Better investment, rear control arms or sub frame?

90lxwhite · Feb 2, 2013

For a street driven car what would I benefit most from subframe connectors or rear control arms? I suppose both would be ideal so I guess which would you do first? Which one would you notice the biggest change in ride?

earleys94gt · Feb 2, 2013

Sub frame connectors

90lxwhite · Feb 2, 2013

earleys94gt said:
Sub frame connectors

Yeah? Just did a lot of researching on control arms. They say for street car use uppers w rubber bushings but I haven't found many that have em

revhead347 · Feb 2, 2013

I would say control arms. Even if the car were brand new, I would say control arms make a bigger difference. However, since your car is really old now, there is a good chance that your stock control arm bushings have become really soft already. If you are looking for upper control arms with rubber bushings, I would just press new factory replacement bushings into your stock uppers. Steeda used to sell a "heavy duty" upper control arm. It was just a stock upper with a plate welded to the bottom to box it in and new bushings. The point is that they worked fine on all their race cars. If the stock control arm is good enough with poly bushings in it, it's certainly good enough with rubber ones.

Kurt

90lxwhite · Feb 3, 2013

revhead347 said:
I would say control arms. Even if the car were brand new, I would say control arms make a bigger difference. However, since your car is really old now, there is a good chance that your stock control arm bushings have become really soft already. If you are looking for upper control arms with rubber bushings, I would just press new factory replacement bushings into your stock uppers. Steeda used to sell a "heavy duty" upper control arm. It was just a stock upper with a plate welded to the bottom to box it in and new bushings. The point is that they worked fine on all their race cars. If the stock control arm is good enough with poly bushings in it, it's certainly good enough with rubber ones.

Kurt

say kurt, is it pretty tough to press bushings in?

revhead347 · Feb 3, 2013

Not really. If you have a press, that's the easiest way, but if not you can usually burn them out. The rear bushings for the upper are actually located on the rear axle, not the control arm, and you can't use a press on those anyway. You take a drill, and drill around the center part of the bushing to tear up the rubber, then you knock out the center pin. The remaining rubber you can either light on fire to get out, or clean it out with a wire wheel. No matter what control arm option you go with, you are going to have to do this on the axle. The same procedure can be repeated on the upper control arms. Sometimes the rubber is stubborn, and it's time consuming, but not hard. I'm not going to lie and say that the poly bushings don't give you a rough ride. So if maintaining a reasonable ride is important to you, I would just change the bushings in the upper control arms. If you want the uppers to be more rigid, just weld a plate on the bottom of them while you have the bushings out. That will make them just as rigid as any of the aftermarket ones. If you don't have the tools to do this, or don't want to attempt it, I have a spare set of stock uppers here I can do it here and mail them to you.

Kurt

90lxwhite · Feb 3, 2013

Hm yeah I didn't think about the axle side. So no matter what control arms I go w/ I'm going to need to replace bushings on the axle side on both upper and lower's? My first thought was to buy the sve set of upper n lower that LMS offers and replace the bushings in the upper w/ a rubber one. I wish they'd just sell the lower but they only offer em as a set I believe. The reason I was thinking going rubber on upper is because I heard that the poly units are geared more towards drag racing and if you wanted to improve cornering hanling it's best to go with rubber. (The ole axle wrap thing ya know) How hard to you have to be driving a car for axle wrap to occur? This isn't a race car by any means so it'll never be drive to the limits, I'm just trying to get er back to new again with a little improvement over stock. If I did decide to go with the sve set and run em as is would it be ok on a street car or would I hate it? I realize "you get what ya pay for" but they gotta be better than the old stock stamped pieces. My main concern is are they just geared towards straight line performance? How much would ya want for your spare uppers?

revhead347 · Feb 3, 2013

That's total hogwash. Putting harder bushings in there is going to make it handle better too, that's why all the Mustang handling packages come with better stiffer bushings. There has been a modern rumor going around that having poly bushings at all points causes the suspension to bind, and that's why some people prefer to go with rubber bushings on the upper control arms. While in theory it's possible to get some binding due to the suspension geometry, in reality it's not an issue. It will give you a firmer ride though. My old stock uppers have no value. I was just offering to do all the press work and welding if you wanted. However, if you go with a poly bushing, it's much more cost effective to just buy new control arms with poly bushings in them. They are assembled in a factory setting, and there is no way I can custom make a set of control arms for the price they sell them online. When shopping for control arms, be careful of a good price. Some Chinese manufacturers have been getting into the business. If one of those welds fails it can cost you your life. I don't know that I would trust my life to something that was welded by an 12 year old with god knows what recycled metal. These are a great deal, and they are made in America by a trusted company.

http://www.steeda.com/store/steeda-...mbo-kits-for-1979-thru-2004-ford-mustang.html

That's where I would start. Some say the Maximum Motorsports ones are better, but they are a little more money too.

KUrt

Husky44 · Feb 4, 2013

FWIW, I am still running stock UCAs, along with new MM LCAs, along with MM subframes. When I did my research, MM's website said for street application, no need to upgrade UCAs.

