Rear Traction Arms

[cazman]

Out of date, the better polyurethane bushes are internaly knurled to retain grease and provide smooth rotation for the crush tube.

"stock bushing" is that polyurethane?

If so, you either have unknurled bushes or you haven't greased them enough?

Poly bushes that rotate on 2 axis' will bind, no matter how you spin your words.

On the rear lower control arm that only rotates on 1 axis, it is fine to put poly bushes etc in there.

On every other bush in a say R32 skyline, rotates on 2x axis'.

not only does the wheel go up and down, it goes backwards and forwards (as you have written and know, as its called bump steer)

This means the ANY poly bush or rubber will bind.

Please gary do some research on the S/R chassis rear end. Even from standard the rear end binds up. Then add to the mix that your changing the length of the arms, your stiction actually gets worse.

If any one has 5 hours to read up on it, please Click here or Here

These are Silvia related threads, with more know how than most of Australia.

There are many bump steer graphs included too.

Gary I am trying to educate people here, and not just convince them to buy X parts because X group buy is on.

There are many pros and cons of doing both bushes and rose jointed setups.

The main thing i want to get across is that many products on the market are inferior, weaker, and dont do the job they say they will.

Here is a very well known brand that broke within 1 day, and its rusting on the threads already now.

Please PM me for more details on how mine fixes this issue as well as others

gah i am not gonna rush this and get it done before DECA anymore... in my datto it was all custom arms, spherical joints, billet ends etc and it lived through some brutal shit, i would be more worried about my teins

Cazman PM me a price with the higher quality ends too 3142, wait time not an issue, and are all threads equal etc?

happy to be guinea pig for testing strength, but at the same time if its going to cause an accident i rather just run the whiteline....

Thats not what I meant sorry. The strength of our products is fine, we can have a set tested if you would like some raw data.

What I meant was with or without dust boots, there is no data.

What we would like to do is run 1 side of the car with no boot, and one side with a boot. Then 6 months later soo which one wore more. I will replace your rod ends free of charge if you find that one wore more than the other.

I would require you to keep track and document all climate changes also. The bearing itself wearing out the liner CANNOT cause it to fail, and especially not like the picture aboive, as we use a NON welded unit, and a 4140 chromeolly item too.

The price is $60 more with QA1 bearings instead. These are the Endura rod ends, which are their flagship range and most suited to street use, its all in the liner of the bearing.

All threads and sizes are the same. Everyhting.

Freight might also be slightly higher as I am not stocking QA1 atm, due to the raw cost of them.

So all up your looking at $240+$20 freight I'd say.

As for strength again, we use a 5/8 thread 4140 chromeolly rod end we use has a Ult. Radial Static Load Capicity of over 20 000 pounds.

The thread diameter is 15.87mm,

as an example:

Whiteline use a 14mm jack screw, this is a simple 8.8 grade bolt.

A well known Chinese brand uses a 13mm rod welded onto a carrier that contains a bearing. These are NON high tensile rod and its welded right next to the moment. This is a recipe for disaster, and it has happened many times before.

All ready off the bat its obvious that the cross sectional area of a 5/8 item is stronger than a 14mm item.

It works out to much much stronger in the end.

The U bracket We use a 10.9 cap bolt, which is even higher again.

<h2 style="margin-bottom: -1px;"> </h2>

[djr81]

As for strength again, we use a 5/8 thread 4140 chromeolly rod end we use has a Ult. Radial Static Load Capicity of over 20 000 pounds.

The thread diameter is 15.87mm,

as an example:

Whiteline use a 14mm jack screw, this is a simple 8.8 grade bolt.

A well known Chinese brand uses a 13mm rod welded onto a carrier that contains a bearing. These are NON high tensile rod and its welded right next to the moment. This is a recipe for disaster, and it has happened many times before.

All ready off the bat its obvious that the cross sectional area of a 5/8 item is stronger than a 14mm item.

It works out to much much stronger in the end.

The U bracket We use a 10.9 cap bolt, which is even higher again.

A few thoughts - I don't have an axe to grind either way with all this.

1. Quoting Ultimate Tensilte strength for a component is a bit pointless - you need the yield strength.

2. Grade 8.8 is a high tensile bolt - a 4.6 is mild steel.

3. A rod end needs to be higher in strength than a bushed end simply because the lack of compliance results in much higher loadings.

