Whiteline Lower Control arms: What happened?

[BigFatFlip]

Originally Posted by 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...

This doesn't sound completely far fetched to me. I've spoken to a couple folks with track built cars that use the SPCs without any problems. I think you are mostly paying for looks (and a little over engineering) with those billet mahined arms.

[Grip Ronin]

why spend $300 on a stock are painted silver with bushings that will most likley give a shorter life then the oem solid rubber ones lol. id rather cut slots into my stock arms.. dam this is old thread, thats what searching gets you lol

[J95]

Hey, reviving this thread cause I was wondering if SPC and Whiteline ones are really the same as you state here. Whiteline weights 3.8lbs while SPC is 4.5lbs, according to official sources, so what are we missing here hmm

I will be buying some reasonably priced LCAs and WL is my main option, due to weight factor

[norcalpb]

Originally Posted by J95

Hey, reviving this thread cause I was wondering if SPC and Whiteline ones are really the same as you state here. Whiteline weights 3.8lbs while SPC is 4.5lbs, according to official sources, so what are we missing here hmm

I will be buying some reasonably priced LCAs and WL is my main option, due to weight factor

I've had both WL and SPC and they both have "SPC" stamped on them so they are indeed the same. This is also the case for the SuperPro arms.



Only difference will be the inner bushings, which will be polyurethane in the case of WL and SP, but SPC uses a "cross-axis" bushing that seems to be similar to the pillow bushing found in the OEM STi RLCAs. Weight difference between the bushing styles will be negligible. I believe that Whiteline originally had an offset in their inner bushings but their newest design has removed that.

Either way, all these "SPC" arms seem to be non-OEM replacement arms that are slotted by SPC. I believe some of these companies have procured and painted them for re-sale.

[J95]

Originally Posted by norcalpb

I've had both WL and SPC and they both have "SPC" stamped on them so they are indeed the same. This is also the case for the SuperPro arms.



Only difference will be the inner bushings, which will be polyurethane in the case of WL and SP, but SPC uses a "cross-axis" bushing that seems to be similar to the pillow bushing found in the OEM STi RLCAs. Weight difference between the bushing styles will be negligible. I believe that Whiteline originally had an offset in their inner bushings but their newest design has removed that.

Either way, all these "SPC" arms seem to be non-OEM replacement arms that are slotted by SPC. I believe some of these companies have procured and painted them for re-sale.

very good info thanks, actually SPC answered to my email:

Once upon a time we did, though I hear we haven’t sold any to them in quite a while. Not to say that they didn’t just do a big one time buy and not need anymore though, picture on their website sure has an SPC stamp on the arm.

 

There’s few contributing factors to a weight difference- 1) Whiteline running a urethane bushing vs our xAxis, and the xAxis is generally a little heavier due to construction , 2) our weight includes the weight of the toe bushing we include in the kit  and it doesn’t look like theirs comes with such a critter, and 3) our weight is a packaged weight and I don’t know that theirs is. And if you’re being SCCA Miata levels of pedantic ours have a black finish coat on them, but that’s a special kind of scale that’d even register that.

so yep we can confirm in nearly the same. Thereby I will go for the SPC due to the xAxis

[ZDan]

IMO LCAs are overprescribed and generally not needed. Also nowhere near the level of engineering and testing (including millions and millions of miles of real-world street and track testing by we the customers) behind them vs. OEM. For probably 95% of these cars that are tracked, aftermarket LCAs are not much if any benefit and will almost certainly have a much shorter lifetime than stock.

I'm a structures engineer and IMO almost all aftermarket suspension offerings are a but suspect... When I needed to lengthen the lower front control arms on my 240Z I modified the factory arms myself rather than entrust my safety to adjustable aftermarket arms...

[blsfrs]

Originally Posted by ZDan

IMO LCAs are overprescribed and generally not needed. Also nowhere near the level of engineering and testing (including millions and millions of miles of real-world street and track testing by we the customers) behind them vs. OEM. For probably 95% of these cars that are tracked, aftermarket LCAs are not much if any benefit and will almost certainly have a much shorter lifetime than stock.

I'm a structures engineer and IMO almost all aftermarket suspension offerings are a but suspect... When I needed to lengthen the lower front control arms on my 240Z I modified the factory arms myself rather than entrust my safety to adjustable aftermarket arms...

I went with Whiteline rear LCAs to get some adjustability. With my car lowered 1", the stock LCAs gave me around -3* camber and with the toe at 0" I was getting a lot of wear on the inside of my rear tires(17x9). My camber now is just under -2*. I would have like to have gotten it closer to -1* but I would need aftermarket toe arms.

