1G tubular control arms

[1992awdlaser]

I would prefer solid bushings.

 

[Slippi84]

Question for everyone: Would you rather see this type of product offered with polyurethane bushings or solid aluminum bushings?

Aluminum bushing all the way and def lighter.

 

[Ludachris]

Question for everyone: Would you rather see this type of product offered with polyurethane bushings or solid aluminum bushings?

Solid bushings. And I think you absolutely have to have the ability to adjust roll center. If the Moog replacements address roll center adjustment, then that would be fine - but I don't think they're any taller. If they're just stock replacements it doesn't do us much good. I think the perfect solution would be to design the arms around ball joints that adjust roll center and still fit our spindles (like the S13 240sx solution from Megan Racing).

The biggest inherent handling problem with a 1G DSM is that it cannot be lowered much without hindering handling due to the roll center. We need to be able to lower these cars more without having to endure bump steer and other handling issues associated with the roll center being out of wack. It doesn't make sense to design a front control arm without addressing this problem. If you're going to go through the trouble of designing a control arm, make sure it solves all the major problems that can be solved.

 

[99gst_racer]

Gotcha. Thanks for the info, Chris.

 

[wishihadatalon]

Only trying to help... you'll never hear me downplay some one's fab work as i love to do it myself and love to see what others are making as well

Replaceable ball joints is a BIG plus in my book.

As for heat treating, i didn't mean to harden the part.. only to relieve welding stresses!... Completely necessary, no.. but if you could see the stresses being forced on your materials just as they sit ( not on the car and loaded) you would defintitely want to heat treat. CHro-mo is very hard and brittle and the twists and contortion from the filler metal contracting will really put a lot of un-due force on the part before it ever goes into service.

Have the guy weld a flat square out of 4130 tubing, then take a saw and cut clean through any bar on that square, Once you're through the thing will POP and twist to where it wants to be and you'll see the forces i'm talking about. 2 hours in a heat treating oven (while in the jig mind you) will take care of and releave all of that. sometimes you can do it wihtout the jig, but some pieces will come out different. To ensure quality, i would have a heavy duty jig from mild steel and heat treat afterwards.

Now.. about the bushings. I think the post above with the EVO arms offer a cool little bit that could be done. Instead of using the stock style bushings (metal or poly) you could have a bar that runs from the front mount to the rear bushing mounting bolts, then have the knuckle/ball ends ride on that (just like those EVO arms) that would make the parts common circle track stuff and easily replaced! that would be really cool.

But if the price is right on the ones with stock style bushings i think you could do okay (especially for like 250 a pair) since that would put you so close to buying the stockers what it would totally be worth the upgrade by the next ball joint replacement.,

Much more sense on the heat treating aspect and understandable . As you explained, the more ductile filler should help with this a little. Paul I will speak with my welding proffesors tonight on this or see if there is a method that can be used to provide the same results without the use of a torch for that duration of time on each part.

 

[turboglenn]

wishihadatalon... What settings are you using on your TIG? With the right amperage you should be able to move fairly quick while keeping the HAZ rather small and thus making for less distortion and not changing the strength of the stock any further out than necessary

 

[wishihadatalon]

wishihadatalon... What settings are you using on your TIG? With the right amperage you should be able to move fairly quick while keeping the HAZ rather small and thus making for less distortion and not changing the strength of the stock any further out than necessary

This isn't my work. I have yet to weld chro-mo tubing but I know exactly what you are saying. When I build the stuff for my car, I will have the collective experience of my 3 welding instructors who have weld engineering degrees and have done 20+ years each of code quality work on pretty much everything.

 

[turboglenn]

This isn't my work. I have yet to weld chro-mo tubing but I know exactly what you are saying. When I build the stuff for my car, I will have the collective experience of my 3 welding instructors who have weld engineering degrees and have done 20+ years each of code quality work on pretty much everything.

COol, what will you be doing to yours? PM me if ya don't wanna get off topic, but i'm always interested in custom builds.

Chro-mo is fun once you learn to deal with it's attitude.

 

[Marc91GSX]

Question for everyone: Would you rather see this type of product offered with polyurethane bushings or solid aluminum bushings?