[_Ryan_]

Sorry I don't carry a pile of catalogues around with me all the time

Andrew and Ralph are good choices, you should also consider Centreline.

Cheers

Gary

Wasn't sure if you would know the numbers from when you dealt in their parts, was worth a shot

yeah, centreline are good for loosing part of a spring perch(picked up car after fiting new shocks, two weeks later got new tyres and noticed wear and raised it circlips)... that said my manager has gone there for 18years for his race car no dramas, but one of the account managers like TruTrack.

[_Ryan_]

Rear R32 Radius rod bush W62546 assuming adjustable...

[_Ryan_]

Poly bushes that rotate on 2 axis' will bind, no matter how you spin your words.

On the rear lower control arm that only rotates on 1 axis, it is fine to put poly bushes etc in there.

On every other bush in a say R32 skyline, rotates on 2x axis'.

not only does the wheel go up and down, it goes backwards and forwards (as you have written and know, as its called bump steer)

This means the ANY poly bush or rubber will bind.

Please gary do some research on the S/R chassis rear end. Even from standard the rear end binds up. Then add to the mix that your changing the length of the arms, your stiction actually gets worse.

If any one has 5 hours to read up on it, please Click here or Here

These are Silvia related threads, with more know how than most of Australia.

There are many bump steer graphs included too.

Gary I am trying to educate people here, and not just convince them to buy X parts because X group buy is on.

There are many pros and cons of doing both bushes and rose jointed setups.

The main thing i want to get across is that many products on the market are inferior, weaker, and dont do the job they say they will.

Here is a very well known brand that broke within 1 day, and its rusting on the threads already now.

Please PM me for more details on how mine fixes this issue as well as others

Thats not what I meant sorry. The strength of our products is fine, we can have a set tested if you would like some raw data.

What I meant was with or without dust boots, there is no data.

What we would like to do is run 1 side of the car with no boot, and one side with a boot. Then 6 months later soo which one wore more. I will replace your rod ends free of charge if you find that one wore more than the other.

I would require you to keep track and document all climate changes also. The bearing itself wearing out the liner CANNOT cause it to fail, and especially not like the picture aboive, as we use a NON welded unit, and a 4140 chromeolly item too.

The price is $60 more with QA1 bearings instead. These are the Endura rod ends, which are their flagship range and most suited to street use, its all in the liner of the bearing.

All threads and sizes are the same. Everyhting.

Freight might also be slightly higher as I am not stocking QA1 atm, due to the raw cost of them.

So all up your looking at $240+$20 freight I'd say.

As for strength again, we use a 5/8 thread 4140 chromeolly rod end we use has a Ult. Radial Static Load Capicity of over 20 000 pounds.

The thread diameter is 15.87mm,

as an example:

Whiteline use a 14mm jack screw, this is a simple 8.8 grade bolt.

A well known Chinese brand uses a 13mm rod welded onto a carrier that contains a bearing. These are NON high tensile rod and its welded right next to the moment. This is a recipe for disaster, and it has happened many times before.

All ready off the bat its obvious that the cross sectional area of a 5/8 item is stronger than a 14mm item.

It works out to much much stronger in the end.

The U bracket We use a 10.9 cap bolt, which is even higher again.

<h2 style="margin-bottom: -1px;"> </h2>

I'll have a think(and read), and be in touch. I too would be interested in finding out which way to run.(boots or none)

Gary no longer runs group buys, and his opinion/experience still deserves respect, thread is staying pretty clean so far, so lets all keep it this way

[Sydneykid]

really? how do they work? i had the flat outs, put me off offset bushes for ever cos they were useless.

Knurled bolt, rotating the bolt head turns the eccentric crush tube.

Cheers

Gary

[Sydneykid]

Let me start of with this, I haven't knocked any product, go back and read what I posted and show me where I said anything bad about the products themselves. Some of them actually look OK, well enough engineered using some quality parts. The product itself might well be OK and not fail, what I have simply pointed out is the maintenance issues with any spherical bearing and more importantly the alignment difficulty involved in using infinitely adjustable suspension arms.

I have lost count of how many hours I have spent aligning cars when guys stick adjustable control arms in their car, end up with geometry all over the place and have far worse handling than what they had before they spent their hard earned. The fact is there are not many people around the place who have the know how, experience, equipment and time to fix the resulting geometry issues. And if they do have them they charge appropriately.

