad (to prevent the ball joints from running out of travel and binding in bump). Those intended for the old B body swap will be shorter still because that spindle has more ball joint axis inclination than stock and tall aftermarket A body spindles. While they may work it may be a real challenge to properly align the car when using aftermarket tall spindles. The drop of the spindle doesn`t really affect UCA fit but the overall height sure does. The short answer is the GW arms intended for stock spindles won`t work out well at all, the ones intended for the B spindle swap will usually work alright (proper alignment depends on the rest of the set up), the ones for the Cat5 (same spindle but much more aggressive alignment) will usually cause you to run very severe race -camber settings when used with aftermarket A body tall spindles. It varies car to car and set up to set up but that`s the gist of it. Mark SC&C

[dontlifttoshift]

It's not the drop that causes problems, it's the height of the spindle.

[The New Black]

Yeah, I misread that.

It's not the drop that causes problems, it's the height of the spindle.

[The New Black]

Ok, after some more research... the Global West G Plus arms (which I am running) will be fine with drop spindles. I don't know why I didn't see them on their site to begin with. This is what I found about the GW G-Plus control arms on another site:

The arms have additional caster built into the them and a improved camber curve. http://www.wotperformance.com/store/...cat=265&page=1

[The New Black]

Mark,

Saw your post here: http://www.chevelles.com/forums/showthread.php?t=215205

Good information. This should help those people out there still wondering.
I do have the CTA-42's so all is good.