Ball joint drop brackets?

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without verifying the maths he's put down or watching the whole thing, mainly because i'm too lazy, i can tell you if you're going to "drop a spindle" you want to drop it at the lower ball joint. that's how i did mine back when.

i will tell you though, that you're not clearing stock brakes with that set up. the rotor is going to be ALL over that. so there's gonna be some grinding.

for a max effort car? sure. for a street driver? nah.
 
He definitely has an interesting take on sway bar and torsion bar sizing. It's different than a lot of folks on this site.
 
-I haven't mapped a B-body out, but A and E bodies both have negative camber gain if they're dropped between 1" and 2" with the stock spindles. So saying you've got positive camber gain without his brackets isn't true at all

-Typically, you want to LOWER the roll center to improve handling. It's true, putting the CG and roll center closer together will improve roll couple. But in general raising the roll center isn't what you want to do, unless you have some very specific geometry conditions

-Lowering the car so the LCA is parallel to the ground is about as low as you can practically run a car with long tube headers on the street if you're doing any amount of real street driving. That's nearly a 2" drop from stock. So, unless you're race only and dragging on the ground, your LCA's will not angle up from the pivot point.

- His header flange was kissing the ground and he was just bouncing on it. He said 1" clearance, not a chance. You can see the header hit the ground around 7:40, you can literally see the header move as a result. You've gotta pay attention when adding travel, if you have more travel than clearance you're going to be unhappy when the hard parts intersect and you lose control

-Mapping out your suspension is a good way to determine your geometry. But if your measurements aren't within 1/16", you're basically just jerking off. No guessing where the center of the ball is, and if you're drawing it all out you have to be VERY accurate.

-Anti-dive effects camber gain. That is why Hotchkis altered the anti-dive to improve camber gain on their B/E body UCA's. If you average the heights of the control arm pivots like he suggests, you're not getting the real numbers. Also, A-body suspension has less anti-dive built in, just FYI.

-Adding travel is good, but, you have to be able to use it. If you lower the car enough that your LCA's are no longer parallel to the ground, and then add 1.5" of travel, your wheels will hit the inner fender long before you run out of compression. I have this issue just with tubular LCA's that add less than 1" of travel before the bump stop. Both my Challenger and my Duster are to the point that they will just kiss the wheel to the inner fender at full suspension compression. If I added another 1.5" of available travel, it would mean raising the inner fender to keep the wheel from locking up on the bodywork before the suspension bottomed out

-His CG is a wild *** guess, and for his calculations to mean anything at all it has to be pretty accurate. He should weigh the roof structure of one of these cars and then ask himself why he puts the CG of the car above the level of most of the engine, the entire transmission, rear axle, all the suspension, all the interior, and 80% of the bodywork.

-Dropping the lower ball joint will introduce outer tie rod end clearance issues on an A-body. On a B/E body you don't need large positive offsets/lots of backspace to run wide tires up front, so on a B/E it's not an issue. On an A, those brackets will probably cost you at least a 1/4" of backspace with 18" wheels which means you're losing the possibility of 275's on the front.

-Off topic, but at one point he says a rear locker will help you in the corners. Yeah, that's not at all true. A limited slip diff will, but even then you don't want it super tight for paved courses because if it locks up or lets go hard you're swapping ends. That's why the road course and pro-touring guys use worm gear LSD's now, they're smooth. He's thinking dirt track, or maybe he's just used to always sliding the rear end. Which is not the fastest way to drive, even if power sliding everywhere is fun.

-Those brackets are less than half the thickness of the spindles where the ball joints mount. There's a significant loss of strength with those. Maybe it's not actually an issue because the stock stuff is wildly overbuilt, but, I'd be willing to bet he hasn't done the engineering to know if those will hold up long term on the street.

-He NEVER gives his actual numbers. None of them. He says it "cuts bump steer in half" but provides ZERO evidence to back that up. If this is like his camber gain claim, it could be 100% bullshit. Every geometry claim he makes is 100% unsupported. He tosses out lots of technical jargon, appeals to his racing background, and backs up exactly nothing with actual numbers
 
Thank you 72 bluNblu for the factual write up, this guy is full of $%^&
A big fat charger can be made to handle/ride/drive very very well without getting crazy and it does not need those hokey brackets. Proper choice of hardware and tire size does wonders for these old cars
 
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Yeah,it has been decades since I had any suspension theory or even wirked on a circle rack car so I've forgotten most of it.
His experience with sway bar sizing mirrored my own. But I just can drop my head around this ball joint drop.
If I could buy or build these brackets cheaply I wouldn't be afraid to experiment. But for 350 bucks I want to understand more.
 
