Speed Tech Lower Control Arm Clearance Problems

[NovaPwr]

Hey guys,
Just got my lower Speed Tech control arms after a 3 1/2 month wait and runaround. (That is another story). If they would not have had my money already I would have just used my original lower arms. Got the new uppers and lowers installed, attatched the spindle and installed the new Baer rotor and calipers(very nice stuff). Everything looked good until I jacked the lower arm up to my old ride height. And that is not very low at all, 13 1/4" center of spindle to fender lip. I would like to go lower eventually. The lower ball joint ring that the tubes are welded into just makes contact with the rotor. That ring extends down beneath the ball joint assy approx. an inch but it is still in line with the tubes which makes me leary about grinding any material from it. As I lower the wheel the angle of the ring starts to align with the rotor and clearance increases. As I raise the wheel the angle increases sharply and the lower edge of the ring quickly contacts the rotor. Lowering the wheel an inch gave me a full 1/4" clearance. So would I need a 1/4" for every inch travel the other way also? Or more? I am wondering if I could clearance that ring without weakening the arm? Looks like that would give me the clearance but would it make the arm weak? Any advice would be appreciated. I tried to take a couple of pictures of the ring and of the clearance issue. One other thing I noticed was my wheel has moved out some. Gonna need some more backspacing and new wheels. Thanks guys.
Dave

[astroracer]

Looking at your photo's I can see that the ball stud pivot point is well above the stud to arm interface. Compare that to your stock lower arm. Where is the pivot point on the stock arm in relationship to the ball stud to arm interface? I'll bet they are much closer together. What you have with the new arm is a bunch of extra material hanging down under the pivot point which makes for a longer lever arm. This, in effect, moves that material "farther" during suspension travel then the stock arm when articulating.
You could probably grind the lip off the outboard side of the ball stud cup but you should talk to the manufacturer before you do. All of the stress in the arm will take a path through the welds and ball stud mounting ring so removing this skirt of extra material shouldn't hurt the arm's integrity. You need to check clearances at full jounce and rebound AND full right and left lock while in jounce and rebound. You may have other issues caused by the "tall" ball stud to arm connection.
The other issue is why the wheel mounting face is moving outboard. I would verify you have the correct arm for your application before cutting it up...
How does the ball stud press into the arm? Or is it a screw in stud? It looks to me that it goes in from the top. If that is the case I wouldn't use the arm. even if it is a screw in this puts the ball stud to arm joint under tension and this will cause the ball stud to pop out after a couple of good bumps. The spring will push the ball stud and arm apart under load. Please say the stud pushes in from the bottom...
Mark

[Travis B]

By looking at the pics it doesn't appear to be pressed in from the bottom.......

[NovaPwr]

Thanks Mark. The ball joints do go in from the bottom. I spoke to the mfg and they are going to get back with me. The machine guy answered and said it must be a problem with the brake setup. Baer says no brake setup problems, make sure they sent the correct arm and clearance the skirt area just as you suggested. Said they have the same issue with some new Camaros and Eclipses. Once I hear back from the mfg, I will probably get the sparks flying. Thanks for the help.
Dave

[chicane67]

Its not a brake issue.

Is or has your car been aligned yet ?? If not, you may have too much static camber in the alignment and this will effect the clearence between the rotor and the LBJ mount.

But in my opinion, even with no shims in the UCA, it shouldnt be anywhere near as close as it is. Looks like another issue within a lack of attention to detail in the LCA design and construction.

The picture says it all. The LBJ mount looks a little too long/deep...... maybe ??

[baz67]

I second chicane here. I would look at the arm(likely) or alignment(less likely) as being the issue. If you want to be sure just throw on your old lower. If it fits with everything else being the same you narrowed it down to the ST arm.

[sinned]

This is obviously a design issue with the LCA (terrible design). I have no idea why they left an additional inch or so below the actual ball joint retaining portion of the ring. My guess is that it is just easier (cheaper) to build it that way. That entire lower portion needs to be machined off. I would even look into cutting it off completely and welding on a screw in mount.

That sure looks like a MIG weld…I hope those arms were fairly inexpensive, that ring is subjected to quite a bit of stress and really should have been TIG welded together. It may just be the work of a sloppy welder though.

[rattus]

FWIW. The DSE LCAs have the lower outside portion of the ball joint housing cut away:

[TitoJones]

Speed-Tech must have forgotten to copy that part of it too.
Tyler

[Steve Chryssos]

I don't mean to sound obnoxious (which I usually do), but take those A-arms off and nail them to the wall in your garage as a reminder not to buy questionable products--especially questionable SUSPENSION parts. Between the BJ clearance issue and the wheel clearance issue, you have to wonder if they EVER tested their product on actual cars and with a variety of different brake packages.

Yes, you can grind off the the lower BJ foreskin, but ask yourself how and why they did not discover this issue during the product testing phase. What else might be wrong with the design and execution? What if you find another flaw while driving the car at speed? If we were talkng about an air cleaner wing nut, I'd say grind away til the cows come home. In this case--a suspension part, I would try to return the arms or cut your losses. Better yet, just call your credit card company, and submit a charge-back. For all you know the problem may be the length of the UPPER a-arm, which throw off your suspension geometry and explain your wheel clearance issue.

Look at the pieces of the puzzle, connect the dots, put yourself in the position of a suspension parts designer (don't forget the dot labelled 3-1/2 month wait) and ask yourself if the dots line up. If not, walk away.

