Front LCA question

[caffeinejunky]

So I'm looking into replacing both my front lower control arms. Suspension in my car is stock but I am saving up for some nice fully adjustable coilovers. Looking at prices online, I could get an OEM LCA for about 400 bucks a pair. I also saw the Buddy Club P-1 Racing Front LCA for 450ish a pair. With my setup, is it worth is to just get the Buddy Club? This car is my daily with the occasional track day.

[diss7]

Do they need replacing because your current ones are buggered?

[caffeinejunky]

Originally Posted by diss7

Do they need replacing because your current ones are buggered?

My front right is. I could buy just the control arm for about 200 bucks from my dealer but wanted to see if the extra cost for aftermarket front LCA's would be worth spending since I do plan on getting coilovers in the future.

[wheelhaus]

Coilovers don't require new LCAs. Do you want to upgrade for some bling factor or because you intend a much more aggressive build or track car?

[caffeinejunky]

Originally Posted by wheelhaus

Coilovers don't require new LCAs. Do you want to upgrade for some bling factor or because you intend a much more aggressive build or track car?

I do plan to dedicate this car as a full on track car, but not anytime soon. The reason why I'm looking at LCAs is because my front right needs to be replaced. Don't really care much for the bling factor but more for functionality.

[wheelhaus]

Ah right on. You could also just replace the one arm and save some cash by using the Perrin PSRS rear bushing and roll correction kit to improve the stock arms. Aftermarket arms with spherical bearings could cause excessive noise and harshness.. The spherical bearings might not hold up to years of daily driving either.. Come to think of it, the Perrin PSRS also uses a spherical bearing but I'm not sure how well it'll hold up to the elements.

[donutfilling]

The buddy club front LCA doesn't have much added adjustability i believe. The good thing about them though is that they already have an extended ball joint pressed it. This helps in correcting your suspension geometry if you plan on lowering the car.

[SubaSteve]

I vote to purchase the oem ones and just add later on if need be.

[caffeinejunky]

Right on. Thanks everyone.

[Crazy Drew]

First let me say, sorry for the wall of text but I've had a few beers and this is of personal interest

From personal experience I'd shy away from anything other than OEM control arms if driving on the street. I've picked up one friend from the side of the road that broke a lower control arm driving on the street and have had 2 others that had to be towed home.

IMO there's nothing wrong with the stock FLCA's unless you're going full blown race car, in which case my concerns have no merit.

Changing out to something aftermarket you open yourself up to failure modes that don't exist in OEM applications. 1.) Weld quality, this is a big one. and 2.) Rod ends in bending. Neither of which can really be avoided with any current aftermarket option. IMO the best option out there if you really want to get rid of the OEM FLCA's is the Robispec parts. Of course, this is all speculation as I will never change out from oem control arms as long as this car drives on the street.

Having a background in structure fabrication I do have concerns about some of the weld quality I see from time to time on here. It's one thing to have a beautiful weld to oogle over while looking at it, it's another to have a structural weld. You can have both, but understand you're paying top dollar for something like this. To have a real "welder" behind the torch that understands penetration, inclusions and the HAZ is honestly a rare thing in this day of age. Everyone who picks up a tig and lays down a good looking bead thinks they're an expert without analyzing their results. I have thousands of hours behind a TIG and I still sometimes doubt myself and if I would even trust my own welds, even if they fall within "spec" I don't always have access to the NDS tools to analyze my results.

My other concerns stems from rod ends in bending, or rather threads in bending. In structures that face repeated fatigue one area of concern is "stress risers". One of the simplest stress risers in engineering is the root, or valley of a thread, or even a scratch in a critical component. The reduction in the structure from a scratch or thread AND the fact that everything around it is stiffer will cause the stress of a component to concentrate in the weak areas. As a good general rule of thumb I always try to avoid threads and rod ends in a bending force. Imagine if you will the forces seen be the FLCA when you hit a pothole. Obviously this is one of the worst case scenarios but it must sustain G's in excess of orders of magnitude greater than would normally be seen. I'm talking hundreds of G's of acceleration here. Can the forces be calculated? Yes. Do I have the tools to do so? No. so this is all honestly nothing more than speculation with a little bit of education behind it.

On all of the racecars I've had the pleasure of working on in the past we've gone out of our way to avoid rod ends in bending, meaning all of the forces seen by the rod end were in line with the axis of the threads. So much so that many of them had totally redesigned/custom manufactured crossmembers to allow the use of adjustable clevises for the point of aligning the car. Not changing the length of the control arm itself but rather moving the mounting point.

Of course, I'm also the kind of person who thinks no car should ever have anything other than OEM swaybars...

TLDR; KISS - if you don't need the adjustment don't get it. Keep it simple, stupid.

[Turdinator]

The buddyclub LCA are just repainted stock ones with buddyclub bushes and ball joint. Just compare the cost of their bushes plus a stock arm and see which is better value.

[team3d]

buddy club front LCA is stock + bc ball joint + polyurethane bushings.

it's pretty much the same price as stock LCA, you just get a cooler color & it comes with better than stock bushings & extended ball joint that you need it to correct the suspension geometry of a lowered vehicle.

if you busted both front lca, i will def buy the bc lca since it's about the same price, but if you only need to replace 1, it's up to you to spend the extra $200 for an upgrade

[CSG David]

You're better off taking the car out tracking as is until you figure out what you want to do with you car. Everybody and their moms want to have a track dedicated car, but approximately 5% actually have taken them out and another 1% actually drive them properly. The other 4% just build "track cars" but never actually run them because they're constantly in a modification feedback loop. FLCA don't do anything special and I can tell you that "fixing the geometry" does not significantly improve ride quality, feedback, handling characteristics, and lap times. For the record, someone on here already went all out on their car and still yielded the same lap times as a car with motorsport-grade coilovers and 225/45/17 street tires.

[MyEvilMonkeys]

I'm curious what or how you determined you need a new LCA? Is it bent?