UMI Permformance LCA's?

[nda0602v6]

I just bought THESE LCA's off Ebay. Anyone ever hear of this brand? Had some money in my paypal account and figured what the heck.

[94TeaL]

nada

[V6Bob]

See the chart toward the middle of this page for some discussion of why you might not want lcas on your car with polyurethane bushings at both ends.

http://www.globalwest.net/camaro93.htm

[nda0602v6]

Interesting chart. Hmmm, so now what? I just got them in the mail today and I can't send them back. Should I replace one of the polyurethane bushings with a rubber bushing?

[nda0602v6]

Anyone?

Replace the poly bushings with rubber? I don't want things to bind up.

[White95]

What the heck are Spherical aircraft bearings?? Are they just like ball bearings? I thought it was good to have poly at rear end and rubber at the frame. I could be wrong though...

By the way I'm glad to see that their is another member from the Canton (Ohio) area!!

[Dominic]

Ive run rod ends and for street use I still like rubber. Spherical aircraft bearings are rod ends, which are heim joints... search google.

Me personally? Rubber 1LE LCAs are good enough if I need performance.

[V6Bob]

"What the heck are Spherical aircraft bearings??"

They are a ball in a socket with a hole drilled through the ball for a bolt. They allow things to pivot smoothly up and down and also twist to the side a bit.

The good: They have a smooth range of motion perfect for most suspension pivots. Pure race cars use nothing else.

The bad: Most important:

There are a lot of cheap ones out there. It's hard to pick good ones, the word "aircraft" is thrown around a lot without much justification. They are a maintenance issue. If you put them on and forget them, they can get loose and even fail without much warning. If they fail, you're likely gonna crash.

The cure is periodic careful inspection. Standard practice for a race car, but how many people are really going to do that on a street car?

Less important: They're noisy and ride hard.

I believe even Ferrari, etc, uses bushings instead on their street cars. Quieter, smoother, not likely to fail catastrophically.

[nda0602v6]

Originally posted by White95:


By the way I'm glad to see that their is another member from the Canton (Ohio) area!!

Yeah I agree. I live in N. Canton, right down the road from the Hoover Plant.

Out of all the LCA'a I've seen for sale, they all seem to use poly bushings or that aircraft type bushing. I've never seen ones sold with rubber bushings.
I called UMI-Performance and they were real nice. The guy said he never encountered any type of "binding" issues. He said they would be fine for normal everyday driving but the ride will be rougher. I went a head and installed them today and I can tell they have made a difference. The rear end doesn't bounce around anymore when I floor it from a dead stop. The ride is a little more rougher and I seem to feel the vibrations/roar of the engine a little more. But other than that everything seems okay.