Cusco vs Stance (Rear Control Arms)
 

Hi Guys,

Did some searching and I'm sure this is not a re-post but please correct me if I'm wrong.

I am looking at getting a Rear Control Arms for my car and just wanted to know what is the better out of the below two. If I'm going to spend the money for a Rear Control Arm, I want the best of the best.

My question is... what is your Control Arm of choice and why???

Please exclude price from this comparison. I want the comparison do be on the product itself eg; quality and functionality (price is not a factor).


Cusco - 692 474 L

http://ft86speedfactory.com/images/692474L.JPG

Stance - ST44

http://ft86speedfactory.com/images/st44.JPG

Out of those two, probably the Cusco. Look lighter and have better rose joints (with dust covers).

But all of these arms make me nervous with the shank diameter on those joints.

Also check out the agency power ones they seem to be the strongest and most well built ones to me.

Sent from my SGH-T989 using Tapatalk 2

Thanks for the feedback ft_sjo :)

I look forward to more opinions on this.

I have the Cuscos, but can see pros and cons to both.

Those stance units look beautifully made. Is that billet Aluminium? What do they weigh? The Cuscos are HEAVY!

Lovely looking spherical ends too. As posted above, no dust cover.

I can see why they'll changed the geometry for the fullee sik dropt too da weedz croo, but it will also decease available droop travel.

The Stance adjustment looks like it will sit just inside the sub-frame (like the Cusco). They are a bitch to adjust.

Do Stance offer those arms without the big geometry change? If so, I'd be tempted to try them.

coyote,

Yes it is billet aluminium but I'm not too sure of the weight... I was hoping someone could also help me out on that one.

This is all the info I can find on them... http://www.stance-usa.com/sus/products/links/frs-lca

It seems these are the only ones they offer... But adjustable suspension should allow for the drop.

Also, what is the problem with no dust covers? (I'm a noob to Control Arms)

It's no bigger, I'd just buy some dust boots as cheap insurance against dirt getting into the rose joint.

Rose joints on road cars have never been a really good idea-they're just not designed for that kind of mileage,+ plenty of NVH
Also,think the insurance implications would be pretty negative.
Cheers
Len

I asked almost the same question here :
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32084

Having had a look (only on their website) at the FIGS lca I decided I will go with them when they become available. (Their email said hopefully this month.)
http://shopfigs.com/v1/index.php?rou...product_id=170
Nice thing about the FIGS is you can do the coarse adjustment once with the inbound adjuster then do fine adjusting without geometry changes with the outboard adjusters.

The Stance lca lowers the ride height. This may or may not be a good thing depending on application.

The Whiteline lca look awesome (billet aluminium) but there is no due date for them.

What insurance implication are those?

The problem I have is I have recently lowered my car (coilovers) and now I have a lot of negative camber at the rear wheels because the 86/BRZ's do not have rear camber adjustments (even after an alignment). Meaning I will get a lot of tyre wear.

Plus I have never heard anything about insurance implications for Control Arms. Do you know this from experience?

Thanks I'll check them out

The Stance LCA wont be a problem for me because my coilovers are full adjustable.

and lastly... There is a US site that is already selling the Whiteline LCA so I petty sure that they are already available. And yes they to look awesome! Here is the link...

http://ft86speedfactory.com/whitelin...l-arm-626.html

I like the stance's few guys I know have them and love them. The added suspension travel while still being pretty low is nice. I know build quality from I seen looks great, and I'm not too big of a fan of cusco products.

If you want the absolute best option for rear control arms and have the coin to spend... Contact @Hancha Group. Hands down, best.

Yes, they are selling them but they are not in stock.

What do you base that statement upon? I have read their thread/blog and I do not doubt they are a quality item but why are they the "best"? They suffer from the same design limitation as others of having inboard adjusters.

Materials...

Pretty much anything other than very minor modifications has to be engineered.
I'd say replacing a major part of the rear suspension would fall in to this category.
Failure of a component like this could have fairly major ramifications.
In the event of this occuring,any insurance compay would have a really good escape clause.
Cheers
Len

Yep, understood.
(The local engineering dude is on a good thing. When he engineered my brakes he spent about 3/4 hour inspecting and driving my vehicle with sensor on board. Thank you very much, that will be $770.)

