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Rear Lower Control arms. How To:

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dsmmack

15+ Year Contributor
177
5
Nov 7, 2004
Winnipeg, MB_Canada
I posted this on DSM Talk on Saturday after I built these but forgot to post this on here (don't come on to Tuners very much)

Sourcing through the GVR4 forums I found this old thread relating to building rear upper camber control arms (basically the Stealth arms) using AFCO parts.
GalantVR-4.org: The AFCO route, help would be nice.

The rear Lower ball joint is the same as the rear upper ball joint. So did some measuring and came up with these parts:

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When measuring the stock rear arms I figured I'd need a 17 inch swage tube but then was worried that there was not going to be enough thread into the tube and went the next size up AFCO's 18 inch wide swage tube.

Now that I've assembled them I think the best route to go would be the 17 inch swage tubing as I have the tie rod and the spherical end threaded all the way into the tube and I think I'm about an 1/8th to a 1/4 inch longer than the stock lower C/Arm. So a 17 inch tube would probably be best.

The Swage tubing from AFCO has one side Right hand and one side Left hand threads so that you can adjust the arm once its on the car.

Here is my parts list. AFCO part numbers: (prices based off summit racing)
30211 tie rod end LH (x2) $17.88ea
10141 jam nut 3/4" LH (x2) $0.95ea
20023k rod end/bushing kit 3/4" lower (x2) $23.88ea
19517 17 inch swage tubing (x2) $ 13.88ea

Summit and Jegs both carry these parts. However when I went to order Summit was quoting a 3 week wait for the parts and Jegs said it would be 4 days. I bought them through Jegs.

I had ordered the Jam nuts for the RH threaded Rod ends as well, The Rod end kit comes with the jam nuts. Only the LH threaded jam nut is required as the Tie rod end does not come with one.

The rod end kits come with spacers for through bolt mounting, The spacers as they are from AFCO are too wide. You need to cut them down.
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The ONLY issue with doing these arms is that there is no mounting point for the rear sway bar. I have seen guys make similar arms for the rear and weld mounting points for the sway bar link. However what I'm planning on doing is welding a mounting point onto the rear trailing arm and making a sway bar attachment from the trailing arm instead. This way there is no excess stress on these lower arms in terms of a twisting force on them (they are just threaded in and locked with Jam nuts I could see them wanting to break loose) and if for whatever reason I want to adjust the rear lower arms to correct for a slight alignment issue with no sway bar mount on them I can unlock the jam nuts and give them a little turn or so -where as if I weld a mounting point to them I won't be able to do this.

Hope this helps out. I wish I had found that thread way back when as I could have built the Upper Camber arms with the same parts for much cheaper than the Ingals arms I have (and still cheaper than the Stealth arms)
(EDITED in bold for those who seem to miss this, Do people not read either the link about how to build afco upper arms from the Galant forum link I posted above or even this key info? Not trying to be rude but the amount of questions regarding upper arms is absurd when I took the time to give you the info in the thread)
For those wanting to build UPPER arms substitute the 17 inch swage tube for a 14 inch tube (19514) the rest of the parts are the same.


I will post pics when I get my sway bar mount fab'd up and connected.

Also I just weighed the arms this a.m. AFCO 3.0lbs, Stock 4.5lbs.
 
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awesome write up! can't wait to buy this stuff for myself!
 
Yup. Top was first. I would have done the bottoms if it was easier to mount the swaybar.

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dsmmack has a good idea.I will be interested how he attaches the sway bar to the trailing arm.I made some rear lower control arms.I made them with a solid bushing at the sub frame ,so I can attach the sway bar.You can see some photos in my gallery.
 
Nice i'm going to do the upper control arms,but got one question.Why do you need left and right hand thread rod ends?,
 
The ends are opposite threaded so you can rotate the center of the swage to make the arm shorter or longer. If both ends were threaded the same one end would screw out while the other screwed in resulting in no net change of length.
 
The ends are opposite threaded so you can rotate the center of the swage to make the arm shorter or longer. If both ends were threaded the same one end would screw out while the other screwed in resulting in no net change of length.

Ah understood makes sense
 
Hoping to see how the trailing arm brackets for the sway bar is coming? I don't see why we cant just use 12" swage tube for the lowers, and use a spacer threaded on both ends with lock nuts of sorts coming from the Tie Rod End. That way that part stays stationary and allows for fabrication of a bracket to mount the sway bar in the stock location. The swage tube can still be rotated for adjustment and the spacer in between the swage tube and tie rod will remain locked in place with the swaybar attached to a bracket on that spacer.
 
Fab'd brackets for mounting the rear sway bar today. Worked out nicely. Clearance between everything.
Went through a few options with full on ball stud style (like stock front end links but longer center bar) links and what not but this in the end was the easiest and most simple way to attach them.

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That came out well. I am impressed with the simplicity in your mounting solution.

I am ready to do the lowers on mine now. Thanks dsmmack for the pics and for showing us the way!
 
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Looks awesome, but will the sway bar "act" the same as if it were mounted on teh control arms?

I don't know a lot about suspension geometry so my questions are honest. I am very interested in this, thanks for the write up, I think I will start with the uppers.
 
Thanks for all the pics and ideas. I have been wanting to do this mod for a while and its nice to see some pics. Thanks for the info.
 
Thanks for posting good info! It was very helpful when I built a set of arms for my car. I found many sizes of high strength lightweight threaded aluminum tubes that fit just like the steel swaged tubes. The color almost matches the Koni's too!
Using aluminum tube saves an additional half pound per arm, aluminum heims saves .25 pound per heim. The upper arms are built with teflon lined HD aluminum heims at both ends.

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Thanks for posting good info! It was very helpful when I built a set of arms for my car. I found many sizes of high strength lightweight threaded aluminum tubes that fit just like the steel swaged tubes. The color almost matches the Koni's too!
Using aluminum tube saves an additional half pound per arm, aluminum heims saves .25 pound per heim. The upper arms are built with teflon lined HD aluminum heims at both ends.

Aluminum wedge pipe is 20056 if anybody wants aluminum ones
 
This definitely will be done when I get to upgrading my suspension. Thanks for the awesome right up. +1 on the part numbers for the aluminum ones. We should get a vendor to start making these.
 
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