I'm not saying to go jack up your car and pull them off for no reason, but its something to watch out for. I've never heard of this happening before.

When I pulled mine off to install the 968 m030 units, I found that one of them was crooked. Yes, crooked. The entire thing was bent.

If you were to put something flat on one of the faces that sit on the frame, the other one would be 1/4" away from the flat thing.

I will post pics when I get a chance...its not a pretty sight.

 

I hope you loaded up the suspension before torquing them tight

 

I have seen that before.

 

Yeah, I just replaced mine with the 968 units too, and one of the old ones was torn. Wasn't noticable until it was removed, another track event and it would have been toast.

 

Call me ignorant. But would someone mind explaining what exactly caster blocks do? I know its wise to upgrade them for bigger wheels... dont quite understand what they do thou...

 

show us the pics!

 

I have to take pics and post them. The caster block is home, and I am in NJ (school)...

End of the week/early next week I should have some pics up...

 

Taking it to the extreme, an analogy that comes to mind would be to imagine walking on your hands with baseball gloves on. Now imagine walking on your feet with boots on.

The difference between your wrists and your ankles is comparable to putting big wheels on a car and not having strong enough caster blocks supporting the control arms.

 

I want to replace my cater blocks with the 968 M30 ones also but at first glance it appears I need to replace the "A" arm as well because the end that fits into the rubber bushing is part of the arm.
When I look at the 968 setup in PET the end of the "A" arm is a seperate piece.
Do I just need to replce the busing block only??

 

Ok, you have an early car so the 968 castor blocks would not be a direct fit item. You would need to change out alot to use them. There is a good solution though. There are weltmeister poly bushing that are a drop in replacement.

The rubber bushing is not part of the arms, but it is very firmly attached. In fact, the rear bushings need to be pushed on and off with a shop press. The new weltmeister ones slip on by hand and are much easier to install.

If you're serious about this, I would suggest this path. Buy all new:
control arms: $22.5 each Link
ball joints : $15 each Link
front a-arm weltmeister bushings: $53 Link
rear a-arm/castor block bushings: $16 Link

So for about $150, you can rebuild your a-arms back to better than factory. Installing all this is a breeze, just take your time. Whey you order the control arms, make sure to specifiy that you don't want the stock bushings. That way you won't have to deal with uninstalling the rubber ones. Maybe Paragon could offer this as a "Early A-arm rebuild kit". (hint hint!)

Of course, while you're in there you could install:
Koni yellow Shocks
New tie rods
Springs
Camber Plates
A beefy sway bar
Etc

 

Yep, both of mine were toast when I replaced them with the 968 units last year, probably due to the stressors of autocross and time. When we upgraded Pete's this year, one of his was so bad that the rubber part was no longer connected to the outer metal frame.