Not sure if anyone has done the lower control arms from qa1 with a wilwood brake kit. The Wilwood conversion is already on the car, but was unsure if there would be an issue using the qa1 upper and lower control arms. Thanks in advance.
QA1 Upper and Lower Tubular Control Arms with Wilwood Brakes
- Thread starter mrzods13
- Start date
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Let me just say that if this is a race only car the QA1 upper arms do not allow enough suspension travel and may require the 1 inch taller upper ball joint. Mine hit the frame . Although I have seen upper arms with multiple him joints that may be better. The factory arms arch up near the bushing to give you the travel. Most aftermarket ones are a straight shot to the ball joint. Just saying.
It was setup for drag racing but I am leaning away from that now. Just curious if anyone had other issues with the disc conversion kits and the qa1 lower arms. Thanks for your help though, I appreciate it.
I just boxed in the lower arms with the Mancini stiffening plates. Although I'm sure the QA1 lowers are much lighter. It wasn't until I got adjustable heim joint strut rods (which I recommend) that I saw I was not getting enough front end suspension travel. Double adjustable shocks all around too. Make sure the chassis/suspension works right. The bullet under the hood should be your last concern. Get the car right and run a 318 2bbl and you can run some good times. Put a 500 hp engine in and run faster but the suspension needs to work right first! You probably know this.
The QA1 LCA’s are smaller in profile pretty much everywhere compared to the stock LCA’s. I can’t imagine there being a clearance issue with the QA1 LCA’s to a brake kit that clears the stock stuff.
As for the UCA travel, a lot of tubular UCA’s require a little clearance to be cut from the UCA mounts. You have to check the clearance. The trimming is from an area that doesn’t add strength to the mounts, so as long as the trimming is done intelligently it won’t cause any issues. Having run UCA’s with heims on the street I wouldn’t do it again, the best I’ve gotten out of them are 10k miles. I guess for low mileage or track only cars it’s ok, but bushings are better for the street.
As for the UCA travel, a lot of tubular UCA’s require a little clearance to be cut from the UCA mounts. You have to check the clearance. The trimming is from an area that doesn’t add strength to the mounts, so as long as the trimming is done intelligently it won’t cause any issues. Having run UCA’s with heims on the street I wouldn’t do it again, the best I’ve gotten out of them are 10k miles. I guess for low mileage or track only cars it’s ok, but bushings are better for the street.
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The ears that the bushings mount between weren't the issue. The Tubular part of the A arm hits the frame rail on the rear arm. The heim joint arms are straight as well. May have some additional clearance because of the design. I had to move the upper ball joint back to get the alignment right for safety sake. The car was skating around at 130 mph. The arms and strut rods fixed that. Nice and straight now but again the straight design doesn't give you the travel you need for good weight transfer. They sell taller BJs just for this reason. On a street car they are probably fine. Mine is strip only.And I agree for the street the stock arms with the right bushings are fine.
Thanks for your help, the size of the spindles shouldn't be an issue right, being it was a drum car before the conversion to disc.
jcolman
Well-Known Member
I have QA1 upper control arms and wilwood brakes on my car. Lower suspension is stock. No problems with clearance.
Went back and looked at some frame rail and UCA mount pictures. So on your car the rear leg of the UCA on the bottom was contacting part of the frame rail? Just where the sections of frame rail are folded up? As long as you're not removing any spot welds there's no reason why you can't trim that area. Most of that lip isn't structural, it's just left over metal. Even if you found there was a couple spot welds in the area of lip you wanted to remove you could just weld the halves back together after you did the clearancing. That would be a car to car issue and whether the UCA was "U" or "V" shaped there wouldn't make much difference. Neither would the bushing vs hiem, unless there was a long section of heim threads exposed to move the thicker part of the UCA further away from the frame. But that probably wouldn't work entirely either, since if the rear leg is adjusted all the way "in" for caster even the heim set up wouldn't be long enough to clear that lip.
I thank you for the advice. I think a longer upper bj may be easier! But maybe both is the way to go to get all the suspension travel I'd like.
GDart
Member
Just curious, what type of spindles, ball joints, willwood components and wheels and tires?
I'm building a 69 Dart and considering the same set up you have
Tanks
jcolman
Well-Known Member
Wheels and tires specs" Special limited edition American Racing classic Torque Thrust “D”18 Inch Wheels. 6” front 8” rear 5 on 4 3/4 bolt pattern. Front Tires: 235/40 ZR/18. Rear Tires: 245/50/ZR18. Backspace 4-1/2 front, 5-1/2 rear. Hub stubs.
I don't know the spindles and ball joints but I suspect that they are stock. I'm taking the car into the shop next week to have them inspect all the components. I'll be adding QA1 adjustable strut rods. Wilwood brakes system includes 6 piston front, 4 piston rear. 14” Drilled and Slotted Front and Rear Rotors. Wilwood master cylinder.
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