Whiteline Lower Control arms: What happened?

[Naco]

Originally Posted by ryoma

If those really are the new design... I'll be skipping whiteline and look somewhere else now. Or try to find the old design

Sent from my VS986 using Tapatalk

Yeah I really wanted the original Whiteline ones too but couldn't find any anywhere new or used. Was just about to bite the bullet on RSR or Cusco when I came across the FT86/Velox ones. They are really close to the original Whiteline units (well...actually better in terms of materials but lack the adjustable mounting points).

If you have the little extra money to spare, those get my vote as a viable fix to the lack of OG Whiteline pieces. But don't know how many they will be making

[ryoma]

Originally Posted by Naco

Yeah I really wanted the original Whiteline ones too but couldn't find any anywhere new or used. Was just about to bite the bullet on RSR or Cusco when I came across the FT86/Velox ones. They are really close to the original Whiteline units (well...actually better in terms of materials but lack the adjustable mounting points).

If you have the little extra money to spare, those get my vote as a viable fix to the lack of OG Whiteline pieces. But don't know how many they will be making

I'm a fan of both the Velox and RacerX ones. it will be a hard decision

[kbye]

I went with Racer-X but Velox is definitely the better option if you are looking to save weight.
I like that both allow you to choose the type of rod end, so you can't go wrong with either one.
Here's a shot of mine:

[Gear_One_Performance]

They had some pretty massive production problems, We managed to get a few in right before they stopped shipping them but they went pretty quickly.

[strat61caster]

Originally Posted by Calum

A set of 12mm camber bolts will get you plus or minus half a degree.

In the rear? How's that work with the multilink setup? A link or some pics would be great, I wasn't aware of this.

[Calum]

Originally Posted by strat61caster

In the rear? How's that work with the multilink setup? A link or some pics would be great, I wasn't aware of this.

All the aftermarket lower control arms do is allow you to adjust the length of the arm. Instead of that, just put an eccentric bolt in the inner lower control arm mounting hole, with the stock arms. This way you're adjusting the pivot location instead of the length of the arm, which is a more ideal solution as it leaves the camber curves the same side to side.

I'd take a picture of mine, but it's raining like crazy and I'm lazy. But all you'd see is slightly different looking bolt in the end of the stock lower control arm.

Everyone and their dog rebrands the spc/whiteline style bolts. Here's amazons lowest price for them. You can check amazon, they have them for as little as $11 with free shipping. Or if you'd rather chevy cobalts came with 12mm strut bolts. I'm guessing chevy would sell crash bolts for the cobalt.

[strat61caster]

Originally Posted by Calum

All the aftermarket lower control arms do is allow you to adjust the length of the arm. Instead of that, just put an eccentric bolt in the inner lower control arm mounting hole, with the stock arms. This way you're adjusting the pivot location instead of the length of the arm, which is a more ideal solution as it leaves the camber curves the same side to side.

I'd take a picture of mine, but it's raining like crazy and I'm lazy. But all you'd see is slightly different looking bolt in the end of the stock lower control arm.

Everyone and their dog rebrands the spc/whiteline style bolts. Here's amazons lowest price for them. You can check amazon, they have them for as little as $11 with free shipping. Or if you'd rather chevy cobalts came with 12mm strut bolts. I'm guessing chevy would sell crash bolts for the cobalt.

I was under the impression that bolts only work for the front struts, the rears don't have holes that are reliable for using undersized or eccentric bolts to relocate, I can't seem to find what you suggest, please post a link and let this be a monument to my stupidity (I would have bought them 10 months ago to even out the rear if they were under $50). Install video, pics, anything.

All I can find are eccentric bushings for the rear well over $100.

http://www.ft86speedfactory.com/whit...l#.Vg69r3pVhBc

Edit: pics of the OE setup, it makes sense that it can be done as I know toe can affect camber there with the three mounting points affecting each other, I just missed the memo on a specific solution if one exists, seems to be scarce, my google fu is usually not so lacking.