72bluNblu said:
-I haven't mapped a B-body out, but A and E bodies both have negative camber gain if they're dropped between 1" and 2" with the stock spindles. So saying you've got positive camber gain without his brackets isn't true at all

-Typically, you want to LOWER the roll center to improve handling. It's true, putting the CG and roll center closer together will improve roll couple. But in general raising the roll center isn't what you want to do, unless you have some very specific geometry conditions

-Lowering the car so the LCA is parallel to the ground is about as low as you can practically run a car with long tube headers on the street if you're doing any amount of real street driving. That's nearly a 2" drop from stock. So, unless you're race only and dragging on the ground, your LCA's will not angle up from the pivot point.

- His header flange was kissing the ground and he was just bouncing on it. He said 1" clearance, not a chance. You can see the header hit the ground around 7:40, you can literally see the header move as a result. You've gotta pay attention when adding travel, if you have more travel than clearance you're going to be unhappy when the hard parts intersect and you lose control

-Mapping out your suspension is a good way to determine your geometry. But if your measurements aren't within 1/16", you're basically just jerking off. No guessing where the center of the ball is, and if you're drawing it all out you have to be VERY accurate.

-Anti-dive effects camber gain. That is why Hotchkis altered the anti-dive to improve camber gain on their B/E body UCA's. If you average the heights of the control arm pivots like he suggests, you're not getting the real numbers. Also, A-body suspension has less anti-dive built in, just FYI.

-Adding travel is good, but, you have to be able to use it. If you lower the car enough that your LCA's are no longer parallel to the ground, and then add 1.5" of travel, your wheels will hit the inner fender long before you run out of compression. I have this issue just with tubular LCA's that add less than 1" of travel before the bump stop. Both my Challenger and my Duster are to the point that they will just kiss the wheel to the inner fender at full suspension compression. If I added another 1.5" of available travel, it would mean raising the inner fender to keep the wheel from locking up on the bodywork before the suspension bottomed out

-His CG is a wild *** guess, and for his calculations to mean anything at all it has to be pretty accurate. He should weigh the roof structure of one of these cars and then ask himself why he puts the CG of the car above the level of most of the engine, the entire transmission, rear axle, all the suspension, all the interior, and 80% of the bodywork.

-Dropping the lower ball joint will introduce outer tie rod end clearance issues on an A-body. On a B/E body you don't need large positive offsets/lots of backspace to run wide tires up front, so on a B/E it's not an issue. On an A, those brackets will probably cost you at least a 1/4" of backspace with 18" wheels which means you're losing the possibility of 275's on the front.

-Off topic, but at one point he says a rear locker will help you in the corners. Yeah, that's not at all true. A limited slip diff will, but even then you don't want it super tight for paved courses because if it locks up or lets go hard you're swapping ends. That's why the road course and pro-touring guys use worm gear LSD's now, they're smooth. He's thinking dirt track, or maybe he's just used to always sliding the rear end. Which is not the fastest way to drive, even if power sliding everywhere is fun.

-Those brackets are less than half the thickness of the spindles where the ball joints mount. There's a significant loss of strength with those. Maybe it's not actually an issue because the stock stuff is wildly overbuilt, but, I'd be willing to bet he hasn't done the engineering to know if those will hold up long term on the street.

-He NEVER gives his actual numbers. None of them. He says it "cuts bump steer in half" but provides ZERO evidence to back that up. If this is like his camber gain claim, it could be 100% bullshit. Every geometry claim he makes is 100% unsupported. He tosses out lots of technical jargon, appeals to his racing background, and backs up exactly nothing with actual numbers
Click to expand...
I quit watching when I saw him bouncing the plumb bob off the sidewall of the tire...
 
72bluNblu said:
-I haven't mapped a B-body out, but A and E bodies both have negative camber gain if they're dropped between 1" and 2" with the stock spindles. So saying you've got positive camber gain without his brackets isn't true at all

-Typically, you want to LOWER the roll center to improve handling. It's true, putting the CG and roll center closer together will improve roll couple. But in general raising the roll center isn't what you want to do, unless you have some very specific geometry conditions

-Lowering the car so the LCA is parallel to the ground is about as low as you can practically run a car with long tube headers on the street if you're doing any amount of real street driving. That's nearly a 2" drop from stock. So, unless you're race only and dragging on the ground, your LCA's will not angle up from the pivot point.

- His header flange was kissing the ground and he was just bouncing on it. He said 1" clearance, not a chance. You can see the header hit the ground around 7:40, you can literally see the header move as a result. You've gotta pay attention when adding travel, if you have more travel than clearance you're going to be unhappy when the hard parts intersect and you lose control

-Mapping out your suspension is a good way to determine your geometry. But if your measurements aren't within 1/16", you're basically just jerking off. No guessing where the center of the ball is, and if you're drawing it all out you have to be VERY accurate.

-Anti-dive effects camber gain. That is why Hotchkis altered the anti-dive to improve camber gain on their B/E body UCA's. If you average the heights of the control arm pivots like he suggests, you're not getting the real numbers. Also, A-body suspension has less anti-dive built in, just FYI.

