Tubular upper arms-I feel lucky tonight
Yes. It looks like most of the heim joint versions actually come with machined spacers (RMS, Magnumforce). FFI and Just Suspension versions use stock bushings. Not sure about what Hotchkis does. The bushed versions of the RMS arms appear to use washers, although, there's really nothing at all wrong with that. The washers only act as a spacer, so they're only used as washers were intended. The only drawback is you get into the quality control of the washer when it comes to thickness, so there are larger tolerances than say with a machined spacer.
Those are FFI UCA's. Nice pieces, but only adjustable using the stock bolts, although they have more caster built in from the start.
The gusset is a good idea, but if you look at the differences in design, not always necessary. The Magnumforce double adjustable arms (the most expensive), don't have them. But you also notice that because of their design the tubes are at a steeper angle, so the tube intersects the ball joint cup over a much longer area (vs a straight butt weld like the UCA's with wider, more curved legs). This makes the weld much stronger.
Even in the short time that I've been into this particular genre of mopars, I've seen several sets of cracked stock UCA's. Not to mention issues caused by bent/warped ones when it come to alignment. And that's really only talking about damage. But its not really fair to compare the reliability of a stock arm to an obviously defective tubular UCA, made by a company with a poor reputation.
The stock arms simply were not designed with the cornering loads that today's tires, rims, shocks, sway bars, and torsion bars can provide. Improvements in rubber compounds, tire sizes, weight, size and bending moments of sway bars and size and spring rates of modern torsion bars all transmit A LOT more force to the stock suspension components. I guarantee that an otherwise stock A-body running a 245 wide modern tires, with no other mods, will flex the hell out of a stock arm on a spirited drive.
If you're running bias-ply's, stock brakes, stock torsion bars and shocks, with a stock rebuild on your engine and just cruising you car around town, then your stock UCA's are plenty fine. But when you start making upgrades that the factory never dreamed of for a production car (400 hp+, 255+ wide tires with <300 treadwear, big brakes, frame connectors, etc) and/or throwing your mopar around corners at speed, you'll find the stockers to be fairly lacking. I seriously doubt ma-mopar ever thought that you could pull better than 1G on a skid pan with a car that still retains its torsion bar suspension.
Yes. It looks like most of the heim joint versions actually come with machined spacers (RMS, Magnumforce). FFI and Just Suspension versions use stock bushings. Not sure about what Hotchkis does. The bushed versions of the RMS arms appear to use washers, although, there's really nothing at all wrong with that. The washers only act as a spacer, so they're only used as washers were intended. The only drawback is you get into the quality control of the washer when it comes to thickness, so there are larger tolerances than say with a machined spacer.
Those are FFI UCA's. Nice pieces, but only adjustable using the stock bolts, although they have more caster built in from the start.
The gusset is a good idea, but if you look at the differences in design, not always necessary. The Magnumforce double adjustable arms (the most expensive), don't have them. But you also notice that because of their design the tubes are at a steeper angle, so the tube intersects the ball joint cup over a much longer area (vs a straight butt weld like the UCA's with wider, more curved legs). This makes the weld much stronger.
Even in the short time that I've been into this particular genre of mopars, I've seen several sets of cracked stock UCA's. Not to mention issues caused by bent/warped ones when it come to alignment. And that's really only talking about damage. But its not really fair to compare the reliability of a stock arm to an obviously defective tubular UCA, made by a company with a poor reputation.
The stock arms simply were not designed with the cornering loads that today's tires, rims, shocks, sway bars, and torsion bars can provide. Improvements in rubber compounds, tire sizes, weight, size and bending moments of sway bars and size and spring rates of modern torsion bars all transmit A LOT more force to the stock suspension components. I guarantee that an otherwise stock A-body running a 245 wide modern tires, with no other mods, will flex the hell out of a stock arm on a spirited drive.
If you're running bias-ply's, stock brakes, stock torsion bars and shocks, with a stock rebuild on your engine and just cruising you car around town, then your stock UCA's are plenty fine. But when you start making upgrades that the factory never dreamed of for a production car (400 hp+, 255+ wide tires with <300 treadwear, big brakes, frame connectors, etc) and/or throwing your mopar around corners at speed, you'll find the stockers to be fairly lacking. I seriously doubt ma-mopar ever thought that you could pull better than 1G on a skid pan with a car that still retains its torsion bar suspension.
