bradthebold

I am trying to decide on which kit to get. My car will be mostly street with a few possible DEs. I was going to get the longer pins, but researching kind of steered me away, so I bought the standard ones. After setting up my ride height kit, I'm sure I'd like to go lower though.

Concerns include that the setup is not as strong as stock length, that thinning the spindle weakens it (though I didn't see any failures), that it can negatively impact the tie rod angle, or that it could require a bump steer kit as well. My other main concern is the standard kit says it should outlast the life of the car vs the longer ones saying they are susceptible to fatigue fractures and should be replaced every season. Would the longer pins outlast the car as well in a non-track environment?

So what would be recommended for a mostly street car?

Auto_Werks 3.6

My street car has had the longer pins installed for a little under a decade... I guess I don't remember the fatigue concerns, I never really worried about it. I've done a few autocrosses with the car, but no track days..... Not really scientific information for you.

Droops83

If you are only doing a few DEs and otherwise street, stick with the stock-length ball joints. The longer, geometry-correcting pins are only necessary if the ride height is very low (like 1.5-2" lower than stock), which isn't fun on a street car anyway. Also, the bump-steer tie rod ends that you mention would also be necessary.

Also, I have tried the ball joint rebuild route a couple of times, and in both instances the ball joints were tight at first, but it turned out that the socket of the aluminum A-arm was too far worn and the ball joints soon had play again. Rennbay and others may be able to provide guidance about wear patterns/necessary dimensions of the sockets in the A-arms . . . .

Good luck

bradthebold

Does anyone have a pic of a car that's lowered where the control arm is level or maybe slightly angled where there would be no issues with the ball joint binding? I've seem some say 3/4" is the most they could go before having issues, but if I could go an inch at least that might work, hard to imagine what that would be though.

I'll be running 300lb springs, which should help, but with 18" wheels that make the gap look worse. Are there any other bumpsteer kits besides the elephant racing one? It would be >$500 to get the more expensive longer pins, bumpsteer kit, and modify the spindle, but that might be worth it if I'm irritated I couldn't go an inch lower every time I look at the car.

MAGK944

You can lower the front 1-1/2 inches before you may run into problems. Welmeister offer a 200 front spring that does just that without any other mods required to the pin or the steering arm. A company like that would not offer such a product over many years if there was a problem with lowering the car that much.

You will start to run into problems above that amount, though on a mainly daily driver/ occasional track car I don't understand the need to go lower, the ride will not be good. The factory manual says to maintain the control arms parallel to the ground but as you lower the car the arms will raise at the ball joint pin end. This causes the arms to not be parallel to the ground, but that is not the problem to a certain extent, say up to 1-1/2 inches lower. The problem is that the top of the ball joint pin on cars lowered more than 1-1/2in will move sufficiently outwards to cause the steel pin to rub on the soft aluminum control arm ball joint socket and that is where failure occurs, normally when the spring is in compression and thereby lowering that corner of the car even further.

The longer pins bring the arms back to parallel and back to normal factory spec, but you will also need to address the now change in angle of the steering arms with a bump steer kit.

I know now you understand all this from previous posts. How low do you actually want to lower the front?

btw this is what happens to the control arm if the car is lowered too much, note the damage is to the arm not the pin.

bradthebold

I'm not sure how low I want to go. My car won't be on the ground again for a while and it's hard to tell how much the stock springs are sagging over the past 30 years or what a parallel control arm angle ride height looks like. If I can lower 1 1/2" though, I would imagine that's plenty, or good enough to save that ~$500. I don't want to tuck wheel or anything, I just don't want to have a huge gap between the fender and tire.

dp951

Never had any issues with the long ball joints , quality part. Dp951

mj951

^^dp951, nice photo documentation.
What size wheels and tires?

dp951

Thanks,
Ive always taken pictures of most work performed for documentation, its been my experience even with cars with full written documentation Ive found some things that were written up but not serviced.
It's always funny ( not in a laughable way ) when I hear does the car have maintence records, and when u look through them you' ll find allot of BS....Pics dont lie .
OFFSET CHANGE
The shot is taken of Jp rennlisters Grey 1986 turbo seen below with Factory 18's with big brakes turbo s spindles lates arms ect , Full Leda su pension ...

Humboldtgrin

Well I used a 96-04 mustang steering drop links and the manual inner tie rods (shorter) and reamed out my spindles with a 7.15 degree reamer for the rod end and sent them to the machine shop for the pins to be reamed to 19mm vs the stock 17mm pins. It's in my photos if anyone cares to look. I also used 20mm extension pins for my Charlie A arms. Charlie said that they should be replaced after every race season due to stress from being longer. And his are much beefier then the stock ball joint set up. The arms are just about flat to the ground with how much it's lowered. Also the steering rods are in line with the A arms.