mdracer76

iTrader: (1)

Its a really pretty part.. but.. if I have SPC toe bolts, and camber arms.. why would I need to spend that much $ on this, when those parts are pretty inexpensive?

(not trying to flame.. just looking for price justification)

UrbanTacticZ

iTrader: (7)

At the root, yes, heim joints and the spherical bushings the arm above has are the same. Since you admit that, wouldn't customers prefer something that has less chances of failure since it is sealed completely with a boot? The bushings themselves are from an OEM application. I can't tell you exactly what car this particular bushing came off of... but you sometimes gotta wonder, if Ferrari doesn't use squishy rubber bushings, what would they use? Should the time ever come that the bushings need to be replaced, the manufacture of the bushings will be making replacements available for as long as the OEM vehicle is on the road. And needless to say, that's a very long time.

I have a lot of friends that have run heim joint suspension pieces on their cars. Bimmers, Audis, Nissans, Hondas, etc. At the end of the day, all of them have had problems with clunking and needed their heim joints replaced. And the sad part is that there is no real way to tell how long it will take to fail. It's a combination of many factors including driving habits and external weather conditions. Failure can come within a few months, or it could be a few years, but it seems like a conventional exposed heim joint like your products utilize, will fail.

I applaud SPL's desire to have a replacement that is readily available even if SPL isn't around. But, in all reality, who wants to deal with replacing a heim joint? It's a pain in the *** especially on a part that can take a bit of time to install/uninstall like a RUCA. I'm much more fond of the "set it and forget it" approach.

Replacing heim joints is something that I personally don't want to deal with on my car thats why I am really backing the spherical bushings that are on the arm. When I see heim joint suspension on street cars, I can't help but to think of the Apple iPhone. Everyone loves the product, but what about when they need to replace the battery at the end of two years and the only way to get it done is to send your phone back to Apple? One word--headache.

In response to torsional loads on the arm, refer to the design of the raised "walls" which, along with strengthening the arm, help resist the ball joint carrier's propensity to want to "twist". The piece is built truly as overkill, trust me, its not going anywhere. I didn't engineer the products but I am sure all your concerns were taken into account when the designer and engineer made these pieces.

P.S. I am not selling these pieces, so theres no reason for me to pay for a vendor membership. I am simply trying to introduce a new product and help out the guys who made the original product for me.

UrbanTacticZ

iTrader: (7)

Oh don't worry, I take no offense to your post at all. In fact, I am glad you asked. If you are able to get back into spec and you are happy, then you probably do not need this part.

This part is mainly useful for those who will be constantly adjusting their camber or those who are having trouble getting back into OEM alignment specs.

Seemingly, the two major markets are those who want a lot of negative camber to build a VIP style vehicle or those who have daily driven vehicles who also run on the track.

Track enthusiasts will really see the benefit with this piece because it's so simple to adjust camber and changes can be done within minutes vs. turning threads on a heim joint and then counting to make sure both sides are even.

With this arm, all you need to do is jack the vehicle up, loosen the four hex key bolts, adjust your camber as desired by shortening or lengthening the arm, and tighten the bolts up.

With the ability to easily adjust camber on the fly, it also makes it that much easier to get your car back into perfect alignment. All you have to do is look at where the tick marks are aligned before you make adjustments, and after you are done running on the track, return the camber plate back to the original tick mark locations. Done!

I really do love this product and being able to adjust camber without taking off the wheels makes life so much easier

Zivman

iTrader: (19)

maybe I missed it, but I went through this thread twice... what is the MSRP on these?

UrbanTacticZ

iTrader: (7)

Proposed, $1400 introductory price. I don't know the final because I'm not selling them.

It may seem steep, but think about what you are truly getting for the price. It's a fair price for sure.

kuah@splparts.com

iTrader: (10)

I am not going to say much more about the other points, it is not my intention to get into an argument. But since you are attacking my products for using heim joints, I will address this specifically:

All bushings and joints fail eventually, ball joints, heim joints, etc. Unless you are claiming ball joints lasts forever?

There are many different producers of heim joints, many different levels of quality, many different technologies. We are using QA1 Endura rod ends on most of our arms, QA1 employs a injection molded teflon/kevlar race, this gives it a very tight seal to the ball, making them self-cleaning and self-sealing. In applications where we do not use Endura rod ends, we have also used Seals-it rod end to seal the rod end if possible (sometimes it is just not possible to use a seal). We have many customers with our products going on 3-5 years with original heim joints on the arms, without any clunking.

You are trying to compare "degrees" of reliability. A poor quality rod end might last 1-2 years, and a OEM quality rod end might last 5-10 years. But a good quality, sealed, rod end can last 5-10 years as well.

Ataru074

iTrader: (19)

what scares me more are the connection to the subframe made in 2 parts.. those 2 tiny bolts (per side) will get all the load in a turn... and just perpendicular... if one side push (and there is "solid") the other pull and you rely only on two small bolt... I'd rather weld that part. and eventually use the same kind of design (with upper and lower constrain in the main body where you fit the "slider")...
at that point you need (if you use a 3 axis mill) three machine setup instead of two... but you can also make the 2 less part and machine everything.

otherwise the arm design is really overkill compared to the weakest link in this "chain"... (the bolts)

if you think that you can snap way bigger bolts connected to your swaybar in a 120mph turn and you risk seriously to crash... think what can happen if you snap those bolts.

btw, the machining is beautiful.

