Rear control arms
 

agency power, gt spec, cusco, dme. which one to get. i am hoping for ease of adjustability. I have coilovers on and have 2 degrees of neg camber.

Ease of adjustability go with SPC but if you have 2 degrees on the left and right leave it alone it's fine, if it was bad uneven i would say to change it but you should be ok.

Turn in Concepts has the SPCs and likes them, you can't go wrong with Cusco, the upcoming whitelines look pretty good, and agency power mostly just copies stuff.

And really, how important is "ease of adjustability?" They all work pretty much the same way and it's not going to get done very often.

well i light track duty so being adjustable in the parking lot at an autox event is pretty much a must

How are you going to adjust alignment in the parking lot? You should be able to get a good enough alignment for daily and autox that shouldn't need adjusting.

Are you bringing alignment gear to every auto-x? Chances are you will just make things worse. Adjusting the camber changes the toe too.

it is a balance with tire wear, tread life. the 2 deg of neg camber is not helping for dd. also i used, terribly, the adjustzability in a parking lot as a ease of adjustability example. and i have done alot of suspension work so i know the ups and downs. I am appreciative and thankful for your knowledge. If i dont make sense i blame the excess beer in me now.

must be the beer: You done allotta suspension work so you already know this:

you cant "parking lot change the rear camber" without affecting the rear toe...unless you will have a camber gauge AND a toe protractor, or youre gonna be screwing up thrust line...I dont suggest this on this car, I agree there are some cars you and dial in 'at the track' I suspect this isnt one of them

You don't need alignment gear for a parking lot change. All you need to do is mark the changes when the car is on an alignment rack with a paint pen. 1 color for street settings, and the other for track...

One more mention for billet Whiteline arms.

good point, stand corrected

I just set it for the track, and forget it..

This would be a good time to link a parking lot alignment thread, complete with string.

This x100

The cusco and Whiteline (as it appears) are hard to adjust without dropping the arm at the crossmember point. The subframe covers part of the turn buckle and its hard to get a crescent wrench in there.

The AP is much easily adjustable.

That's very true. It's such a bit*h to adjust them.

I would say to get the one which can be easier to adjust so the alignment shop will not charge you extra to do it.

I can second the ease of adjustment on the Agency Power arms. The alignment guy said it was one of the easiest aftermarket control arms to adjust. The Cusco ones look like hell to adjust.

There's a very good reason to have the adjustment as close to the subframe mount as possible. Moving it farther out greatly increases the bending load at the threaded connection, which is something you usually want to avoid.

agree with Jamal. Problem with the Agency power arms is that the adjustment ease unfortunately introduces an easy point of failure for the arm. I don't know if they have stress tested for this, but there is not point in having a beefy arm if you are going to have a break point in it.

The AP design is plenty strong, in fact I think the AP setup and all of the others are a little over engineered especially when comparing any of them to the stock arm. The threaded section on the AP unit is solid steel 3/4" in diameter at its thinnest point as it tapers to a full 1" hex for adjustment. The Aluminum arm that it threads into is solid 2"x3". On top of how beefy the arm is, is the fact that most of the stresses on the lower control arm are at the Coilover mounting point and the hub carrier. To break a lower control arm you would have to have a catastrophic failure of the upper control arm (as in no longer there) which would probably cause the front link to snap, and even then you would destroy your coilover as well before the lower control arm would fail.

I guess if you whacked it hard enough with a sledgehammer that would break it...I would draw a diagram explaining the forces on our suspension, but in the end all I really need to say is that as long as the hub carrier and coilover have sturdy mounting points and the over all structure is rigid the lower control arm will serve its purpose.

I will say this though the AP lower control arms are pretty heavy compared to the stock arms...maybe I'll pull them off this weekend and measure them and take a few detailed pics of how it all mounts up.

Also...AP arms are red, all other brands are not.

i got cusco arms. i know people running cusco and GT spec and have yet to fail. if you see snow or salt just make sure to slap some anti-seize on them and power wash once in a while.

I wish these companies would anodize in different colors so I actually had a choice, some of us prefer form and function. I am trying really hard to keep the general color scheme on my Whiteout FR-S, white, black, red, and ploished metal, but it's hard as hell. I understand brand recognition, but i cant be the only person who actually weighs how a certain piece will disrupt my OCDness because it's not the right color.

Powdercoat

Rattle can?

Any feedbacks on DME?

We are currently running the SPC rear arms on our BRZ. So far we have been very happy with them.

From an adjustment stand point these are one of the easier arms to use.

The inner bushings are stiffer than stock.

As far as looks go these are coated black and look more stock than any of the other options out there.

SPCs is what I plan to try on my car. I like that adjustment/tightening the most as its looks to be one of the most durable while easy to adjust.