I'm sorry, I don't think "materials" wins the vote. Steel plate, if correctly designed, is more than up to the task. Also, as I mentioned, the Hancha LCA use an inboard adjuster. This means when you adjust the camber you alter the toe as well.
I am not disputing the quality/integrity of the Hancha units.

Wow I'm confused more than ever! lol

From what I have read inboard adjusters can be a pain to adjust. Also fiddly because you (or more likely the steering shop) adjusts the camber then corrects the toe the corrects the camber again. So it can be a little time consuming to get it spot on BUT once you have the geo set to your liking it's not like you will be playing around with it much so the benefits of outboard adjusters is likely only to be an advantage in the beginning.

Yeah I'm only wanting to (have the shop) adjust them once (then every other scheduled alignment). So I'm not too worried on where the adjusters are.

Good point :)

Wow thinks for all that info!!! :thumbup:

You have now got me interested in your product.

Do you have a web page on the product where I can read more about it? and do you have photos of the actual product?

The main thing I want is to be able to adjust the camber. But if I'm going to upgrade the Control Arm I don't want to have to upgrade it again when I start hitting the track.

If your product can offer all of that, then you have got me interested.

You also mentioned that the Stance would be better than the Cusco. But how would the Stance compare to your product?

I went with the racerx 4130 steel LCA myself that are overbuilt and hella functional rather than something aimed at the hell-flush crowd,like stance, it all depends on your application, usage and intent

I am to old to fall for pretty annodized colors, and married to a doctor, I cant take the liability of shoddy parts, stuff failing and us getting sued, nor is this a good part to use a softer metal or save weight. the benefit of replacement is adjustment for the purpose of dialing in camber for more grip
there is no benefit to spending more on this part than needed, while I like Hancha design, their pricepoint is north of $500, and I cant justify the extra cost from an engineering standpoint

If you application is a hellaflush build you can use whatever u want it wont matter anyways, right?

Doctors get sued enough frivolously
its a suspension part that bears great load if you track your car, so keep this in mind when electing to replace OE which is steel

Liability wise, you can see what I like in my signature below

I had the option to work with Stance and 'represent them' in my sig line, and really didnt consider the cusco or the stance product, for my set it and forget it type of component selection intended for track use. Likely if it wont fail for me on the track, it wont fail on the streets either.

My comment about the rose joint was the lack of dust boot on the Stance arms. I would prefer to see one on a daily driven car.

Not all of us live in areas where salt isn't present.

Yes I am familiar with Aurora joints, in fact we use them for trailing arms however we go for larger shanks than the actual joint hole diameter. It doesn't hurt to over-engineer stuff, and no end of simulation is going to tell you everything that will happen, like in the case of a crash.

Are these the once? http://www.racerxfabrication.com/pag...art/index.html

If so they look pretty good to me. I'll have to read up on them more.

Understood. We're from Midwestern America where there's salt sometimes from November to April. Dust seals and dust boots can be bought fairly easily though if it does bother you. We offer it as an option, but since it adds to the price, we recommend the end user buy it only if they feel strongly compelled. It is meant to keep out dust, not salt. If the boot binds in the bearing, it will eventually tear and if salt water gets trapped in the boot, it only makes the rust problem worse.

yes, those are the ones, if color matters, they can do that too for that blingy look. Price point seemed reasonable too, and they have a suite of parts for the car, not just a few, and all are overbuilt, the rear UCA looks great too

so......I dont think the boots are that relevant, I prefer to not have them

my truck sees muck and only muck , salt snow and sand year round for over 6 hears on the same heims, etc My truck 'grew up' being used for trips to NJ,PA, VT and Maine, so I know salt and snow too

Dont over think it, just use the best stuff, dont be cost driven on this part
Its the cheaper, under built, under spec'd solutions you need to watch for, I dont like trying to save weight on weight bearing stuff, I like a solid sway bar, steel linkages etc.

