I know that there have been other reviews of the 350evo control arms and sways so I’ll try to give a little more info than what’s already been posted.
I was hoping to do a direct back to back comparison with the 350evo sways and my hotchkis but that didn’t work out due to a little “error” on UPS’s part. I was expecting them to show up at my door on Xmas eve so I got up that morning and removed my hotchkis sways that morning so I would be ready for the arrival of my evo’s. I waited and waited for Santa dressed in brown to deliver my package of goodies but they never showed up. Too make a long story short, I was driving around with no sway bars on the car for 3 weeks! But I think I remember what my hotchkis bars felt like to make some observations. The evo bars are slightly stiffer. Not by much but the difference is noticeable. The front evo bar set to medium is somewhere between the med and stiff setting on the hotchkis. They’re both good upgrades. The only complaint that I have with the evo’s is that you can’t adjust the front bar without unbolting the bottom of the shock because the bar is so thick, the endlink bolt hits the shock when you try to pull it out. Now that I have done it once it’s not such a big deal, but keep in mind that it adds an extra step for those trying to do a quick trackside adjustment between sessions.

Now on to the control arms. As everyone has mentioned, they’re so nice looking it’s a shame to install them where they can’t be seen. They are a couple pounds heavier than the stock piece according to my bathroom scale. I installed them myself in about an hour and forty five minutes. There is a hole that lines up on them when you have them at the stock length (not sure if this was done on purpose but it really helps when you want to bring it back from the track setting to street setting). As far as driving impressions, the metal bushings make a huge difference in steering feel! I initially installed them at the same length as stock and even then the car seemed to bite more in the corners. One of my complaints about the z was that the steering felt numb to me. Now with the metal bushings, the steering is much crisper. You’d be surprised how soft the rubber bits are in the stock arms. You can compress them with your fingers.

 

So what does this all mean in terms of ultimate handling. I prepped the car the day before the track and set the camber to full negative (around –3 degrees). I took her to a top secret area and did some testing. I did some steady state friction circles and found that the rear actually broke loose first. The front traction overpowered the rear. I went home and adjusted the front sway bar from med to hard (kept the rear at medium) in hopes of getting some more grip in the rear and called it a night. The next at the track, I was surprised to find that the car was still oversteering. Not wanting to have to take camber out of the front, I figured I’d try softening the rear bar. I now had full stiff front and full soft rear. Next session: still oversteering! As much as I hated to take camber out of the front (it just looked so darn cool at –3 degrees), I brought it down to –2.5. Perfect. The car was neutral and well behaved. I’d really like to bring the front bar back to medium because I felt that full stiff was just too much due to it skipping over the bumpy sections.

I guess I will be needing some more rear camber to match the grip of the front. I will probably wait to get any rear camber adjustment parts until I lower the car, because that should bring some more negative camber. The other thing that might be happening is that the evo sways are set up for the race cars that run staggered tires. Perhaps they compensate for that with a stiffer rear bar than I would need with the same sized tires all around.
At any rate sorry for the long post, but many were asking for my 2 cents. Take it for what it’s worth, just one man’s opinion.
I didn’t have a chance to do any pyrometer testing because quite frankly I was having so much fun driving, I didn’t feel like pitting to take measurements. I know that I need more camber in the rear, based off of the pics that saw of myself.

 

Great writeup!

 

What did you have the rear set to? or is it the stock -1 degree?

Ray

 

I had the rear maxed out which came to -1.9 degrees. The reason why I am waiting on the rear camber adjusters is because it doesn't allow the "best of both worlds" that the fronts do. I like that fact that I have the front at -1 for street and change to -3 at the track in minutes.

 

-3 degrees is what Brandon set it up. He came back from a test drive and said he could not get the rear to break loose. That is a nice comment and I am looking forward to February9.

Ray

 

Nice write up. How difficult is it to accurately adjust front camber with the new arms? Can it be done with the wheel on? It looks to me from the way the arms are designed you would have to reach up into the wheel well to adjust them, correct? Am I missing something?
Can you post pics if you have them as I've never seen a set installed before. thanks,

 

The front can be adjusted in under 10 minutes (for both sides). You don't have to take off the wheels, you just need to jack one side up, loosen the bolts and adjust the slider. You will need a camber gauge to do it accurately though. What I did was measure the camber with the car on the ground (ie -3 degrees) then jacked up one side and with the camber gauge still attached, I adjusted +.5 degrees. When I lowered the car I had -2.5 degrees. For some reason, I wasn't able to attach any pictures, but if you want to picture how it looks, just jack up on side of your car and you will see the relation of the stock arms to the wheel. There is plenty of room to get your hand in there and make the adjustment.
There is a post in the suspension section that has some pics.