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Adjustable strut rods? Opinions? Do they bind the LCA bushings?

gotstang

Member
I know that the general consensus on adjustable strut rods is that they make quite the difference. Or is the consensus wrong??

Anyways, to get down to it, I remember a while back that Arajan Helmantel or some other fairly knowledgable suspension geek type told me that adj. strut rods have the potential to bind the LCA if you adjust it more than a little bit?? I was planning on DIY roller LCAs, so as to avoid this problem, but I'm damned poor, and having read John's opinion that stock bushings are more than good enough...if sticking with stock LCAs will save me the $60 and not hurt the handling perceptibly, I'm all for it.
 
Having the adj strut rods, I do see the bind that you are talking about. I'm wondering if the roller lower arms that John has works better?

John????
 
"silverblueBP" said:
Having the adj strut rods, I do see the bind that you are talking about. I'm wondering if the roller lower arms that John has works better?

John????

Yeah, I did a little scientific testing (if shoving things is scientific :rofl ) while the LCAs and strut rods were the only thing still bolted on and I was in too big of a hurry to check for bind, but I can certainly imagine it happening, so I thought I'd ask.

On second read, do you mean that you've actually NOTICED the bind? I've only armchair General'ed about it so far, hehe.
 
When you pull the lower arm forward it does bind the inner bushing. The way Ford "fixed" it on the 67-73 cars with the adj. struts is to make the bushing a lot bigger with a lot more rubber than they did for the early cars. Using poly on the inside pivot makes the bind worse. IMO, the best way to go is the spherical bearing inside pivot. We sell our bearing kits seperate from the LCA kit we have if you don't need or want the brace.

The best way IMO to get more caster is to move the upper ball joint back. Here is a custom roller UCA I made for a Pro NHRA drag team.

offsetdruca1.jpg

offsetdruca2.jpg


These are off set 1/4". You can off set the stock UCA by knocking out the bolts and give the shaft a full spin one way or the other from center. You end up with a R and L side arm. The problem with pulling the lower arm forward is that it moves the tire closer to the fender and lowers the steering arm on the steering knuckle. Neither is a good thing.
 
"Opentracker" said:
When you pull the lower arm forward it does bind the inner bushing. The way Ford "fixed" it on the 67-73 cars with the adj. struts is to make the bushing a lot bigger with a lot more rubber than they did for the early cars. Using poly on the inside pivot makes the bind worse. IMO, the best way to go is the spherical bearing inside pivot. We sell our bearing kits seperate from the LCA kit we have if you don't need or want the brace.

The best way IMO to get more caster is to move the upper ball joint back. Here is a custom roller UCA I made for a Pro NHRA drag team.

(pics were here)

These are off set 1/4". You can off set the stock UCA by knocking out the bolts and give the shaft a full spin one way or the other from center. You end up with a R and L side arm. The problem with pulling the lower arm forward is that it moves the tire closer to the fender and lowers the steering arm on the steering knuckle. Neither is a good thing.

Aha. So if I've got this straight, the object is to adjust the strut rod as little as possible and get the specs you're after through the various tricks and shims instead? Doing it that way seems like it shouldn't bind the LCA much more than usual and would mean that roller LCAs aren't really terribly critical? Or do they make a big difference in real-life? I'm just building a street car, I'd like it to handle as well as possible, but I'd also like to avoid buying suspension goodies that would amount to street-car bling. :rofl

Thanks John
--Kyle
PS: What do you think of doing this to LCAs? http://www.fordmuscle.com/forums/suspension-articles/481020-roller-lower-control-arms-lcas.html The idea sounded good to me, but the author "didn't seem like the thinking type" to quote my buddies in the UK and I have to wonder if he didnt just buy the first thing google found for him and get to cutting? Then again, looks like the roundy round dirt guys use similar control arms, so I guess it can't be a 100% bad idea?
 
I put roller LCA's on my Falcon Sprint driver and couldn't tell the difference. The arm moves so little that it didn't surprise me. The drag racers can tell the difference right way because they go through full suspension travel each time they leave the line. We sell more roller parts to drag racers than road racers by a long shot.

I agree, moving the upper ball joint back works and it's free. Since the spindle is mounted so low on the steering knickle, the wheel base changes little by moving the upper ball joint back. The main reason to use an adjustable strut rod is not the adjustability but the lack of bind and the lack of movement of the LCA rearward under braking. A neat little trick is to use a poly bushing up front and a rubber bushing in the rear on the strut rods. That keeps the lower arm from moving as much under braking and the rubber bushing lets the strut rod move up and down without snaping the strut rod.



That thread on FM is very interesting. The welding has some issues as well. Safety should be the #1 issue, not saving money.

Here is a photo of our kit to do the screw in ball joint mod.

lowerarmkit2.jpg
 
Braking stability is improved imensly on street or track driven vehicles by removing the rubber on the stock strut rod and replacing it with a heim type piece. The rubber stock bushings will compress under braking causing toe changes and a twitchy steering wheel...

On the other topic, I ran our strut rods with 3* caster for 5 years using a stock type LCA. I didn't notice any binding...
 
+1 Shaun,

Not only toe change but caster change at the same time :yikes , these cars are known for darting round under braking. The rod end strut rod should have been a factory option if not standard. The cars are a lot safer to drive when the alignment doesn't change under braking IMO.
 
"Opentracker" said:
+1 Shaun,

Not only toe change but caster change at the same time :yikes , these cars are known for darting round under braking. The rod end strut rod should have been a factory option if not standard. The cars are a lot safer to drive when the alignment doesn't change under braking IMO.

Yah. I have many hours of track videos of me braking (on a road course) from 100mph+ with my hands staying put on the wheel and not sawing around. Admitidley some of this is due to good brake balance and a good alignment but if I had rubber stock bushings it would be alot more 'exciting'.

We also get alot of positive feedback from street cruisers reporting the same incresed braking stability.
 
I have herd the same thing. We have a lot of good feedback from our customers on the SorT strut rods. They are the only ones we sell.

There is no way I would want to slam on the brakes at 100mph+ without them. We have them on both of our track cars. I can't A-Ford to put them on all of our street cars but if I could, I would.
 
I still get twitching when braking, it's not horrible, but it still happens. I wonder what it might be? I've always just chalked it up to 40+ year old design.
 
Holy crap, I'm glad I asked...I got schooled, thanks, John and Shaun! :cool

With all this in mind, I think I'll shelby drop, offset the UCAs, tack weld the tabs, move the roller perches, put in my homebrewed springs and a set of GR2 shocks and start scraping my pennies for a swaybar and the rest of the parts for adj. strut rods. Should do me well enough...I hope?

Thanks again guys!!
 
"silverblueBP" said:
I still get twitching when braking, it's not horrible, but it still happens. I wonder what it might be? I've always just chalked it up to 40+ year old design.

Too much rear brake or bump steer will do it also... I find too much rear brake to make the rear of the car kind of sway rather than twitch. Front end alignment stuff like weird alignment or bump steer tend to make the car dart around.
 
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