bind with polyended lca's

[5_spd_pewter_v6]

i have been doing some searching and i am planning on buying a bunch of suspension stuff for the car. but i wanted to get some lca's. i have read a lot about them binding. what does that mean. also some people have said that they squeek. how bad and is there any way to keep that from happening? i want to improve the cornorering of my car and i would also like to be able to drag race it a little bit, nothing too serious. would the poly lca's be ok for that?

[Dominic]

No, actually, they wouldn't be your best bet. Your best bet would be to just upgrade to 1LE arms if thats all you want and you need it to be hassle free after installation [img]smile.gif[/img] .

If you look at your rear suspension you'll see the trailing arms connect the live axle to the subframe of the car. When you go around a corner the live axle is supposed to stay on the ground flat, and your car will lean slightly. The subframe lean angle against the live axle is transferred through the LCAs. If the LCAs cannot flex, twist, bend, or what have you, along with the car like this (such as in the case of poly/poly BMR style LCAs) you will have *bind* in the poly bushing... essentially its like compressing rocks instead of rubber, and it doesn't help cornering compliance one bit!

For drag race only poly poly is great, no problems since all you're dealing with is front/back motion of the car. For cornering you need to stick with rubber bushings (as hard as you like just as long as they're rubber) or rod ends. I'm going with rod ends soon, teflon lined high quality aluminum pieces, and it will allow me to have the best of both worlds (Full all out cornering and stiff drag race antiwheel hop capability) without causing any rear suspension bind.

Becuase rod ends are not really bushings and are solid rotatable metal, they will transfer a lot of road noise into the cabin, and this is why many people don't run them.

As far as squeeks go, thats just because people fail to properly grease the bushings [img]smile.gif[/img]

[AllTheGoodNamesAreGone]

Hey dominic,
what brand of rod ended suspension are you buying and why?
will you still be driving the car on the street?
I am in the process of trying to work up the nerve to buy rod ended gear..

later
~Bill

[AZ3.8Camaro]

I haven't noticed any difference with my poly/poly LCAs as far as cornering. But then again, I don't autocross. Around town, no problem.

The LSD helped my cornering more than I expected though.

[5_spd_pewter_v6]

hey az3.8, i don't intend to autocross or anything to that level. i'm just going to be driving around town and occasionally take a corner hard cause it's fun. would there be any problem with that with the poly/poly lower control arms? and do the 1LE arms reduce wheel hop like the bmr's do?

[Dominic]

The 1LE arms should reduce wheel hop quite a bit as they use MUCH stiffer rubber over OEM. I've felt both and the 1LE rubber is definetly good stuff [img]smile.gif[/img]

Poly around town is probably fine yeah, I know many people running that and like it - and all they ever do is dragrace their car. There is a big difference between performance street driving and autocross ;) The only thing the poly rear control arms might do that I'm scared of is act like a HUGE rear antiswaybar (think 2") which would reduce rear compliance in a corner and might cause drastic oversteer in an emergency situation (avoiding a dog crossing the road while traveling @ 50mph @ night?)

Allthegoodnames: I am likely going with the provenperformanceconepts panhard rod and LCAs. Also my car will always be a street car [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ March 25, 2003: Message edited by: Dominic ]</p>

[AllTheGoodNamesAreGone]

thats cool dominic, is there any particular reason for choosing them? I may go with them also..

The other thing is.. how much maintinence is involved in spherical rod ends? do they last for ever.. or do you need to replace/rebuild them??

~Bill

[Dominic]

The main thing with rod ends is you want the highest quality components you can get... The awesome rod ends are great, they don't squeek or rattle and they are fairly stiff to turn. Not to mention the teflon lining means they need no greasing (some super cheap ones need greasing, very bad idea for a rod end...) and believe it or not they last a long time.

There are many people who can go 50,000 miles or more on rod ends without a single issue with the teflon lining wearing out, or them getting noisy... and they're easy to replace/repair if you get a bad rod end after a while.

Personally I'd rather deal with the extra noise of rod ends and not reduce my handling capability. I hate tradeoffs.

[V6Bob]

"believe it or not they (rod ends) last a long time."

Some do, some (even with teflon linings) don't. They're great for race cars, where they are kept clean and people constantly inspect things, but I worry about them on street cars where they get dirty and so many people shop by price. Good rod ends are expensive and even they can wear fast if they get dirt inside.

When I raced SCCA, if you replaced rubber bushings or ball joints with rod ends they required you to add a special washer designed to keep the part attached if the rod end failed. That should tell you something.

Check out:

http://www.aurorabearing.com/page5.html

for some info and an idea of how many different ways there are to make rod ends.

[Dominic]

Thanks V6Bob, I agree with your statement - I'm always forgetting that people don't check their car weekly head to toe for problems.

I have a list basically of things I check for wear and tear everytime I wash my car and it includes a complete vehicle wipedown underneath and chassis inspection.

Numerous times I've found things such as fishing line and even money underneath my car in odd little areas. Granted the camaro/firebird platform is pretty well tucked up, you'd be surprised what can get lodged underneath the vehicle when you're not looking!

[AZ3.8Camaro]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Dominic:
The only thing the poly rear control arms might do that I'm scared of is act like a HUGE rear antiswaybar (think 2") which would reduce rear compliance in a corner and might cause drastic oversteer in an emergency situation (avoiding a dog crossing the road while traveling @ 50mph @ night?)
<hr></blockquote>

I avoided a dead dog on the freeway the other day, I was playing with the stereo, and then it saw it and swerved kinda hard at 75. Car felt pretty tight to the road, didn't break loose a tire or anything. I was actually suprised because I thought with that kind of turn that fast I would have ended up sideways and countersteering on the freeway!

I am not saying they don't hurt your cornering, I mean when I jack up the left wheel, the whole axle comes up with it, almost perfectly straight, It doesn't let the axle tweak very much, so I would assume it work like you said, as a big anti sway bar. But I haven't had any problems.

[camaro28]

heres an idea...check out the poly/rubber combo from BMR fabrications. These are what i have. They are a poly bushing on the body side of the LCA, and the 1LE style harder rubber bushing on the axle side. the poly bushing keeps the LCA from moving fowards or backwards (good!), however the rubber bushing still allows the axle to flex a small amount (also good) I think these are the best of both worlds personally, i highly reccomend them.

[5_spd_pewter_v6]

thanks a lot camaro28. i had another post about this, but no one seemed to know anything about them. i have decided to go with the poly/rubber combo after reading a long post about it on ls1.com. i appreciate the input. i will be ordering many parts from bmr later this week.