Is this a worthy addition to helping the handling of a 68 Skylark? I see where some companies offer the lower ball joint and some offer both the upper and lower. Is it best to do both, or just the lowers? I already have poly bushings, and I will be upgrading all the springs to possibly eibach when/if I do this upgrade. I'm also upgrading to a 1 1/8" front bar w/poly bushings and end links, stock rear bar w/boxed arms, stock rear triangulation bars, and I have 16" rims already. And either KYB or Bilstein shocks all the way around. Thanks
Good info here, I have not bought my arms yet. Careful with just taller ball joints, you can bind things up with stock arms and break the joints, not good. Uppers are where the action/improvement is, my plan is upper UMI arms with tall joint, stock lowers, larger wheels/tires (17") eventually. The 1 1/8" is good, why not go 1 1/4"? With the 1 1/8" front bar on my car and stock rear bar, the stock 15" wheels and tires are the weak point for sure (its nice though, you can feel the car starting to slip and tends to understeer just slightly unless hard on power). I would like to get parts here, do some hard driving, go home, change arms out, align, go back and see what it really does. I will only do bolt ons as not gonna cut up my stage 1. http://www.v8buick.com/showthread.p...so-UMI-upper-front-control-arms&highlight=umi
It is best to do both only time tall balljoints are bad idea is if you pla to add or have a drop spindle,,then its a nono ---------- Post added at 04:57 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:49 PM ---------- upper tall ball joint gives you better camper lower tall balljoint reduces bumpsteer check out http://scandc.com ---------- Post added at 05:26 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:57 PM ---------- btw, generally only uppersare worth getting due to alot of lowers not doing anything but spc lower arms give you 1 degree of extra camper? i think it was and about a .5 drop
Some good reading from mark at SC&C pasted, if you use stock upper arms the alignment stuff could get odd. Right now with stock everything I can barely run -1 camber as run out of shim so IMHO if you want taller ball joints you need an upper arm that will allow you to align for correct geometry, thus the UMI pieces which I have read some really good reviews of. Most of those say doing the lower control ARM is more or less pointless for the $$$. Tube arms weigh about the same, don't add much unless you want a certain spring pocket, etc. If using taller ball joints with stock arms careful of brand you get and make sure to check complete travel. Its a complicated subject with many ways of getting it done, whatever you do keep us posted. Taller spindles or ball joints are both methods to relocate suspension pickup points. The ball joints do it directly, the outboard pickup points are IN the ball joints. Spindles do it indirectly, they relocate the upper ball joint pickup points to a new location. On this chassis taller lower ball joints will lower the car (acting as a bit of a drop spindle) but will have zero impact on travel. The angle of the lower A arms is fixed by the springs compressed height. The taller lowers will lift the spindles and with it the upper ball joints as well. Taller uppers have no effect on ride height as the upper arms are not weight bearing. Doing either will increase clearance from the UCA to the frame and have the potential to increase droop travel (depending on the UCAs and stops or straps used). Adding height to this system increases positive camber because the UCA will swing up and OUT in its natural arc. As a result it is usually impossible to achieve a decent performance handling alignment even with offset cross shafts. That`s often as issue even without lowering or taller spindles/ball joints. Also note that swinging the UCAs upwards dramatically at ride height uses up UBJ travel. Depending on the combination used it can be nearly out of bump travel at ride height. In compression it can bind up. This usually results in a broken UCA and a bad day. I`ve been involved in fixing several of these cars myself and it ain`t pretty. For a drag car that doesn`t need negative camber for handling and that can get away without much positive caster as long as you have anout travel to prevent binding you may be able to get away with the stock UCAs, just be sure to check everything carefully! As for tall performance ball joints themselves Howe are the originators and have been making their excellent Precision Series units for years. Their construction, strength and overall quality are far as away better than stock. They`re very popular with top NASCAR teams and in use by both the Army and Marines in unarmored Hummvees. We were the first to use them to alter/correct the geometry on muscle cars and have worked with them to develop a number of muscle car application specific pieces. These outlast conventional OE and Moog ball joints on average 5:1. I`m very comfortable using them in tall stud formats. There are some off shore stock type ball joints with taller pins arriving on the scene lately that I have my doubts about. It should also be noted that Afco 20032-1 and 20038-1 tall ball joints are for 10* taper `73-`77 A body only and can not be safely used in `64-`72 7* taper spindles as they will wobble around in the holes. I`ve seen some guys doing this and it`s a great way to ruin the spindles and or cause a ball joint failure (crash). These are cool parts for tuning a low buck circle track car with Impala spindles but they aren`t necessarily a great idea for the street. Either tall ball joints or taller spindles, on these cars, have the potential to radically improve handling due to literally re-engineering the suspension geometry. The OE geometry is backward and repugnant, it`s really bad. The terms "Positive Roll" and "Negative Roll" are just vague marketing terms. The car in stock form has a pronounced positive camber curve, this causes the top of the tires to lean outward when the suspension is compressed. This is BAD and you won`t find a new car made anywhere on the planet that still does this. Modern cars have negative camber gain in bump which causes the tires to cant inward keeping the contact patch of the tire flat on the road surface as the car rolls. Correcting the camber curves also (in this platform) raises and stabilizes the roll center which reduces the leverage of the moment arm between the CG and RC