Alan C.

Has anyone found a source that discounts these parts? I need a set for my 86/short arms?

Alan C.

951Racer

Look in your Rennlist private messages

User 41221

Discount Charlie Arms? That would be something!

Regards,

Rick

951,

Please PM me with the same info; I'm thinking about changing these out later this summer but choking on the price.

Thanks.

Ahmet

Ditto please.
Ahmet

nine-44

I wish I could help, I can't lay down the cash for these either. I don't see a reason(other than lack of competition) for the price. They see to be fairly easy to fabricate and the alternator drop brackets can be fabbed at a shop for less than 50 bucks. Someone needs to blueprint these and just go into production. Oh well, enough dreaming for tonite.

Dave951M

I'm looking into both. If you have any prints already, bring them on, we'll work something out.

CarreraCup03

Alan, Are they for you. I thought you already had Fabcar arms.

Bill

I am also interested in these stonger arms with replacable ball joints. What are the advantage/disadvantages between the two (Charlie/Fabcar)? Doesn't Charlie also make sway bars? .

I have also heard that the ball joints do not come with a protective boot, which would not be good on a street car. Is this true?

If 17" rims are used with these arms, are the upgraded caster blocks still required?

If anyone is aware of a supplier with great pricing, I would also like to know about them.

Alan C.

944turbo,
Haven't done the arms on this car yet. I decided to get off dead center before the next event.
Alan C.

jerome951

I just bought a set of Charley arms a few months ago through my mechanic. Pretty and effective, but certainly not cheap.

No, the ball joint does not have a boot covering it. My mechanic said he has several customers who have run them for years without boots and their bearings have not been replaced. Probably wouldn't hurt, though, to annually disassemble the joint and make sure everything is clean (at least blow them out w/ air occasionally to get grit and dirt out).

The arms come with everything except a new caster block, which is a separate purchase (I got them, too). New bolts and nuts are included.

Your stock eccentric bolt will have to be milled down to fit through the caster block or you have to get one modified by Charley. I'm not sure if he's including them in the caster kit (he had some ready to machine when I bought my set but I had to get them on the car quickly so had my mech machine mine).

My mechanic has a good working relationship w/ Charley (my mech was actually on the phone with him when I went to pick the arms up). Charley very tightly controls who sells his products (to maintain what I'm sure are astronomically high margins; hey, he has to offset his R&D costs somehow), and if he gets word that a re-seller discounted them, Charley would probably give them the boot.

I don't see why the caster block would have to be used w/ 17" rims. It does nothing but replace the stock rubber mount w/ a spherical bearing.

With the Charley arms, you will have to remove the spindle to have the ball joint clamp enlarged to accept the 19mm ball joint pin (stock and Fabcar pins are 17mm so this step is not necessary). This means you have to remove or disconnect the brakes and hub, steering rod, and strut before you get the spindle off. If you pay a shop to do this, figure an extra 1 hour each side to remove and replace. Figure 2-3 hours each side if you have the shop do the full replacement.

I've had them on my car for a little street driving and 1 weekend at Watkins Glen. Feedback through the wheel is a little more now w/ the spherical bearings, but still acceptable.

I'm pretty happy with mine. With the arms installed and a more aggressive alignment, I dropped ~7 sec off last year's lap times at the Glen.

smokey

Have you looked into the Balszak control arms? He reinforces the early steel ones, and the ball-joint is easily replaced for about $25 each. A number of racers use them, and they seem to work ok.

Skip Wolfe

I keep praying that an opportunistic fabricator will come out with a low cost replacement arm. You can buy tubular competition arms for cars like Hondas for $500 pair. While I understand that the 944 series arms are a lower volume gig, it still seems like there would be plenty of money to be made since I have to believe just about every 944 owner out there would buy them as replacements @ $500 pair rather than having the stock one rebuilt at $300 - $400 pair.

I have talked to a company called Cascade Autosports that is apparently in design for a tubular arm although it looks like they will also be over $1000. They are a road race and rally prep/fabricator that has been rumored to have made arms for the 944's in the past. If anyone else wants to bug them the contacts name is Peter @ 425-831-1600.
http://www.cascadeautosport.com/index.html

Sean Hall

I talked to my old employer about making tubular mild steel a-arms available for the 944. They were interested but needed a set of a-arms to make the jigs.
Anyone have a set of early a-arms laying around they'd like to donate?

I don't want ppl bugging the company, so I won't disclose the name of the company until later.

Sean

PowerHaus

Folks -
As one of Charley's distributors, I think it is fair to explain something about Charley and his products:
1) Charley is a perfectionist
2) The quality of his parts are #1
Distributors pay $$$ for his billet 7075 A-arms, and don't make much on selling them to retail customers (hardly anything when selling to shops). To top it off, they take FOREVER to get, and are always on backorder from Charley.
So why sell them at all What's the upside? You can sell them with confidence that there are NO defects to be found in the products. We've had none come back. Ever. For any reason. Charley personally inspects every part before assembly. If anything isn't up to his (too high?) standards -- including the quality of the anodizing, even -- then they don't get shipped.
Believe me when I say that Charley's custom suspension products are more a labor of love on his part than any big money maker.

A few last items:
* 17mm ball joint pins are available, so you do not have to machine your front spindles
* you won't have the front rotors ever contact the a-arms, as some driver's have reported about the Fabcar arms
* if someone wants to contact Charley about taking over the production of his arms, go for it. He's a good person, and very reasonable. To "blueprint these and just go into production" without contacting him is just the wrong way to approach this...
-Chris C.
PowerHaus
info@powerhaus.com