cooz

Looking to evolve a stock 944/951/TS suspension into DE Tracker and eventual Racer.

What is best approach/solution to A-Arm dilema for strength, safety, reliability, durability etc when lowering & stiffening suspension?

Please enlighten.

Cooz

Geo

To prevent balljoint bind you would have to change to an aftermarket control arm. I suppose you could set up some coilovers to coilbind before you bind the balljoint, but that's pretty extreme and would bring its own issues.

Lowering is not so much the issue because if the balljoint can bind within the range of travel of the suspension, lowered or not, it still can bind. You can minimize this when lowering a car by using a much stiffer spring to generally limit the travel of the suspension.

Larry Herman

Been there, done that with my son's 951. Just buy the Fabcar or Charlie arms and avoid a lot of heartache. We tried rebuilding the 951 arms, and the replacement plastic cups failed in the first event. We then rebuilt them with brass cups, and the ball post snapped at 100 mph in the first event. Fortunately the damage was minimal; my son got real lucky. We immediately bought and installed the Charlie arms before the next event. They are the only safe thing to do, period. Remember, you are trusting your life to this.

jc22

Larry, would youcare to elaborate on the second event where the pin snapped with the brass cups?

What spring rate was he using, sway bars, age of pin, circumstances etc.

Thanks.

Larry Herman

The pin snapped where it went into the bottom of the control arm. He is running 400 lb front springs/550 lb rear springs (no torsion bars) and the cup sway bars. The ball pins were brand new with the rebuild kit. The Charlie arms, with their replaceable lower ball joint have thicker pins as well. If you are going to race it and bounce it off the curbs, I wouldn't go any other way.

Like I said, my son got off lucky as the pin broke and the tire came straight back and jammed itself into the wheel well, while the tie rod caught on the broken pin and held everything together until he got it stopped. A small wrinkle in the fender is all that happened. What could have happened is that the wheel could have kicked out, and ripped the entire right front suspension off the car, and left the car sliding with no brakes at 100 mph. For $1600 it just isn't worth the risk.

Antonio

If you search the archives you'll find plenty of views on this topic. In my opinion the Blaszak arms are by far the most cost-effective solution. The part that usually fails is the ball joint. On the Blaszak arms you could replace them with factory brand ball joints before every race weekend if you so desire for less that $25. To my knowledge neither the Fabcar nor the Charlie arms allow for easy ball joint replacement.

Skip Wolfe

On the contrary, both the Fabcars and Charlie Arms use spherical bearings and are very easy the rebuild. The replacement spherical bearing for the Fabcar is only $25 - not sure what the Charlie arms bearing cost is. The point is that the spherical bearing joint is meant for racing - both in terms of strength and servicability.

This is definitely a get what you pay for scenario. While the Blaszak arms based on the steel 944 arms are easy to service, they are somewhat of a frankenstein modified part, and his custom race arms are a better, the factory ball joint is still the weak link. Its also not on the same level as far as design and construction as the Charlie Arm. The Charlie arms are a work of art in terms of design and craftmanship. The only problem is that they are tough to get since they always seem to be on back order.

I agree with Larry, the cost of failure is too high for the amount you are talking about saving.

Mike Buck

The Charlie Arms have a replaceble ball joint. My set, according to my mechanic, should be arriving by the end of the month. Not tracking the car this year till I get them on, even if it means missing the first 944 Cup race this year. Have nearly 50 track days w/o them w/o problems, but not taking the chance anymore.

Al P.

standard length pins or the new longer ones? What ride heights were you running? (measured from the bottom of the castor block bolt and the bottom of the torsion tube end)

Larry Herman

Al, we had the longer pins on the car; they were supposed to be correct for a lowered car to prevent binding. The car is lowered, but if you need to know the exact amount I will have to measure it & get back to you tomorrow. Visually, the top of the front wheel opening is just above the top of the tire with 16x225/50 tires.

jc22

Interesting...... I have never considered using the longer pins because I was afraid of them snapping, which apparently they do. I am trying to stick with the SSI brass cup balljoint kit for as long as possible but will go for the Fabcar or Charlie arms when I switch from DE to racing. Thanks.

jerome951

jc22,

Don't let the move from DE to racing be the trigger for upgrading. If you feel you need them, do it now. You put just as much stress on the car during a DE (assuming you drive hard) as you do in a race.

Al P.

Hmmm.... without the demensions it's hard to say but it doesn't sound "excessively" lowered. Looks like there is no "inexpensive" solution to this, and just when I thought I'd get away with not buying another set of "Charlie Arms"
Oh, and as far as the switch after moving on to racing, everyone of the 4 or 5 of these that I've seen break has been at a DE

a4944

I thought the SSI brass cup balljoint kit was based on a design for a racing series in Europe but could be wrong on this. I've been running it for a couple of seasons now without any issues but have been running street tires and near stock ride height. Has anyone heard of the SSI kit failing?

Thanks,
Mark

Larry Herman

We used the SSI brass cups. They are very nice units, and we expoxied them in to take up any play inside the bearing cup in the A arm. Unfortunately it was the ball pin that failed. That's why I like the thicker pins on the Charlie arms. I would have no qualms about the brass inserts for the street.