control arm stop

[purple barney]

Does anyone use a control arm stop to keep the front suspension from dropping too much during a launch? One of my friends suggested drilling a hole in the upper control arm and welding a bolt to the top so that you could use some thick threaded rod to control the arms from dropping? He swears by this

 

[grizwald]

Re: controll arm stop

Does anyone use a control arm stop to keep the front suspension from dropping too much during a launch? One of my friends suggested drilling a hole in the upper control arm and welding a bolt to the top so that you could use some thick threaded rod to control the arms from dropping? He swears by this

that's what i was told to do. take out the factory stop and weld a nut on top of the arm and get threaded rod to use as a limiter. then i think you'll need another nut to use as a lock nut. i haven't done that yet.

 

[purple barney]

Well grizwald at least two of us have heard of this before, no one else chimed in so im guessing it’s not a widely used means of controlling front suspension drop. Ill give it a shot and let you know how it works.

 

[grizwald]

i should mention that i was told to do this by a friend who has this done on his car. it works and is a pretty cheap and easy way to limit susp. travel. only reason i haven't done this to my car is that i'm not sure what there is to gain by limiting the travel. if it's only to make my tires come off the ground an extra inch...i'm not sure it's worth the trouble.

 

[TNTS79]

I have heard it helps keep the front suspension from unloading the rear tires when it bottoms out... If the downward travel of the front end hits its limit before the car actually comes to peak height it will help the car use more of the energy from the launch going forward rather than upward... Hope someone can put some et improvements behind this idea then I will look into doing it.

 

[purple barney]

thats along the lines of what he (friend) was talking about seems to make sense. im gonna give it a shot. im changing plugs and tuning the carb next test and tune. ill use that as a base line and then do the stop to see if it makes a difference.

 

[grizwald]

thats along the lines of what he (friend) was talking about seems to make sense. im gonna give it a shot. im changing plugs and tuning the carb next test and tune. ill use that as a base line and then do the stop to see if it makes a difference.

sounds good. if it works, i guess i'll be making some limiters up soon.

 

[79loserbluebu]

For what it's worth, I've seen alot of people replacing the stock, usually stiff by now, bumpstops with ZQ8 S10 bumpstops. People from the B-body forums like them as well as people with lowered suspensions. The bolt is probably alot cheaper but the stop is bolt in and it may be cheap insurance on the street if you have trick springs or something like that. Only bad part is they are like 15-20 a piece . I've got a picture of them comparing them to a soda can hold on.

Couldn't find the picture I took a while back ago, but here they are installed on an Impala SS. Looks like he spray painted them red to match the shocks I guess, but they are a pretty soft foam.
http://home.earthlink.net/~igraves96/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/zq8s2.jpg

I looked it up online and looks like they are only $12 a piece #-o

 

[grizwald]

those are the lower stops. we're talking about the stops on the upper control arms that limit the downward travel, not the lowers which limit the upward travel.

 

[79loserbluebu]

Ohhh okay okay gotcha now I see what you're saying. I saw a plate like stop used on a 99' Yukon yesterday so the UCA didn't drop too far down. Could putting a bolt there or something else possible bend the control arm? Really it's all depending on how hard you launch but would it cause damage?