reducing body roll and making the car much more stable and predictable as well. Drop spindles vs. tall spindles. Drop simply refers to raising the spindle pin (where the wheel bearing go) of the spindle higher than the stock location so the car sits lower without moving the other suspension components. A taller spindle has a higher overall height than the OE spindles, this is done to relocate the upper ball joint pickup points to achieve better front end geometry. A spindle can be a drop spindle without being "tall" such as direct replacement Belltechs. It can be tall without having and drop, like 0 drop L&H spindles. It can be tall and dropped a little like an AFX spindle or tall and dropped a lot like a DSE spindle. There are a lot of different flavors to choose from. Try to be sure what you goals are and weather a given spindle will help or hinder you from getting there before you buy! Anyone with questions is always free to call our Free Suspension Counceling Service or you can find a LOT more here http://www.cartechbooks.com/vstore/showdetl.cfm?DID=6&Product_ID=3878&CATID=19 Mark SC&C
Mark really knows his geometry! I started out with the Howe ball joints and the straight arms but didn't like the feel of the arms with my setup. I went a slightly different route and put the ProForged tall uppers in mine but stock lowers as I didn't want to lose a precious fraction of ground clearance. I used tubular uppers with 3 degrees of more caster than stock. They are lighter than factory by a few pounds but the tubular lowers were a pound heavier so it barely saved if any. Move a pound lower may have helped a bit but I wouldn't count on it. I then had the alignment set at +5 caster, -1 camber. The shim stack is about 1/2" front and back, both sides. With the wheels turned to lock, you can noticeably see the outside tire in at the top and the inside tire out at the top. The bonus is I quit scrubbing off the outside edge of my tires and it feels like it is glued to the road. I've still got stock-ish vintique wheels on it so that slows me up a bit but not enough I care. That's mine on a budget and I feel it was a lot of bang for the buck.
I see where there are the Howe ball joints and the Proforged ones. Any preferences? The Pro forged ones are a lot cheaper and it looks like they are compatible with stock arms, but, I'm afraid of any binding that might be caused using stock arms. ---------- Post added at 07:54 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:50 AM ---------- I'm being cheap when it comes to the bar even though they are the same price. It's just that I already bought the 1 1/8" bushings for a bar that I had the deal fall through on and I hate buying parts twice. I probably should just pony up and buy the bigger bar and bushings though.ou:
The tall uppers are only about 1/2" taller and I wouldn't think they'd bind unless the factory ones are so close it would be marginal in the first place. You can call them and ask or send them an email.
I don't really expect the company to say anything negative about the use of their products which might stop me from actually buying them, that's why I wanted to see if anyone had any "real world" experience with them, any do's or don'ts so to speak. I would rather copy a known working set-up. I'm also leery of dropping $500 on a set of upper arms w/tall ball joints and finding out I need bigger rims to make it work, $100 for just the upper ball joints isn't as big a hit to the pocket book. I will be emailing them here this week to see what is needed or not with just the uppers.
Another issue with the aftermarket upper arms is that some do not provide a stop for the travel. Check it out before you buy. - Bill
This is why I went with the spc uppers You can buy a pair of bumpstops for the arms for like 8 bucks They can be had for about 200ish bucks if you look around net
I haven't seen any decent "sets" of arms w/tall ball joints for less than around $500. The ones you referenced, I could only find for $200 a side? I've seen several web sites where people were discussing the interference/hitting problem plus the need to grind on the frame for clearance. It seems to be a problem for the tubular adjustable arms mainly. I was looking at the UMI non-adjustable arms with the tall ball joints. http://www.ebay.com/itm/1964-1972-G...Parts_Accessories&hash=item2eb8db52a4&vxp=mtr I still have to ask the manufacturer if these will clear a 16" rim with the redesigned arm and ball joint location along with the 1/2" taller ball joint. There also have the frame bumper like a stock arm. Would be cool if I don't have to buy bigger rims to make something like this work.
This is pretty much what I put on my car though I replaced the upper ball joint with a proforge tall ball joint. It has bump stops. It also works with factory Buick 15x7 wheels on disk brakes with the added benefit of additional positive caster without a stupid thick shim pack. It bolted on to stock pickup points, required no cutting, drilling or grinding on anything. The only think I'd recommend in hindsight is to put a 90 grease fitting in the lower pivot point joints at the frame for easier maintenance. No binding, nothing to report bad in the last 17 months. Cheap Control Arms on Ebay Here's just the uppers though it says 67, I'm sure there are comparable '68-72 ones available: Cheap uppers only
http://www.v8buick.com/showthread.p...-UMI-upper-front-control-arms&highlight=Upper In case you are interested I went through some of this about 6 months ago. I used the UMI upper arms with tall ball joints and delrin bushings. No complaints so far.
Always interested in what people are doing to upgrade their cars that I may be able to duplicate (and afford)! Thanks
My 71 GS has Hotchkis upper A-arms with tall spindles, 1-1/4" sway bar, and KYB shocks. Compared to my 72 Skylark, which had stock suspension, the improvement in handling is truly night and day.
That wasn't my seller. He doesn't seem to carry those as a package any more. Those look just like it though. My seller did have them as separate items: Upper Lowers
They have the same arms with a 0.90" tall ball joint now as well: http://www.umiperformance.com/catal...=product_info&cPath=2_251_271&products_id=735
The high uppers are only about 1/2" higher and I wouldn't think they'd combine unless the manufacturer ones are so near it would be minor in the first position. You can contact them and ask or deliver them an e-mail. . . . . . . .
