tubular upper control arms???????

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olskoolmopar

olskoolmopar

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When I rebuilt the front end of my 69 Dart that had sat outside for 27 years, I discovered the upper control arms were rusted beyond use. Since it is to be a race car only, I purchased a set of tubular units from Mancini. I've bought stuff from them since the 70's and have been treated well BUT...the directions were limited. Directions say to place 4 flat washers in front and 4 in the rear of each heim end to take up space and to make them equal. Problem is that the space is different from the front to the back so I put the same on the left front as on the right front and the rear ones as well.
But that's not my biggest problem! The arms are supposed to achieve 5-7 degrees of positive caster by using a combination of turns on each heim end and the cam bolts. Where should I start turn-wise on each end to get my desired specs? If I guess wrong, that means multiple trips to the alignment rack and maybe even having to yank the torsion bars (again) to get the arms out easily.
I run 6 degrees of positive caster and 0 degrees of camber with an 1/8 inch toe-in. With this setting and the stock arms I could take my hands off the wheel @ 120 and it was on rails, both on and off the gas.
Can I get a lil Mopar help please?​
 
a good alignment shop would be able to do the whole job for you, but if they cant why not go get a spec now, do 1 turn on each, test again and compare the difference, you will be able to see the change and how much each turn will do.
I actually think more caster is built into them with out any turns to start with.
On a side note i didnt think you could get 6 deg positive caster on factory arms?
 
olskoolmopar said:
When I rebuilt the front end of my 69 Dart that had sat outside for 27 years, I discovered the upper control arms were rusted beyond use. Since it is to be a race car only, I purchased a set of tubular units from Mancini. I've bought stuff from them since the 70's and have been treated well BUT...the directions were limited. Directions say to place 4 flat washers in front and 4 in the rear of each heim end to take up space and to make them equal. Problem is that the space is different from the front to the back so I put the same on the left front as on the right front and the rear ones as well.
But that's not my biggest problem! The arms are supposed to achieve 5-7 degrees of positive caster by using a combination of turns on each heim end and the cam bolts. Where should I start turn-wise on each end to get my desired specs? If I guess wrong, that means multiple trips to the alignment rack and maybe even having to yank the torsion bars (again) to get the arms out easily.
I run 6 degrees of positive caster and 0 degrees of camber with an 1/8 inch toe-in. With this setting and the stock arms I could take my hands off the wheel @ 120 and it was on rails, both on and off the gas.
Can I get a lil Mopar help please?​
Click to expand...

A good alignment shop can take care of it without taking the T-bars out. They will put a jack under the LCA close to the wheel to take the weight of the car then take the cam bolts out, make the changes to the threaded rod then put everything back in. Don't know who makes the Mancini stuff but RMS has installation instructions that say where to start.

Larry
 
thanks for the input guys. will try the site. I did like $26k worth of line-ups one year for a place I worked so I've got some handle on taking it somewhere to get the job done, but that doesn't mean I know it all lol.
Shortz, I was waiting for someone to mention the limits of a stock upper arm. Unlike say a *hevy nova which requires a pie cut in the arm to get the geometry correct, a dart requires only a swap. Yep, just sway left and rights and there is adequate adjustment. Ball joint is at a funky looking angle but on a race car it works fine. We did MANY of these mods back in the day when Lee Shepard was the man at Chrysler including raising or lowering tie-rod heights to maintain the zero camber angles.
 
hey are you allowed them in Canada as a option for the regular road???
 
I bought them from Mancini also.... they were a poor fit,washers ! come on,they should be made to fit with out them.. also the ball joints they sent with them(unistalled which I paid to be complete) did not even come close to going in the a arm,guess thats why they came uninstalled lol .... mancini was no help passed me off to there supplier who in turn said "I can't hear you on your phone" called 5 minutes later,no answer, tried all day Nothing... so packed them up and sent them back !!

How did your ball joints go in the a arm ?
 
olskoolmopar said:
When I rebuilt the front end of my 69 Dart that had sat outside for 27 years, I discovered the upper control arms were rusted beyond use. Since it is to be a race car only, I purchased a set of tubular units from Mancini. I've bought stuff from them since the 70's and have been treated well BUT...the directions were limited. Directions say to place 4 flat washers in front and 4 in the rear of each heim end to take up space and to make them equal. Problem is that the space is different from the front to the back so I put the same on the left front as on the right front and the rear ones as well.
But that's not my biggest problem! The arms are supposed to achieve 5-7 degrees of positive caster by using a combination of turns on each heim end and the cam bolts. Where should I start turn-wise on each end to get my desired specs? If I guess wrong, that means multiple trips to the alignment rack and maybe even having to yank the torsion bars (again) to get the arms out easily.
I run 6 degrees of positive caster and 0 degrees of camber with an 1/8 inch toe-in. With this setting and the stock arms I could take my hands off the wheel @ 120 and it was on rails, both on and off the gas.

Can I get a lil Mopar help please?

Do you know if there were CAP Auto control arms sold by Mancini?
Tom​
Click to expand...
 
From everything I've heard, CAP is junk. Send them back for a refund, call Dick Ross at Firm Feel and get a set of his upper control arms. I've also heard good things about the Reilly Motorsports stuff.

Give your money to someone who appreciates you as a customer.
 
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