My experience with spherical bearings has been gained in the course of race engineering many cars in most categories of racing over many years. That's using some of the best around, from the original Rose Joints (yes I have been around that long), to Aurora, Endura and QA1 etc. Whether I spend $20 or $200 on a spherical bearing the fact is they aren't suitable for an application where there is no maintenance schedule, they aren't lifed appropriately and the buyer has no idea what trouble he can easily get into and how much it's going to cost to get out of it.

So it's all very well to engineer a good product, but selling them to someone who has no idea how to maintain them and how to use them properly is the problem. The seller doesn't have those issues, it's the poor aligner who has to bail the buyer out of the shyt when it hits the fan. Then cop the complaints when you tell them how much it costs to fix the problems. Or when the chassis and/or subframe cracks because there is no cushion in the joints to absorb the impacts. Compared to the other issues, the cost of the product itself is irrelevant. I'm totally over telling guys that it's going to cost more than the product costs to align it after they have fitted it.

Forget about product warranty, what we need is someone who sells adjustable control arms who has the courage to pay for the alignment to be done properly, that would really be standing behind what they make/sell.

Cheers

Gary

[cazman]

A few thoughts - I don't have an axe to grind either way with all this.

1. Quoting Ultimate Tensilte strength for a component is a bit pointless - you need the yield strength.

2. Grade 8.8 is a high tensile bolt - a 4.6 is mild steel.

3. A rod end needs to be higher in strength than a bushed end simply because the lack of compliance results in much higher loadings.

They are both relative. But I did look for yield or shear, and they arent listed. I shot an email off to QA1, I guess Ill wait for the reply.

I'll have a think(and read), and be in touch. I too would be interested in finding out which way to run.(boots or none)

Gary no longer runs group buys, and his opinion/experience still deserves respect, thread is staying pretty clean so far, so lets all keep it this way

You right sorry, I did jump the Gun a bit there.

Let me start of with this, I haven't knocked any product, go back and read what I posted and show me where I said anything bad about the products themselves. Some of them actually look OK, well enough engineered using some quality parts. The product itself might well be OK and not fail, what I have simply pointed out is the maintenance issues with any spherical bearing and more importantly the alignment difficulty involved in using infinitely adjustable suspension arms.

I have lost count of how many hours I have spent aligning cars when guys stick adjustable control arms in their car, end up with geometry all over the place and have far worse handling than what they had before they spent their hard earned. The fact is there are not many people around the place who have the know how, experience, equipment and time to fix the resulting geometry issues. And if they do have them they charge appropriately.

My experience with spherical bearings has been gained in the course of race engineering many cars in most categories of racing over many years. That's using some of the best around, from the original Rose Joints (yes I have been around that long), to Aurora, Endura and QA1 etc. Whether I spend $20 or $200 on a spherical bearing the fact is they aren't suitable for an application where there is no maintenance schedule, they aren't lifed appropriately and the buyer has no idea what trouble he can easily get into and how much it's going to cost to get out of it.

So it's all very well to engineer a good product, but selling them to someone who has no idea how to maintain them and how to use them properly is the problem. The seller doesn't have those issues, it's the poor aligner who has to bail the buyer out of the shyt when it hits the fan. Then cop the complaints when you tell them how much it costs to fix the problems. Or when the chassis and/or subframe cracks because there is no cushion in the joints to absorb the impacts. Compared to the other issues, the cost of the product itself is irrelevant. I'm totally over telling guys that it's going to cost more than the product costs to align it after they have fitted it.

Forget about product warranty, what we need is someone who sells adjustable control arms who has the courage to pay for the alignment to be done properly, that would really be standing behind what they make/sell.

Cheers

Gary

Let me start of with this, I haven't knocked any product

Sorry, I did jump the gun, I was just offended of the one sided opinion that bushes are better than rose joints.

It would be a case by case thing, and the its up to the customer to decide whether the product is suitable for their car. There are Pros and cons for both types, but most people seem to require the greater adjustment.

The product itself might well be OK and not fail, what I have simply pointed out is the maintenance issues with any spherical bearing and more importantly the alignment difficulty involved in using infinitely adjustable suspension arms.

I dont agree with this statement, if a product is infinitely adjustable then they can bring them back to stock spec or within a eccentric bushes alignment range.

Just because they are infinity adjustable doesnt mean you should adjust them that much.

You can install a camber, toe, caster rod or heck ANY rose jointed arm into a car, set them to the FACTORY length, and have no alignment down sides.