I rather aim at over built, unless youre trying to do a F1 formula build and have the means to that budget, I stay with brute over bold, thats is my philosophy here
stance or cusco? I like the cusco better

so youre following a contractors pickup truck
a 4"x4" post falls off the back of the truck and you dont have time to react
your clearance is 3.9"
it slides under you aimed at you like a stationary torpedo
gouging each and every surface at 80mph

I dont care what the simulator says,:bow: I want steel in my life at that moment over alum, some of that is just a peace of mind thing for me-which materials fatigue level is higher after the 2 years of track you been doing?What is fatigue? and just what am I doing to the thing as I hit the rumble strips on each and every turn at the track, over and over and over, or here, where highway is all washboard from heat? how does each react to catastrophic forces, when driven to fail? which absorbs more energy?

Steel's tendency to bend before it deforms to breakage is usually greater than aluminum's ability to bend, before it breaks, thats pretty empirical, when compare like thicknesses, both in ideal grades for the given application

aluminum is a easy metal to cnc, and sell vs crafting the same part with steel, its nice that its also very easy to overbuild, so there is merit to alum parts, for sure, I like the stuff hnacha posts about alot, great logic driven stuff it seems,
:iono: when I compare overbuilt alum to over built steel, steel wins for me tho

It's not about us.

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/attac...1&d=1366036175


Come on man I Know you know better than that...

Aluminum is an Element, and is almost never used un-alloyed,

Steel is a name used to describe Alloys with an Iron base material, hardly seems a fair comparison...

I could show you "steel" with horrible FTY and FTU numbers and some very trick "aluminum" with outstanding FTY and FTU numbers, It's all in the alloy, Motorsports seems to get obsessed with some of the more common alloys due to cost, customer familiarity, and availability. But there are catalogs full of materials that fall into the general catagories of "steel" and "aluminum"

Hancha is doing some pretty smart design work allowing the engineering behind these materials to let him take his designs to another level. Something very common in Aerospace, glad to see it getting brought to the street...yo!

Thats great point Hancha. And I DO look forward to seeing you bring your ideas to market.

So to answer your question, I prefer welded steel to any aluminum, made by man, monkey or computer. any day. Youre not convincing me to spend the extra money to buy the computer modeled cnc concept you have shared so far

http://hanchagroup.wordpress.com/201...-on-ft86-club/

I did consider your product as well for my build,however your parts seem overly pricey to me, and looking at the work you have done since november on your blog, you have lots of cool colored posts, and a wing that I cant justify buying either, a brilliant set of ideas, but I dont see anything tangible. Car, not spacecraft, after all. reality check!

and I cant find any history of ACTUAL products you have ever made or sold and was unable to find any posts on any other gti or car forums where your stuffs been bought and proven, or real world tested ever, so thats a big concern, for me, even as a tester type.

I want to be clear I commend you on your approach and innovation. If you can make it happen at a competitive cost, power to you. at the tracks I frequent, I know what I see on and under the cars I am behind, and its usually not the stuff the hype gets created about with the fancy models, its pipes, turn buckles, heims, and the like. steel. I'm not building a $500k semi F1 car either, its my $25 k factory production car I take on windy mtn roads, tracks that arent all top notch. I like to see the aerospace stuff where it belongs, and its not on the car I take in to pot hole central from time to time fro my night out.

I cant see $600+ bucks for something I ultimately am adding to make a small change to my camber that can cost 25% or 35% less, even more if they offer a discount to you all. saving $200 is day at the track, inclusive of pumpgas.

I think I'm getting more cnc and more of something with your product for more of my money, but not sure I can quantify that, and thats not just you-not sure if I am getting 'more' with not just your product or stances or cusco's, and understanding the forces are mostly lateral, your models and illustrations while nice, may be overkill, tho. But what if what is costing me less does the job for me?

Racer X has more than just ideas to share, and the ability to add to cart and get stuff is a nice thing, imho, its a very down to earth Practical approach for filling the needs of my build, and my goals which are to enjoy driving it at the limits
http://www.racerxfabrication.com/pag...38/page38.html


I was speaking to the point of impact and energy absorption thats why i gave the example I gave in my post.

you look like firm that popped up to focus on this platform, and so far I havent a clue what you have brought to the table outside of concept and theory. Its not nice for vendors to bash other vendors.

As for your shed jab, says plenty, is self spoken, so...
I look forward to seeing the stuff when you release it

Please highlight and make me aware of this infraction immediately.