Given the two primary symptoms, something doesn't make sense here. Sorry, but I don't want to see you get hurt.

[David Pozzi]

There is a lot of extra material that should be trimmed off for use with stock brakes. I'm amazed they obviously didn't test these arms with stock brakes. They sell their own late Corvette/Camaro disc kits so must have built the arms to fit those.



I do think these arms are much stronger than stock arms, but if you have any doubts about that, it's not worth keeping them and worring about it.

[NovaPwr]

Thanks guys for taking the time to look at this issue for me. I appreciate all the replies. After seeing the DSE arm with the skirt area cut away I am pretty sure I will try that. I had a paint pencil line on mine pretty close to the same shape they ended up with. Had I known all this going in, my original lower arms would have been blasted and had the new bushings in and been on the road right now! This may help someone else from having to go through the same problems.
Dave

[Woody]

What brake system are you running? I initially had a Baer Serious Street system on the front of my 68 Camaro and ran into the same clearance issues when I installed my DSE lower control arms. DSE's arms did not used to have the angled cut out area for added clearance. I ended up switching to the Baer Track system and there is not a clearance problem.

[NovaPwr]

What brake system are you running? I initially had a Baer Serious Street system on the front of my 68 Camaro and ran into the same clearance issues when I installed my DSE lower control arms. DSE's arms did not used to have the angled cut out area for added clearance. I ended up switching to the Baer Track system and there is not a clearance problem.

Woody, I am trying to install the serious street 11" setup also. I like my 15"wheel and tire combo and that is the only reason I went with this setup. Those bigger tires and wheels are really starting to grow on me though Thanks,
Dave

[Mkelcy]

I initially had a Baer Serious Street system on the front of my 68 Camaro and ran into the same clearance issues when I installed my DSE lower control arms. DSE's arms did not used to have the angled cut out area for added clearance.

Okay, I'm waiting for all the Speed Tech bashers to start bashing DSE's product design and testing processes, since they also apparently had the clearance issue on their early production LCA's.

[TitoJones]

Okay, I'm waiting for all the Speed Tech bashers to start bashing DSE's product design and testing processes, since they also apparently had the clearance issue on their early production LCA's.

I'll be the first.
When a company such as DSE makes a new product, I'm positive that Kyle tests it, and makes sure his product fits like it is supposed to. Kyle obviously found out that the ball joint ring caused interference with some brake systems, and changed the design.

Speed-Tech on the other hand is the copy cat of the Pro-Touring world. When they see a cool DSE/GW product, they copy it, and change it just enough to not be an exact replica.
They followed in DSE's tracks, but forgot to copy the updated design.
Here is where the 2 companies differ-
Kyle would take the arm back, fix it, and send it back, no ifs, ands or buts.
Todd on the other hand...
Well, the customer is doing the mod himself. Enough said.
Tyler

[Woody]

Dave, I initially wanted to keep my 15" wheels as well. However, finding good tires was a big problem and after my clearance problems, I decided to move to 17" wheels. I am very happy of the look of the 17" wheels.

Mkelcy, Kyle and Stacy at DSE were excellent in working with me to fix the problem. They figured out the problem and redisgned the control arms and then offered me the option of switching out the control arms or changing to the Track system even though my Serios Street kit was in used condition. I elected to change out the brakes and go with larger wheels. Their customer service is top nothch.

[yody]

i hate speedtechs customer service!! but i do like their control arms!! I wouldn't be suprised if what tyler said was correct about not copying the updated design. Did you call speedtech? maybe i missed that?

[Mkelcy]

I didn't see anything in this thread to indicate that Speed Tech refused to correct the clearance problem on their LCA's, although they may have.

I also didn't see anything in this thead to indicate that DSE took back their early LCA's and corrected the clearance problem, although they may have.

Clearly, DSE didn't "test" their early production LCA's they way you would have Speed Tech "test" theirs now, or else there wouldn't have been a clearance problem on the early DSE arms.

Finally, as a hot rodder, pro-tourer and consumer, I don't think it helps the folks who come to this board to bash products because you think a product may have been copied. That, frankly, is irrlevant to me and to many others if the product works as advertised. It also doesn't help to bash a product because it may have MIG versus TIG welds, when (so far as I'm aware) no one has done any objective testing on whether TIG welds on the tubular LCA's are needed.

In short, objective, fact based information is useful; biased "information" based on personal animosity is not.

However, if anyone who was bashing the Speed Tech product has any actual facts about any actual failure to work as advertised, I'd like to hear about it so I can steer people away from a bad product. Until then, what I think I'm seeing is bias against a manufacturer who is not a member of the club.

[TitoJones]

Mike-
Come on, do we really need to go here again?
I don't think a DSE product was copied. I know it. I can document this back to early 2003 when a guy by the name of 'Mountie' was on Camaros.net asking very specific info regarding a GW tubular A arm. He then came to Camaros.net with a new tubular control arm, and later switched his screen name to Todd Smith. Care to guess where the offset leaf spring shackles came from? Oh, that's right, DSE.
Care to guess where their C5 brake bracket came from?
Baer Racing.
Kyle knows it, as does half the board who chooses not to look the other way.
Being part of a club has little to do with it.
Stealing from within our little PT 'club', and then bringing it right back to the market you stole it from is tacky to say the least.
Look up a few posts, and you find that Kyle did what he could to fix the issue. Try and get Todd on the phone to fix this issue, and you'll know why David is choosing to fix the problem himself.
Tyler