Friday, January 30, 2009 - 03:21 pm, by: Dave Cazes(Cazman)
Here are some new arms I've had made for myself, if you cant be bothered reading they are REAR toe and traction arms, and the PICS ARE DOWN THE BOTTOM
I've been working on these for about 2 months now and finally they are coming together. With in the month they will be ready.
These are Rear adjustable toe arms to replace the factory ones, and also new rear traction arms.
The factory toe adjustment is a cam lobe adj, where you turn the inside bolt around and it then effectively makes the arm shorter or longer. Alot of people have found that they have run out of adjustment in the factory gear and cant align their cars to factory or desired alignment specs.
These new ones aren't a new design, but area better than factory design. They are also about 10 times stronger. This arm is "turnbuckle" style, and has 1 left hand and one right hand thread, so when you rotate the center bar the arm gets longer or shorter. This allows for extremely quick alignments and also if youve ever watched someone align your car you will see that, you adjust one thing like camber, and then your toe goes out, so they have to start again, this fixed this problem.
The other major benefit is that it has a "rose joint" (heim joint, spherical joint etc) The major benefit of this is less flex than a conventional bush. Much less, actually 0 flex at all. This allows your alignment to stay accurate during cornering. The down side of rose joints is that they increase noise vibration, except in this case it is so minor you wont even notice it. The Toe arms in ALL factory cars are technically rose jointed at the front, and in most good cars that have rear toe adjustment (GTRs etc) have the same setup too from the factory. I can guarantee that doing the toe arms in a rose joint will not increase NVB enough for you to notice. But if you were to do the camber arms, lower arms etc, you would def notice it.
The other arm is the traction arm, this helps prevent wheel hop/ axle tramp. It can also be adjusted to alter your rear wheel alignment, but i would not suggest doing so unless you are looking at racing the car, as this will effect the dynamic camber (the good one) I would use these simply for the added stiffness as with the toe arms. Now these ones will add some NVB but its not as bad as you would think, but it will be minor. For me, the trade off is well worth it.
Other examples on the market: There are 3 major brands available, all varying in cost, but not in much in design.
These are the cheapest and worst, with reported failures, Chinese made and not recommended, they also only do the traction arm, not the rear toe arm. At $199 a pair its not that bad really, but I would risk it myself. http://www.justjap.com/store/product.php?productid=18045&cat=0&page=1
Battle version are the next, and very decent too, with a very good rep in the USA but there are no distributors in Aus, and by the time they arrived and had markup put on them they would be very dear. They are $275 USD per pair
The ones i had had made for myself are the best quality materials I could buy, and everything has had to be made for me with the exception of the rose joints.
The rose joints are 5/8 chromeolly ends, the same as McDonald racing bros and come with a hefty $55ea price tag. These will also have dust boots when im finished
The Turnbuckle adjusters are Steel with a 22mm outer and are solid, you will never bend these ever. They are plated to prevent rust, but can be powder coated too. I have access to aluminum ones too, and they are slightly dearer and slightly lighter, but they are weaker, and steel bends while alum snaps. I would rather limp home with a bent arm than have an arm snap and the rest break off ith them
The spacers in the ends convert the rose joint to be used in our cars, they are 304 stainless steel lathed up to my specs. these cost me an arm and a leg to have made, and I only had a small production run to accommodate 2 sets of arms (the min I could order, 2 cars worth) THESE ARENT PRESSED IN IN THE PHOTO OF MINE, they are just sitting in there for the shot.
The other ends that bolt to the hub are still being made, the traction rod will be steel and powder coated silver, and the toe arm will utilse a new OEM style toe rod for reliability.
All im doing is letting you know, they will be ready in a month, and I have no intention of mass producing them. I can do small runs of 4 arms (2 cars worth) as thats the minimum, and they can be customised to be bigger, smaller, diff coloured, diff materail etc, as everything is "TO ORDER"
But the cost would be about $250 per pair at a guess, thats my cost as a favour to SC, but the toe arm would be the one most would want, and the traction arm I can only think of 3 other "race" soarers on here, not inc brendons.
Friday, January 30, 2009 - 03:23 pm, by: Dave Cazes(Cazman)
I forgot to mention, The rose joints are made in the USA The Jam nuts are made in the USA The turnbuckles are made in NSW to my lengths The Misalignment spacers and made in SA in 304 Stainless
Friday, January 30, 2009 - 07:11 pm, by: Ben Lipman(Ben12a)
Dave, I reckon I'd be interested in the rear toe arms. I'd need to get a lecture or a good book to understand the effect of tuning traction rods etc, but I can definitely see the advantage of the toe arms right now.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009 - 09:11 pm, by: Dave Cazes(Cazman)
a lower cost would be the JJR items.
If they were mass produced it would get slightly cheaper as I wouldnt have to pay as much freight all up. So maybe $50 a pair less all up. but it would need to be a bigger order
Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 04:43 pm, by: Dave Cazes(Cazman)
I will keep you updated, The rear toe arms are a prick, as there are so many bits to be lathed up, its also not that cheap. I have got some quotes back already, but it also depends on what finish people want, whether it be zinced or powdercoated etc
Friday, April 17, 2009 - 03:40 pm, by: Dave Cazes(Cazman)
Rear toe arm is on hold, as I cant have them made for a good price and still be reliable. $300 a pair of more. The traction rods are good to go, just need some people to group buy them, as individually freighting the goods becomes dear (they slug me $25 per freight from 3 diff suppliers)
how much would the traction rods be. Im not too sure what they are, but i have a big traction problem. My car is only street driven would they help. Are they used for better cornering or do they improve straight line traction too
Monday, April 20, 2009 - 10:44 am, by: Dave Cazes(Cazman)
im trying to get the price down to $250 or maybe even less. Maybe $200 + freight.
They increase tracion under poer if adjusted accordingly. They will help the car "squat" down. In all instance where your flooring it it will give you more traction, but you technically lose power through the suspension arms. In this case its negligable but in drag cars they cant set the car up for say 90% squat or they would just lose 90% of their power into the suspension links (and bend them in 1000hp applications.
By changing the angle of the hubs you can increase or decrease anti-sqaut
Do a bit of googling on the matter as It may be easier with pictures.
Depending on your traction problems I would say there are numerous things you could do to fix the problem too.
If you want me to go into detail more just let me knw, Im at work atm
do they affect anything else. tyre wear or extra strain on components. whats the trade off. Sorry for all the questions im interested but i want to know what to expect
Tuesday, April 21, 2009 - 12:00 pm, by: Dave Cazes(Cazman)
No other trade offs, all are written up the top, they are solid bushes but every otehr arm in our cars are anyway, its funny that the only, yes the ONLY arm in the car that doesnt runa ball joint is this arm. Ball joints/rose joints are much dearer to buy than rubber.
Even if you dont adjust the arm its still alot stiffer than stock. You will get less wheel hop and less alignment change when your suspension is compressing or loading during cornering.
If you were to leave them stock length you would see no disadvantages, you would get slightly more road noise, but its so minor you wont notice it, as the arm is still rubber mounted at the hub.