Upper control arm bracing?

The lower control arm benefits from bracing because it's supporting the entire weight of the car, all the spring and suspension force is carried by the LCA.

The upper control arm is more "along for the ride". Obviously it does have force exerted on it especially when turning, braking etc but it's primary function is to locate the top of the spindle, not carry the weight of the car. So it's seeing change of direction forces, not weight of the car type forces.

If I was going to modify the UCA, I'd do it to add more caster not just strengthen it. The lack of caster from the factory parts is more of an issue than the strength of the UCA's. Not saying there isn't some flex there, but if you solve the caster issue with tubular UCA's you improve the strength too.

junkyardhero said

i wouldn't bother. the benefits that you *might* see would be so minuscule and mostly negated by the stock rubber or poly arm bushings due to their flex.

if it's something of concern, then i'd go tubular with heim joints.

but honestly unless you've got massive tires that are transmitting a ton of load and the rest of the components to back that up: t-bars, shocks and bracing and the car is designed to be pushed i wouldn't bother.

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Heims on the street are completely overrated. Only way I'd ever run heims on the street again is if they came with free replacements and free labor to install them every 7k miles, because that's about all they last.

With delrin bushings available now heims on the street are just a lot of work for pretty much no added benefit over delrin.