Reinforced lower control arms vs. upgraded/tubular lower control arms?
They will, but I can only comment on the ones for the 73+ application. I run the QA1 LCA's on my Duster, and I use a Hellwig front sway bar that uses the factory mounting tab locations. I did have to shorten the end links compared to the factory LCA's with 73+ sway bar tabs, but the end links were in the correct position. I don't know about the 67-72 sway bar application, but I'm pretty sure there's only one QA1 LCA for A-bodies, and the tab is for a 73+ bar, so they won't line up with a stock 67-72 sway bar.
I pretty much agree with everything that's been said so far. The tubular LCA's are nice, they are lighter than the stock LCA's by a few pounds, and I would wager that they're probably a bit stronger than a boxed set of stock LCA's because of the way the ball joint mounts are attached. If you can weld and your LCA's are serviceable, ie, straight and not significantly rusted or damaged, boxing the stock LCA's will probably be more than enough for you.
I doubt anyone is going to really notice any kind of a handling difference going from a boxed stock LCA to a QA1 tubular LCA. I didn't, and I swapped from a boxed stock LCA to the QA1's. The difference in weight isn't big enough, and the difference in strength probably isn't needed for the vast majority of applications. As long as you've boxed the stock LCA's and taken the slop out of them at the torsion bar socket the differences will be pretty darn small.
There is a noticeable difference in one area, and that's the cross sectional height of the LCA's. The QA1's have a shorter cross section. What does that mean? It means more suspension travel. The difference is about an inch, although that's without any kind of bump stop. So, for a car that's been lowered (like mine!) you can gain back some suspension travel with the QA1 LCA's. Or at least, you could. I've seen an updated design for the QA1's that has a bump stop now integrated into the LCA, which would eliminate that change.
This is the old design, like the one's I installed
This is the new design, which would eliminate any change in suspension travel
If you have the old design you can just add a bump stop to the factory frame stop, which is what I did. It takes away some of that extra travel, but not as much as the new design, so there's still some extra travel vs stock.
This is my set up, you can see the bump stop added to the stop on the frame, as well as the alignment with my Hellwig sway bar. And my fancy SPC adjustable control arms from Bergman AutoCraft. The upper bump stop is also much taller, this is to recenter the suspension travel around my lowered stance.
They will, but I can only comment on the ones for the 73+ application. I run the QA1 LCA's on my Duster, and I use a Hellwig front sway bar that uses the factory mounting tab locations. I did have to shorten the end links compared to the factory LCA's with 73+ sway bar tabs, but the end links were in the correct position. I don't know about the 67-72 sway bar application, but I'm pretty sure there's only one QA1 LCA for A-bodies, and the tab is for a 73+ bar, so they won't line up with a stock 67-72 sway bar.
I pretty much agree with everything that's been said so far. The tubular LCA's are nice, they are lighter than the stock LCA's by a few pounds, and I would wager that they're probably a bit stronger than a boxed set of stock LCA's because of the way the ball joint mounts are attached. If you can weld and your LCA's are serviceable, ie, straight and not significantly rusted or damaged, boxing the stock LCA's will probably be more than enough for you.
I doubt anyone is going to really notice any kind of a handling difference going from a boxed stock LCA to a QA1 tubular LCA. I didn't, and I swapped from a boxed stock LCA to the QA1's. The difference in weight isn't big enough, and the difference in strength probably isn't needed for the vast majority of applications. As long as you've boxed the stock LCA's and taken the slop out of them at the torsion bar socket the differences will be pretty darn small.
There is a noticeable difference in one area, and that's the cross sectional height of the LCA's. The QA1's have a shorter cross section. What does that mean? It means more suspension travel. The difference is about an inch, although that's without any kind of bump stop. So, for a car that's been lowered (like mine!) you can gain back some suspension travel with the QA1 LCA's. Or at least, you could. I've seen an updated design for the QA1's that has a bump stop now integrated into the LCA, which would eliminate that change.
This is the old design, like the one's I installed
This is the new design, which would eliminate any change in suspension travel
If you have the old design you can just add a bump stop to the factory frame stop, which is what I did. It takes away some of that extra travel, but not as much as the new design, so there's still some extra travel vs stock.
This is my set up, you can see the bump stop added to the stop on the frame, as well as the alignment with my Hellwig sway bar. And my fancy SPC adjustable control arms from Bergman AutoCraft. The upper bump stop is also much taller, this is to recenter the suspension travel around my lowered stance.