You will have removed alot of play and stiction (binding)

As far as your alignment is concerned, you havent gone backwards.

As for Caster rods, its hard to stuff that one up, camber front and rear, well thats dependent on tyres and roll centre, but still, that isnt rocket science.

Its really only roll centres and traction rod length where someone might make a mistake, and get it all wrong.

I know that sphreical bearings dont last as long as bushings, but most people are aware of this.

The problem with the market is everyone sells dispoable arms, and ones that break.

What we set our to acheive was a set that can be rebuild, cheaply when needed, and by anyone, not just our company.

We didnt use any of the design flaws that plauge the market. Simple cost cutting measures that make for a weaker arm.

Then cop the complaints when you tell them how much it costs to fix the problems. Or when the chassis and/or subframe cracks because there is no cushion in the joints to absorb the impacts

Stewy bent/snapped a factory subframe using whiteline bushed items. I'm sure cause was stiction more than anything else. It is common for S/R series subframes to crack etc, even FACTORY supras do it, the frame cracks in 2, I can grab pictures if you like.

But I do agree, rose joints wont "help" this problem as such, but it is one thing to take into account.

Whether I spend $20 or $200 on a spherical bearing the fact is they aren't suitable for an application where there is no maintenance schedule

Most import owners keep their cars maintained well, and it should be a given that they check their rod ends every 5000kms. Its also a simple DIY replacement, and as long as you measure the before and after install, no re-alignment is needed.

But I do 100% agree with you, rose joints dont suit every car out there. We arent marketing these for every car, and if some one wants a superpro bushed version instead of a rose joint, they can have it.

My estimated cost is only $30 more per pair of arms.

I'm totally over telling guys that it's going to cost more than the product costs to align it after they have fitted it.

Same as above, why dont you just align it to your usual bush specs? then you wont have this issue.

Once again I am only talking caster/traction/toe/camber

Not RCA or squat.

Sorry Gary, i understand you have a wealth of racing knowledge, but these guys have taken the time to plot bumpsteer graphs, dynamic camber graphs and so on, and also to measure stiction increases.

They are basically nissan experts.

[cazman]

Edit, Double post

Edited August 5, 2009 by cazman

[_Ryan_]

How did Stewys frame crack?

[hrd-hr30]

IMO you can easily get a far better ballpark starting point with adjustable arms than is possible with eccentric bushes.

1. set the camber to where you want it and measure the camber arm's length.

2. calculate the % of that length to the standard camber arm.

3. set the adjustable traction arm to the same % of the standard traction arm.

Its a far better approximation than just altering both by the same amount with eccentric bushes. The camber & traction arms are different lengths and move through different arcs. But if you want to alter tham both by the same amount, I can't see the difficulty in that either - even if they are different thread pitches.

if you want to set them up properly, its not that difficult to rig up a backyard "bump steer gauge" and mess around with it yourself.

[Sydneykid]

The problem is guys buy the aftermarket arms in the blind belief that they are better in every way, when the truth is they aren't. They take the arms out of the packet, there are no warnings or instructions so they go ahead and whack them on the car. After taking the standard arms off and chucking them in the bin without even looking at them, let alone measuring them. They then jump straight into adjusting the upper control arms to adjust the camber. When they get the camber they want most jump in the car and drive off. They don't know that they have just screwed up the toe quite a bit and added pile of bump steer. All they know is the car handles like shyte, has no rear traction, changes line after every bump and is very nervous in the rear under brakes.

So they take it along to the nearest tyre shop, they do wheel alignments, so they can fix it. The average tyre shop guy only knows about toe, so he adjusts it. Bingo you now have a car with a bucket load of bump steer. The owner then either lives with it in the false belief that its supposed to be like that or he tries to fix it himself, which 99% of the time results in even worse geometry. It's around about then that he jumps on the forum and asks for a good suspension workshop, take a look at the number of posts on that subject. The guy then brings this messed up pile of geometry to me or someone like me and I have to fix it. If it happens to be a model of car that I know the standard control arm lengths then I simply take the arms out of the car and adjust them to the standard length.

Why do I have to take them out of the car, well 99% of the time the guy or the tyre shop flunky has wound the adjuster all the one way and they are not centralised. So I have to take them out of the car to put the adjuster in a useable position. When I present the guy with the bill the first question he asks is why did charge him for taking the arms out of the car when they are on car adjustable? The next question he asks is why am I charging him more than the arms cost to buy to do a simple wheel alignment, simple my ass.