The Whiteline quality looks pretty good. Nice powercoating. I probably need to invest in a pyrometer to check alignment rather than waiting for the tire to wear enough to see what is going on.

[ZDan]

Originally Posted by blsfrs

I went with Whiteline rear LCAs to get some adjustability. With my car lowered 1", the stock LCAs gave me around -3* camber and with the toe at 0" I was getting a lot of wear on the inside of my rear tires(17x9). My camber now is just under -2*. I would have like to have gotten it closer to -1* but I would need aftermarket toe arms.

Huh, I've never had undue "camber wear" running -3.2 front -2.8 rear camber since 2018, even on winter tires that never saw track or even "spirited" street use...

The Whiteline quality looks pretty good. Nice powercoating. I probably need to invest in a pyrometer to check alignment rather than waiting for the tire to wear enough to see what is going on.

Aftermarket can look great, have perfect welds, but they just aren't going to be backed up by anything like the analysis and testing vs. factory arms.

I don't use a pyrometer any more as I simply won't have enough dedicated test time to determine what temp profile is optimal for a given track. Fortunately there is a quite broad range of camber settings that will work quite well, particularly at the rear. Front definitely wants on the order of -3 min...

[blsfrs]

I could be chasing the wrong problem. This is my first set of 200tw tires (Federal 595 rs, 245 45 17). The dealer said run 32 psi which appears too low as the middle of the tires show much less wear. Last couple of events, I ran 38 psi and the wear evened out but I still had wear on the inside.

I'm debating with my inner voices about trying to get another event out of these tires, going with something like Conti extremecontact force or something else. I run HPDE so getting every 0.001 out of the car is not too impt but I would like to reduce the cost of consumables.

[ZDan]

Originally Posted by blsfrs

I could be chasing the wrong problem. This is my first set of 200tw tires (Federal 595 rs, 245 45 17). The dealer said run 32 psi which appears too low as the middle of the tires show much less wear. Last couple of events, I ran 38 psi and the wear evened out but I still had wear on the inside.

34psi hot is what I aim for at the track. I wouldn’t try to adjust pressures to get even wear across the tread, radials don’t really work like that. Old rules based on old bias-ply tires…. A lot of tires will wear down the outsides quicker while maintaining some tread depth in the middle.

In my experience there is a broad range of hot pressures that will yield similar lap times at the track. 34psi hot is what I’d aim for, 36 fine as well and conservative. 38 psi definitely a bit on the high side. Some feel like lower is always better but I disagree…

I'm debating with my inner voices about trying to get another event out of these tires, going with something like Conti extremecontact force or something else. I run HPDE so getting every 0.001 out of the car is not too impt but I would like to reduce the cost of consumables.

Hankook RS4 last a long time, another option to consider.

Surprised you are seeing more *inside* wear at the track. Even at -3+ camber the fronts should wear outside tread more. For me wear is more dominated by fronts than rears, then I rotate between events.

[cmiovino]

Originally Posted by ZDan

IMO LCAs are overprescribed and generally not needed. Also nowhere near the level of engineering and testing (including millions and millions of miles of real-world street and track testing by we the customers) behind them vs. OEM. For probably 95% of these cars that are tracked, aftermarket LCAs are not much if any benefit and will almost certainly have a much shorter lifetime than stock.

On that point, I've been looking at RLCA's for installing a set of coilovers for autocross use. I was under the impression they were needed or your camber could be all out of whack. I'd love to just keep stock if it gave anywhere between 2.0-2.5 degrees, but isn't that a crapshoot to just take that chance?

[norcalpb]

Originally Posted by cmiovino

On that point, I've been looking at RLCA's for installing a set of coilovers for autocross use. I was under the impression they were needed or your camber could be all out of whack. I'd love to just keep stock if it gave anywhere between 2.0-2.5 degrees, but isn't that a crapshoot to just take that chance?

ZDan had excellent symmetry on his BRZ so even with lowering the car the numbers were very similar side to side.

My camber was -1.8 left and -2.4 right in the rear, so with that in mind do what you feel is safest. At the end of the day neither of us will pay for your potential second corrective alignment

[ZDan]

Originally Posted by cmiovino

On that point, I've been looking at RLCA's for installing a set of coilovers for autocross use. I was under the impression they were needed or your camber could be all out of whack. I'd love to just keep stock if it gave anywhere between 2.0-2.5 degrees, but isn't that a crapshoot to just take that chance?

Somewhat a crapshoot, I've been fortunate enough to be within ~0.2* between the rears on my cars ('17 and '23, both lowered ~30mm, both around -2.7 rear camber +/- a tenth to 0.15 per side. Honestly I wouldn't worry if it was +/-0.25 per side, say -2.5/-3.0 for rear camber.