[Calum]

Originally Posted by strat61caster

I was under the impression that bolts only work for the front struts, the rears don't have holes that are reliable for using undersized or eccentric bolts to relocate, I can't seem to find what you suggest, please post a link and let this be a monument to my stupidity (I would have bought them 10 months ago to even out the rear if they were under $50). Install video, pics, anything.

All I can find are eccentric bushings for the rear well over $100.

http://www.ft86speedfactory.com/whit...l#.Vg69r3pVhBc

Edit: pics of the OE setup, it makes sense that it can be done as I know toe can affect camber there with the three mounting points affecting each other, I just missed the memo on a specific solution if one exists, seems to be scarce, my google fu is usually not so lacking.

I don't know of anyone that sells something specifically for this, they're too busy trying to sell bling bling control arms that turn a larger profit. Well, that's how I interpret things. Whiteline did sell adjustable bushings for that location, but they stopped when they brought out their lower control arms. I tried to get them to reconsider but they wouldn't.



This is how mine look. It's pretty boring right. That bolt in the left side is an eccentric bolt.

The toe adjustment is no different that it would be with any after market control arms. I can't imagine how that hole couldn't take the mounting point being a couple mm out of position, or any other reason not to take this route.

I have a set of the bushings you posted, but I don't have them installed, they just weren't worth the hassle.

[strat61caster]

Originally Posted by Calum

I can't imagine how that hole couldn't take the mounting point being a couple mm out of position, or any other reason not to take this route.

IMO I would be suspicious that the subframe would not be designed to compress with the clamping force necessary to hold the location of the link under load, however some form of lock washer should do the trick on an eccentric bolt (same solution on the front very common bolts), I would have totally tried it at the time had I known.

Glad to see it's working out for you and I learned something today.

[BigFatFlip]

Originally Posted by fika84

Those "new" Whiteline LCA's look a heck of a lot like my SPC lower arms... only in silver instead of the oem black color...

Originally Posted by smg1138

The new Whiteline arms look nice. Other than the color, are they actually any different than the SPC version? Methinks they probably just rebranded them.

I too was interested in both the SPC and the Whiteline LCAs since I'm not really lowered (actually, quite the contrary lol) and didn't need anything that flashy (just a little bit of rear camber correction). I went ahead and e-mail whiteline and got this response:

The arms themselves are indeed produced by SPC, however our design includes an eccentric bushing at the inboard position for an extra 0.5 degree of camber adjustment.

So basically, there is a 2 degree adjustment on the outboard and a 0.5 degree inboard, 2.5 total. Also, these do not include a toe bushing as the SPC's do.

[smg1138]

Originally Posted by BigFatFlip

I too was interested in both the SPC and the Whiteline LCAs since I'm not really lowered (actually, quite the contrary lol) and didn't need anything that flashy (just a little bit of rear camber correction). I went ahead and e-mail whiteline and got this response:



So basically, there is a 2 degree adjustment on the outboard and a 0.5 degree inboard, 2.5 total. Also, these do not include a toe bushing as the SPC's do.

So, if one wanted to reduce negative camber, would it be better to go with Whiteline?

[BigFatFlip]

Originally Posted by smg1138

So, if one wanted to reduce negative camber, would it be better to go with Whiteline?

I guess it would ultimately depend on how much correction you need. The SPC's have a +/- 2 degrees adjustment range while the Whitelines can do +/-2.5 degrees. IMHO, both are good budget solutions, with the SPC's being around $50 cheaper right now.

For my personal needs, I just need 0.5, but don't mind being able to adjust for more, so might go with the Whitelines. YMMV

[cycleboy]

I considered Whitelines, went with SPL. Now reading this thread I'm really glad I did. The SPL were easy to adjust enough for a noob to drive to the shop for alignment and they do actually exist.

[D18]

I was talking to a vendor last month and they said that the Whitelines, along with many other manufacturers with similar designs were seeing high failure rates. The bolt that is used to adjust the length of the control arm is where the failure usually occurred, just shearing off.

The vendor also told me that the only LCA that they hadn't had any major issues with was the SPC. Makes sense then that Whiteline has decided to essentially copy the SPC design.

I ended up going with the SPC and I'm very happy with them, my only complaint is lack of colour...