That's why I take it upon myself to try and educate the guys before they go out and buy something for $200 that can cost them $1000 by the time it's right. I warn them about maintenance and cracking and short life spans. The stuff that the sellers don't want to know about and sure as hell won't tell them.

So, do the instructions that you supply with your control arms,

1. Tell the installer to measure the standard control arm lengths and adjust the aftermarketr control arms to the same length before fitting them to the car

2. Give a lifing for the spherical joints, with an inspection schedule

3. Provide a maintenance schedule for the spherical joints with a suitable lubricant supplied or at the vey least recommended

4. Come with instructions on how to install and adjust the arms

5. Have detailed instructions on how to adjust the arms in tandem to achieve the desired camber and toe whilst minimising bump steer

6. Display a warning that fitting aftermarket control arms to a road registered car is not legal in all states of Australia and doesn't comply with the ADR's

If they do then they will be the first that I have ever seen.

Cheers

Gary

[phunky_monkey]

Really interesting thread guys! Thanks for all the info

[cazman]

How did Stewys frame crack?

Drifting. Sald, simon M, most of the serious guys have cracked frames. its not a matter of how, but when.

If your doing serious track work, your just biding time till it happens

[_Wing_]

Most suspension arms pivot on multiple axis, stock rubber bushing are soft as is and already bind, poly bushings are hard as hell and guess what happens when you try to force something to move in a direction that it doesn't want to move in?

Bearings and hard bushings have pro's and con's, but when one can't even do the fundamental of what it's meant to do then you don't have much choice

[mosoto]

I hope you are up on the maintenance schedule, remove, clean and grease after every race meeting. Othwerwise they wear very fast, knock like crazy and allow uncontrolled movement and lock up binding. That's not going tight, that's 100% locked up. If you do any road driving I trust that you have dust seals on every joint, a few weeks of road grime and you will be looking for new sphericals.

Don't get me wrong, we use sphericals all the time in the Sports Sedans and the average service and replacement cost is over $1K per year. That's doing it on the cheap, the bill for sphericals for the 2 car V8Supercar team was over $5K per season. Sphericals workvery well if sized and specified correctly, maintained properly and replaced regularly, just make sure you're up to it.

Cheers

Gary

Gary, I'm looking at purchasing the SPL suspension components for my V35: http://www.splparts.com/main4/index.htm

The spherical beariings are all off road grade, self cleaning, self lubricating. He claims 3-5yrs out of them and the replacement cost on the bearings is only $15USD ea.

They seem to be very good quality..................what are your thoughts, would these still require a lot of maintenance?

[mosoto]

6. Display a warning that fitting aftermarket control arms to a road registered car is not legal in all states of Australia and doesn't comply with the ADR's

I cant find anything in the suspension section of the ADR's or NCOP that says you can not, can you point me in the right direction on these rulings as I want to keep the car street legal.

[08r3308]

cazman thank you for those links , been reading

[Sydneykid]

Gary, I'm looking at purchasing the SPL suspension components for my V35: http://www.splparts.com/main4/index.htm

The spherical beariings are all off road grade, self cleaning, self lubricating. He claims 3-5yrs out of them and the replacement cost on the bearings is only $15USD ea.

They seem to be very good quality..................what are your thoughts, would these still require a lot of maintenance?

They have no dust covers that I can see and they have no grease points. They look to have rudimentary plastic scraper which won't last one trip into a sand trap. In a decent sphercial bearing there is more than $US15 worth of steel, so I seriously doubt the quality claim as well.

Harsh? Maybe.....no not realy.

Cheers

Gary

[Sydneykid]

I cant find anything in the suspension section of the ADR's or NCOP that says you can not, can you point me in the right direction on these rulings as I want to keep the car street legal.

You are looking at it in reverse. The ADR's primary requirement is that every single part of the vehicle be as designed by and delivered from the manufacturer. You can't change anything unless there is a specific regulation allowing you to. Simply put, there is no ADR allowing you to change suspension arms, so they must be standard.

There is specific allowance for changing things, usually termed wear and tear items, such as brake pads, wiper blades, tyres, brake rotors, shock absorbers, globes etc. Included in that grouping are suspension bushes, which is why it is not an infringment of an ADR to replace non adjustable rubber bushes with adjustable polyurethane ones as long as the suspension arms themselves remain as standard.

Cheers

Gary