Hi guys, I've read this thread; http://www.aus300zx.com/forum/showthread.php?t=331336 And others on the subject over the years. My race car isn't overly low, and I don't need to adjust back to street specs from lowering the car, I need to dial in some additional negative camber on the front (around 2-3degrees total). Quite a while back I picked up a new set of PZP FUCA's (they look to be the V2 variants). Quite beefy units with NSK bearings in the ends, but of course no pivot in the centre. What are peoples thoughts/opinions on using these for the race car? Is anyone running these on their car, for how long, and any problems with them?
If you're only after 2-3 degrees, why not use a set of camber bushes? I would have thought you'd need a bit more for a race car? That's almost street car specs.
UAS have a few sets of the shorter motorsport style control arms for 300zx. They cost more but will never bind through the centre like every other design. It doesn't really matter how beefy those midori style arms are the design is flawed.
I have camber bolts on the inside. Running them on the outside as well will give me a little more, but not enough, and they're a pita to adjust. Camber is a balance between straight line and cornering performance. It already turns in very well, so I don't need much on the front.
Sadly I can't afford John's prices atm. If the general opinion is not to run these, I'll have to stay stock for now.
The only FUCA's I've seen any evidence of failing are the Stillen type, and mostly as a result of hitting a pothole. Obviously the cheap chinese ones will fail due to poor materials and bearings/bushes. Has anyone actually any evidence of better quality FUCA's like the PZP, PowerTrix, Z1, failing? I can imagine the threads and bearings may wear over time, something that needs to be checked regularly, but have any actually failed?
Right, and where do UAS get their arms, they don't make them in house either. My point is there must be hundreds, thousands of these FUCA's being sold and installed. If they are so bad and so prone to failure, where are the hundreds and thousands of reports of these things failing. If they were failing at these rates, Z1, CZP, etc, surely wouldn't keep selling them.
Biggest problem I have seen with them is the threads binding and then you can't adjust them. I don't recall ever seeing a catastrophic failure of these particular arms.
Thanks Chrispy, this is exactly what I'm trying to establish. If these better quality arms don't fail, but only wear out over a period of lets say a couple of years, then I don't see any issue using these FUCA's. Before installing I'll use anti seize on the threads, and I'll be checking them after every event. It would be really helpful if others could post in my other thread what they are actually using and their experiences.
just put some spaces behind that black bracket that site on the wheel well , you would need a wheel alignment first they will tell you how far out you are then make spaces to suit , i would stay away from all these arms unless you can find some old nismo? one ( big gold ones ) and re bush them ,
Spacers will reduce negative camber, I need to increase negative camber. I need to make the arm shorter, not longer.
ooww sorry mate yeah all good , this being the case i really dont like anything ive seen on the market . ( i havent seen everything tho ) but id be more inclined to look for those old nismo? ones they seem to last MUCH longer , deans ( bracket ) brother had some a while ago not sure if he still has them , or i guess you could cut and re weld your ones. i think blackbeast did some work to his a few years ago , my last post was more for correcting the camber you have all good
UAS have a unique design that they have manufactured for them. They are not selling a literally idential arm to 100 other sellers and claiming it's different. You are trying to validate a known problematic design... and the reason behind this is because they're cheap. Not a good plan for success
It is their design. When we did the first production run/group buy on them years ago the manufacturing was outsourced to Terry & David Bosnjack who still had their shop/factory in Wetherill Park. Put it this way... The video below shows the twisting motion in action [yt]pbPD-FzGJLY[/yt] If you have a factory control arm this is taken by the bushes at either end. If you have an aftermarket arm with an adjustable centre and bearings at either end where do you suppose the load goes? Yes lots of people buy and sell the midori arms but the physics/engineering is irrefutable. Failures are by no means few and far between. As long as people are buying them vendors will keep selling them. Best advice is to save up a little longer or stay with a stock arm, especially if you plan on stressing the suspension components. A quick look at CZP shows the midori type arms run from $250-$500AUD before shipping depending on which label goes on them. $595 for something that's designed right seems like a no brainier to me.
I'm not trying to validate anything. I'm trying to understand the scope of the actual problem. Every single component of any motor vehicle is a compromise. There is no such thing as perfect engineering. I can imagine there are hundreds/thousands of these control arms sold. If the problem was so disastrous, there would be hundreds/thousands of failures complained about online. From what I can tell, there have been half a dozen or so reported failures on forums. This is what I'm asking/trying to establish. I'm about to debut this car at Mt Panorama. Everything about this car is a compromise. There is no perfect racecar. It's about understanding what the limits of the components that make up said racecar to understand what the potential problems will be.