I think you need the option for both. Alot of the guys buying these are strictly using the car for racing and the solid bushing are great but having owned a dual duty car (trans am) I can say that I would prefer the Poly bushings. So if the car was strictly raced (ie: trailored) will utilize the solid but solid on the street is not a very good option. There is not alot of difference in ride quality (considering the springs and shocks that most racers are already using) but the added cushion of the poly helps prolong the life of components in the car compared to the abuse they see from using solid bushings.

 

[Ludachris]

I think you need the option for both. Alot of the guys buying these are strictly using the car for racing and the solid bushing are great but having owned a dual duty car (trans am) I can say that I would prefer the Poly bushings. So if the car was strictly raced (ie: trailored) will utilize the solid but solid on the street is not a very good option. There is not alot of difference in ride quality (considering the springs and shocks that most racers are already using) but the added cushion of the poly helps prolong the life of components in the car compared to the abuse they see from using solid bushings.

True, but then again, my question is this - how many DSMers who do NOT race their cars will buy these? It just doesn't seem to me there is much of a market for tubular control arms on street driven DSMs. I would bet that most DSMers who buy these would want solid bushings - even the ones who would drive it on the street. Those who would want to drive it on the street and want a smoother ride probably wouldn't shell out the coin for a mod like this to begin with. At least that's what I would think.

 

[Boostjunki84]

True, but then again, my question is this - how many DSMers who do NOT race their cars will buy these? It just doesn't seem to me there is much of a market for tubular control arms on street driven DSMs. I would bet that most DSMers who buy these would want solid bushings - even the ones who would drive it on the street. Those who would want to drive it on the street and want a smoother ride probably wouldn't shell out the coin for a mod like this to begin with. At least that's what I would think.

Agreed. If I was going to spend the money for these I would still want the solid bushings. Even for my street car.

 

[1gengsxz3]

I would love a set of these. i would be putting them on my galant gsx which is my daily driver and my weekend autocrosser. I think that they would be best with solid bushings just to make the suspension nice and stiff. I think another cool thing would be if there where some lock down bolts for the rear end. I know my buddy that has a 2.5rs had some and said the difference was night and day.

 

[tkelly27]

Excuse me if I get this all wrong, I'm on a caffeine buzz and could have this mixed up. Please take this as constructive criticism too. I'm glad to see new parts being made and hope this is helpful.

Aren't the threads in bending and in single shear on the one bushing? If so, that's not an if, but a when for failure. After seeing the picture of it on the car, it is in single shear where it meets the A arm and it is in bending. Feel free to correct me, but everything I've learned about using bolts says back to the drawing board with that part.

I'll reiterate, if the threads are in single shear and in bending it is dangerous and no amount of making the bolt bigger or threading further into the tube will make it not so. If you sell or use one like that, you will hurt someone, ask me how I know. The best way to have it is like the other one, where the bolt goes through the bushing with an A arm attachment on either side. That is double shear and keeps the threads out of bending.

To get the most strength out of chromolly and to get rid of any brittleness that may have been encountered, you do need to heat treat it after welding. Glen put it best, it's getting the metal to a uniform state. When you weld you have a heat affected zone that will be heat treated differently than the base metal and there is not really anything you can do about it except heat treat the whole part.

I didn't like the look of the welds, but I've had helmets and torches die on me too, so no big deal : D

 

[e85_4g63]

Question for everyone: Would you rather see this type of product offered with polyurethane bushings or solid aluminum bushings?

Just to possibly add to this comment, would heim joints be a possibility?

 

[underradar92]

1) Heim joint on the inner front mount.
2) Solid rear bushing (mine are delrin)
3) Move ball joint forward to add a few degrees of caster.
4) Make the ball joint hole accept a Howe rebuildable/adjustable height ball joint.
5) Make the sway bar mount a simple threaded bung that will use a rod end. This frees up space for brake ducts and allows preload adjustments (or not) on the sway bar.
6) No threaded attachment point at the rear bushing, weld a tube in there, and then you can make the bushing any diameter and material you desire.

For the people who want the compliance of softer bushings, this mod is of no use to you anyway.

My 2% of a dollar.

 

[97eclipseNT]

i agree the bolt on rear bushing is a bad idea definitely have a tube extend into the bushing, it doesn't even need a bolt in the end of it just look at the stock arms. a rod end for the front attachment point would be awesome and i would say roll center adjustment would be a must for the road race guys. over all though awesome product. its nice to see some people still making parts for the 1g guys.