I have read carefully, and re-read now and find NOWHERE where he offered anything derogatory about another vendor's product, even going so far as to offer advice to the OP and left his product out of the comparison....

Don't get hot headed and start making accusations you can't back up with a vendor who is here sharing data and encouraging growth of the whole scene

I back up my points
Generally for design yield strength, tensile strength, and shear strength.

The standard 6061-T6 aluminum here: http://asm.matweb.com/search/Specifi...ssnum=MA6061t6

4130 Chromoly here: http://asm.matweb.com/search/Specifi...bassnum=m4130r

what were you saying?

How about resume style?

"ALMS team hired us for aero consultation". "Aftermarket aero vendor hired us to develop them a general purpose airfoil to be used on casual track cars". "team hired us to make them custom arms with adjustments to correct suspension geometry changes due to ride height alteration". etc.

You don't need to name your clients, only the nature of your work. Your previous work is your resume, and the forum members here are people who will potentially hire you. This includes us. I know more than a few people in the EXACT same field as you, and started the EXACT same way.

What projects have you guys personally built? What platforms have you worked on? What were the real world results? Do you have any outstanding achievements? Awards? Race wins? Contracts awarded?

No attack felt, and sorry if I am presenting my viewpoint with passion as well. I think its great what youre doing, and I see you have the bar set high,and I really like that, but I have to be more price sensitive about some parts than others. Since there is no case that suggests the cheaper part will fail or wont do its job, I can appreciate the angle you have taken and dont mean to be a downer but hope you see mine!

I think I'd be more open to your product if it too was at the $450 pricepoint, and understand that you may be unable to offer something to me at that pricepoint that fits my needs, price and strength wise-both are hard to score sometimes. Understood, I'm willing to forego space age build, and may even prefer the stone age tried and true of steel here-its worked for ages on the tracks, so why pay more for something if its not functionally better? Sure some people will ante up for the extra FEA and design nuances that make your product aero-grade and very awesome I'm sure-very robotic, new looking and very cool, no doubt

the OP asked about stance vs cusco, I prefer the cusco, and I prefer steel to alu and supported why, surely everyone buying LCA will choose based on their needs and application as I have, stance for the guys doing bigger drops, Hancha for the primo builder, cusco for the name, and usually pretty decent stuff on 9 outta 10 items(my opinion only) and thos who like track day ol skool welded and tubular steel, DOM work, and such, there are so many of the more classic designs to choose from, we're lucky to have so many options at so many pricepoints with great strench to weight & fatigue,& looks &style,whatever you want, you can have it.

both designs braced similarly,one more traditional, both will do the same function

I threw in the AP, which I dont like...the bracing doesnt work for me

I just like way steel bends bit and clamps down on the shock mount bolts or sway bar inserts, I like the way it clamps down like factory and the rest may just be in my head

So since you are backing up your points please respond to my last post where I asked you to reveal the insulting of other vendors.

....more to the point you didn't backup your post at all...you just made it as specific as it should have been, your original post is still as credible as your average NBC nightly news broadcast, it might be common knowledge but it isn't correct or exclusive.

If buying a sturdy, steel option makes you feel better, by all means buy it. But by no means is steel better than aluminum or aluminum better than steel. It depends on the design and what specific alloy, temper, etc. that design calls for.

EarlQHan, my only question really is how long have you been doing this as a commercial business and/or when did you leave uni, if you have?

Thanks Earl. It wasn't a dig, it's just the way you convey yourself has a very academic tone to it. Thanks for confirming :)

We're a tough crowd and I dont make it any easier for a new vendor, My garage is clad with names from germany: dinan, koni, porsche, M cars, S cars etc, so I'm a whore for really tried and true stuff, so being new, I can be a tough 'virtual customer' to contend with. I swear the 'shakedown' isnt meant to be that, and am glad youre here, but I am the often playing devils advocate, and must hold true to my skeptic roots. Dont let me rub you the wrong way, I come across rough but I usually mean well. I push my car VERY hard and have to remain very discerning as consumer, as a result. The fact that I do so much testing on this site, makes me operate with more scrutiny than most. If you get a set or prototype you can send me, I'd love to see something I can try and return if I like, being as new as you are and all...let us know when your ideas materialize.

Also designed the chassis for it which set a world record and was published for the work :D