Very happy with the result, but I did both at the same time, so I can't tell you which is better to do first.

Replacing uppers, or even bushings, doesn't sound like it's worth the effort unless your bushings are toast.

90lxwhite · Feb 4, 2013

Husky44 said:
FWIW, I am still running stock UCAs, along with new MM LCAs, along with MM subframes. When I did my research, MM's website said for street application, no need to upgrade UCAs.

Very happy with the result, but I did both at the same time, so I can't tell you which is better to do first.

Replacing uppers, or even bushings, doesn't sound like it's worth the effort unless your bushings are toast.

Yeah I read that too. But mine currently have over 300k miles on em.

revhead347 · Feb 4, 2013

I had trouble finding replacement bushings for the uppers.

Kurt

VibrantRedGT · Feb 4, 2013

Sub-frames 1st then control arms.

Sharad · Feb 4, 2013

90lxwhite said:
For a street driven car what would I benefit most from subframe connectors or rear control arms? I suppose both would be ideal so I guess which would you do first? Which one would you notice the biggest change in ride?

This is a difficult (and subjective) question to answer. The real answer is "both". I suppose I'd vote subframe connectors first because in addition to the performance benefits, they also protect the body of the car by not letting it flop around, so that's a double benefit. However, I am a HUGE proponent of upgraded control arms.

And that business about running stock upper control arms is nonsense. MM is the only company who recommends that, probably so they can sell more torque arms. Unfortunately, the 'net has adopted MM's mantra regarding the UCAs so now it's accepted as fact in some circles. Pretty much every expert I know recommends upgrading the UCAs, and if you're very concerned about bind, you can use spherical bearing in the uppers to eliminate the bind. Soft rubber bushings (like on the stock control arms) have no place on a performance car.

revhead347 · Feb 4, 2013

I don't know, we all ran poly bushings before they offered spherical bushings and I never heard of binding until MM became big on the scene. I have to agree, I think it's some myth they created to sell torque arms.

Kurt

Husky44 · Feb 4, 2013

Not here to perpetuate any myths, or to market MM. That said, I took MM's advice, and am still running a stock UCA with factory bushings. I did upgrade the LCAs. Rest of my suspension mods (admittedly rather mild) include Eibach springs and shocks/struts, and MM CC kit.

I've never driven a car with aftermarket UCA (or torque arm, for that matter, although the more I read about them the more intrigued I am), so I have nothing to compare to. When I did my mods, I recognized that if the performance improvement wasn't enough, I could easily add a UCA later. I was sufficiently pleased for my purposes (no track use, but some very aggressive road driving on the twisties). I guess the best comparison I can give is that I had been running the current setup for about 2 years when I spent a week in CA driving an 08 Vette vert, and was disappointed in that the handling wasn't noticeably better than my 95--to the point that I put all replacement plans on hold, and started shopping for a blower instead.

My 95 handles on par with my 13 with SVTPP. Your results may vary.

90lxwhite · Feb 5, 2013

Husky44 said:
Not here to perpetuate any myths, or to market MM. That said, I took MM's advice, and am still running a stock UCA with factory bushings. I did upgrade the LCAs. Rest of my suspension mods (admittedly rather mild) include Eibach springs and shocks/struts, and MM CC kit.

I've never driven a car with aftermarket UCA (or torque arm, for that matter, although the more I read about them the more intrigued I am), so I have nothing to compare to. When I did my mods, I recognized that if the performance improvement wasn't enough, I could easily add a UCA later. I was sufficiently pleased for my purposes (no track use, but some very aggressive road driving on the twisties). I guess the best comparison I can give is that I had been running the current setup for about 2 years when I spent a week in CA driving an 08 Vette vert, and was disappointed in that the handling wasn't noticeably better than my 95--to the point that I put all replacement plans on hold, and started shopping for a blower instead.

My 95 handles on par with my 13 with SVTPP. Your results may vary.

"Perpetuate", good word usage. But yeah I believe if I'm going to do control arms I'm going to do both uppers and lowers if I can find a decent package deal. I mean before I had the motor rebuilt it had 300k miles on the clock and I think it'd be more trouble than what it's worth to replace the bushings in the uppers vs just buying new ones.

Better investment, rear control arms or sub frame?

90lxwhite

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earleys94gt

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90lxwhite

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revhead347

Apparently my ex-husband made that mistake.

90lxwhite

I'm kind of a She-Man

revhead347

Apparently my ex-husband made that mistake.

90lxwhite

I'm kind of a She-Man

revhead347

Apparently my ex-husband made that mistake.

Husky44

90lxwhite

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revhead347

Apparently my ex-husband made that mistake.

VibrantRedGT

"STANGNET'S PENGUIN SMACKER"

Sharad

ALWAYS choose the V over the P!!! Wait... what?

revhead347

Apparently my ex-husband made that mistake.

Husky44

90lxwhite

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