 

[RipperXX]

I only want to post in this thread about the negativity I am seeing. If the part is properly made and tested well (and there is proof of the testing, with positive results) then it is up to the buyer to decide if it's reliable / safe for him.


People seem to be forgetting our cars are 10 to 19yrs old now, there not making many new parts for our cars and a lot of the stuff that was being made is no longer being made. Custom fab and what not may eventually be our main source of good parts so I would lay off a guy trying to make suspension parts for our old cars. Besides there are still WAY to many "if's" to start saying anything negative.


Sooo do what the OP asked and help give him ideas to make the part better. Not criticize him for trying to make something. P.S. as a lower income guy that is trying to make his DSM into what I think "Mitsubishi should have made" meaning awesome street car. If I had the available funds and I knew it would help my car corner even slightly better. I would buy a set.

 

[myturbo]

A buddy of mine owns a performance shop and he just made his first set of tubular control arms for the 1G. These are made of chrome moly tubing and include new balljoints and poly urethane bushings. He eventually plans to offer a design for the autocross/road race guys, and then a lighter version for the drag race guys.

I'm basically posting this to get some feedback to pass along to him. Tell me what you think about them. If you see room for improvement, then please share.

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yeah the rear should notbolt on because it will bend or break the bolt

and i have one very bad thing to say about it I DONT HAVE THEM im gonna go cry now they look good

 

[Ludachris]

1) Heim joint on the inner front mount.
2) Solid rear bushing (mine are delrin)
3) Move ball joint forward to add a few degrees of caster.
4) Make the ball joint hole accept the Megan 240SX roll center correcting ball joint.
5) Make the sway bar mount a simple threaded bung that will use a rod end. This frees up space for brake ducts and allows preload adjustments (or not) on the sway bar.
6) No threaded attachment point at the rear bushing, weld a tube in there, and then you can make the bushing any diameter and material you desire.

For the people who want the compliance of softer bushings, this mod is of no use to you anyway.

My 2% of a dollar.

Perfect analysis. These are all the minimum requirements I would suggest as well. 90% of the DSMers who would buy these would want most all of these things anyway - unless of course they were drag racers, then they'd just want them lighter.

 

[underradar92]

I forgot to also mention, I like the overall design, complete triangulation. Good on that too.

 

[underradar92]

Update of sorts, one of the commonly used tapers appears to be compatible with our spindle taper. This means that adjustable roll centers and super heavy duty, rebuildable circle track ball joints will only need the correct reciever, welded into the control arm. I'll be welding in a Chrysler threaded style into mine.

 

[Morphius]

So, regarding the comment about the front inboard joint being a heims end, like this VV(not my pic BTW) .... I'd have to asky why? Besides adding additional cost and failure point, you won't get the proper adjustment you all are searching for. Given the way the a-arms mount to the subframe, if you crank the front inboard mount point in or out, you are loading the rear inboard mount. There is going to be no compliance with a stiff aftermarket bushing, let alone the OEM one. It's just not good practice. Leave the caster/camber adjustment to the strut plates.

Overall, pretty cool though.

 

[underradar92]

That is more for the replaceability aspect, I'm thinking. As for it being a possible failure point, I don't think that is a likely scenario at all. I'd trust a forged rod end as much or more than a loop and bushing, plus it's a low stiction, mush-free pivot.

The total amount of camber angle you'd get from that wouldn't amount to much so, I'd agree for that reason also, that camber adjustments should be left to the other places. The shop that did my alignment tried to use that also. Silly rabbits.

 

[underradar92]

More pertinent info: I checked both ball joint tapers on a comparator @ work today. They are both 8* so they are compatible. Excellent.

I also looked at the clearance to the backside of my rotors and they clear. Also excellent.

 

[99gst_racer]

Update of sorts, one of the commonly used tapers appears to be compatible with our spindle taper. This means that adjustable roll centers and super heavy duty, rebuildable circle track ball joints will only need the correct reciever, welded into the control arm. I'll be welding in a Chrysler threaded style into mine.

What exactly is the taper on the DSM balljoint? Is it 1.5"/ft or 2"/ft?

Do you have a part number of the balljoint that you plan to use? I warehouse dozens of different balljoints where I work (most for the circle track cars), but I haven't been able to confirm which one could interchange with our spindles.