luckyou03

I just picked up a set of lower tubular a-arms and now I'm debating to install them on my daily driver. I'm thinking of selling them to put towards ported heads instead. The reason behind this is I hear they are bad on daily driven cars and the weight loss isn't worth the price. I'd prefer resonses from people using tubular a-arms or know someone who is. thanks

Dave K

In what way are they bad on daily driven cars? I've got upper and lower a-arms coming in and while it's not a daily driver I'd like to know if there's any particular problem with them.

luckyou03

I heard the welds break, you loose control and the suspension is really stiff.

lincmarkv

That's like saying "all Explorers are dangerous" when it was mostly the fault of the tires.

A-arms are a quite stressed part of the suspension (obviously) and therefore have to be sturdily built to withstand the forces. LG Motorsports' arms, for instance, are more than capable of handling daily driver duty. Of course, the mounting style (rod-end, bushing, etc) also should be taken into account.

Some other arms aren't designed as well.

GreenDemon

It's just like buying anything for your car- if you don't get the good stuff, it could break. Aftermarket car parts are particularly important because the manufacturers don't have to conform to the same rigid safety standards as the carmakers themselves. Just make sure you choose wisely when buying stuff like braking or suspension parts that affect the safety of your vehicle. BMR seems to be fairly popular and they offer almost everything, not sure how their quality is, though. Spohn is a good one, although I'm not sure if they offer control arms or not.

OBE1 95Z28

I have been running the BMR tubular K member and lower A arms for the last 5K miles with no issues. Good quality welds and great access with the K member.

Dave K

The parts i ordered were UMI's... price was comparable to BMR's but they were all QA1 rod ends instead of the rod/poly mix that BMR uses. The last two times I got the car aligned the guy couldn't get lower than -1 degree camber (two different shops), and that chews through tires... so these adjustable parts will let me get to a camber setting that's more realistic for tire life. I've no personal experience with UMI, but the components used in the parts (QA1 rod ends, Moog ball joints) are good quality so I've decided to give them a try.

Honda Hunter

Ive heard nothing but good about UMI, thier products and thier customer service. Everyone on LS1tech seems to love thier stuff. It looks like to me that they copy everyone elses stuff but then make it a little bit better for the same price. Next time around I may go umi.

Dave K

I did notice that the UMI parts bore a startling resembleance to BMR parts. But BMR wants over 400 bucks for their rod end Upper A arms alone... and I got both Upper and Lower UMI parts for a bit over 600.

Injuneer

Spohn Performance makes tubular lower A-arms for both 3rd and 4th Gen cars. Their tubular K-member should be in the catalog in the next month. The lower A-arms with rod ends are $395. Uppers are $195 with poly and $295 with rod ends.

http://www.spohn.net/productimages/741_big.jpg

380ss

I went with Spohn uppers and lowers. Got the chrome moly stuff with the rod ends on the lower and bushings on the upper. I auto-x (hard) and have had no problems, so I'm sure they are more the up to every day street driving.

They guy that did the install said they were a pain in the a$$ and the guy that did my alignment had to drop the arm and came back saying they were a pain in the a$$, but I personnally don't care. I got the numbers I wanted and that's why I paid them to do it. I don't need any more pains.