Matteo

Gsedan35

iTrader: (10)

Considering how things can get around here, you don't sound like a jerk at all.

All I'm saying is this.

1. Sperical bushings: Nice, I'd rather have that then the rubber filled oem parts. But, we are only talking about 4 total bushings, their are soo many others still in use in the suspension.

2. Helm and or ball joints: Not a common problem on 350Z's that see track time here, SCCA or Grand Am, not going to pay extra for a non issue.

3. Adjusting camber without changing toe much: Granted that is nice, but it's far from justifying $1495. I'll gladly work harder to use the oem points vs spending that kind of money which would be better spent getting quality suspension parts elsewhere. Problem I see is that things won't really change even if production costs magically went down and the product could be sold for profit at $495. You'll still have to compete against other suspension items.

The offest design thing, would be nice to see them supply the arms to a member here in the Koni challenge series, someone that IS NOT A VENDOR and have them report their experience. They'd get, hard running and likely to see frequent alignment changes.

Asterix

If you believe this, you need to review where the forces are in a suspension and how big they are.

Asterix

UrbanTacticZ

iTrader: (7)

Crap, digging this up from the grave. Sorry about not replying, I've been really busy working on my 2008 marketing vehicle. I will address questions/concerns in a little bit! Bump it!

twenzel

iTrader: (27)

I must say, this is a visually stunning product you have here. And the offset adjustment point is nice too. But those two things are all it really has going for it.

I've been running SPC camber arms and toe bolts for about 3 years now and no problems to report. I can also adjust camber and toe without taking the wheels off. I imagine you are going to see a lot of people having a hard time justifying spending $1400 on some camber adjusters.

I had a hard time justifying getting the 350EVO front upper arms but at the time, the only other real player was Cusco and their arms were very poorly designed in my opinion. It didn't allow cars lowered as much as mine to adjust back to stock specs. So I had to spend the $850 for those. Point being, customers will justify spending a lot money on parts when there aren't cheaper options that work just as well as the more expensive option.

To agree with Gsedan35, Unless you are replacing all of the joints with spherical joints, it not worth it to even discuss. If there are any rubber bushings in the suspension, its going to have binding.

Also, for not being part of the company, you sure to talk like a salesman. SPL parts has been on here for a while selling great quality products, so talking negatively about a competitor won't get you many supporters.

UrbanTacticZ

iTrader: (7)

Kinda confused on what you are talking about. There are no upper control arms available for the rear suspension. Like I have been saying, this product is not designed to be installed on everyone's car, only those people who know what it's use is for. I understand that SPC's has some "camber" arms available (as do many other companies) but serious track users will understand their design flaws. It is not easy and quick to adjust camber on those arms. What are you resorting to with those arms? Counting threads? Measuring tape? All you have to do with these is loosen up 4 allen bolts and line up the tick marks and you are done. Again, it may seem like a feature that is not important, but ask someone who consistently adjusts their camber and they will tell you what's up.

There's nothing "poor" per say about the Cusco front upper control arms. Cusco's front control arms are not advertised to get a lowered car back into OEM specs. Instead, they are built to add additional negative camber for race or whatever use you may have in mind.

EDIT: I misrood SPC for SPL. Sorry if you read the original reply!

JasonZ-YA

iTrader: (60)

Definitely a nicely crafted product, the its market has a very small margin of individuals that could justify spending the money over the ladder (cheaper) options......

-J

INTIMAZY

iTrader: (15)

Geez Jason, 2 year bump from the grave!
Did SPL or any other company pursue this further? I know SPL ended up releasing their mid-link for the benefits stated above along with ride height adjustment.

Beautiful product, glad you did bump this back.

Z1 Performance

iTrader: (564)

Ikeya has had theirs out for a long time now (several years). I've never held it in my hands however

Celestak

well is it available yet or not???

XLevel

I realize I'm bringing this back from the dead, but I'm curious what ever happened with these if anything. These might be a whole lot more attractive to the stanced out crowd now.

MI 35th

iTrader: (16)

The OP had a fantastic design, not sure what came of it. 350Evo actually had a prototype version as well they were working on. I only know this because I have 1 of 5 sets that exist on my Z, along with most of their Grand-Am Cup Spec'd suspension. I will tell you i.e.. the stances crowd, race crowd the amount of adjustment on these, or the OP even the SPL units is worth the price point.

Celestak

I'm having a set of Ruca's fabbed for my z34 sure wish these would've hit the market by now could've used them.

One Ton Garage

WOW this is funny... I was googling for the pics that Prashant had posted of these arms since I accidentally lost a few of them, and here I find this thread was revived recently. I certainly wasn't expecting that! I'm not surprised though, as I had anticipated that there would inevitably be some demand for quality adjustable control arms sooner or later. I've been seeing more and more Z guys running wheels too wide/too low an offset, with rear fenders that look like ruffles potato chips with horrible pull jobs, and am surprised that, even 4+ years after the fact, no one's still gone through the same efforts that Pras and I did to get his wheels to actually fit under his fenders w/o mucking them up.

Hmmm, anyone know whatever did happen to those control arms? (I'm assuming
they went bye bye with the car...?)