-Adding travel is good, but, you have to be able to use it. If you lower the car enough that your LCA's are no longer parallel to the ground, and then add 1.5" of travel, your wheels will hit the inner fender long before you run out of compression. I have this issue just with tubular LCA's that add less than 1" of travel before the bump stop. Both my Challenger and my Duster are to the point that they will just kiss the wheel to the inner fender at full suspension compression. If I added another 1.5" of available travel, it would mean raising the inner fender to keep the wheel from locking up on the bodywork before the suspension bottomed out

-His CG is a wild *** guess, and for his calculations to mean anything at all it has to be pretty accurate. He should weigh the roof structure of one of these cars and then ask himself why he puts the CG of the car above the level of most of the engine, the entire transmission, rear axle, all the suspension, all the interior, and 80% of the bodywork.

-Dropping the lower ball joint will introduce outer tie rod end clearance issues on an A-body. On a B/E body you don't need large positive offsets/lots of backspace to run wide tires up front, so on a B/E it's not an issue. On an A, those brackets will probably cost you at least a 1/4" of backspace with 18" wheels which means you're losing the possibility of 275's on the front.

-Off topic, but at one point he says a rear locker will help you in the corners. Yeah, that's not at all true. A limited slip diff will, but even then you don't want it super tight for paved courses because if it locks up or lets go hard you're swapping ends. That's why the road course and pro-touring guys use worm gear LSD's now, they're smooth. He's thinking dirt track, or maybe he's just used to always sliding the rear end. Which is not the fastest way to drive, even if power sliding everywhere is fun.

-Those brackets are less than half the thickness of the spindles where the ball joints mount. There's a significant loss of strength with those. Maybe it's not actually an issue because the stock stuff is wildly overbuilt, but, I'd be willing to bet he hasn't done the engineering to know if those will hold up long term on the street.

-He NEVER gives his actual numbers. None of them. He says it "cuts bump steer in half" but provides ZERO evidence to back that up. If this is like his camber gain claim, it could be 100% bullshit. Every geometry claim he makes is 100% unsupported. He tosses out lots of technical jargon, appeals to his racing background, and backs up exactly nothing with actual numbers
Click to expand...
I installed QA1s tubular upper control arms on my 68 Dart drag car primarily to gain positive caster. The side effects from this was the steering arm is closer to the ground. With the stock steering arms bolting from the underside of that steering arm, the toe change thru the suspension travel was horrendous. So I could envision lowering the ball joint would create a similar situation.
 
Mr knowitall needs to spend the money and do a couple of track days on a road course and show the results of the testing. Lap times and pics of the car in the turns will tell all
Typically 2 days at the track cost at least $1200.00,
650 track fee, 250 motel, 125 food and beer, 250 fuel, speeding ticket on the way home...lol no trailer...
 
mopowers said:
Here's a video of him putting these brackets on the road.

Click to expand...


Wow.

So, his head is entirely up is own *** on torsion bars and sway bars. He’s completely wrong.

He doesn’t understand suspension load at all. The load doesn’t come from the torsion bar or the sway bar, it comes from the connection with the road. If you run stickier tires, those tires will allow you go faster in a turn. They stay connected to the road where a harder tire lets go. So then basic physics, if you go faster and don’t slide, you get more load in the suspension.

So you don’t run stickier tires to “fix” bad suspension, you run bigger torsion bars and sway bars because your sticky tires have increased the load going into the suspension and you need more wheel rate to keep from bottoming out your suspension.

Can you run bars that are too big and cause the car to push? Of course! But that doesn’t mean that bigger torsion bars aren’t right for some set ups. You have to match the amount of suspension travel that you have to the amount of load that you can put into your suspension.

My Duster, for example. I run 200 tread wear tires. My suspension is set up so that I still have the factory ~5.5” of suspension travel. With 1.12” torsion bars, I can still use every inch of that travel, and I DO, just driving in the street. I can go to larger bars and not be tire limited. Now, if I put a set of BFG TA’s on there, I’d break the tires loose before I used all my suspension travel and I’d have to go to smaller bars if I wanted to maximize my handling.

As for road courses, again, he’s wrong. You need larger bars, because your higher speeds will mean more suspension loads. Can you run too stiff? Absolutely. You want to have as much suspension travel as you can get, and you want your wheels rates set so that you actually use almost all of it. But that means larger, not smaller bars. And your suspension travel has to match your platform, you can’t have 6” of travel if it means your headers bottom in the road or your tires bottom on the inner fenders. Again, that depends on your tires being able to hold the road. If you run lousy tires, you need smaller bars than someone that runs stickier tires because you'll slide long before you use your suspension travel.

His comments on AutoX are ridiculous. Completely laughable. Corners still have “middles”. Just because the corner is short doesn’t mean it’s not there, the exact same physics applies, the car goes through all the same handling modes. He just doesn’t have a clue. It would be like comparing one of our cars to an F1 car on the same road course corner and saying there’s no “middle” of the corner for the F1 car because it goes through the corner in a fraction of the time.

Nope. Dude lost ALL of his credibility with that video.
 
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