urock NO IROC88

iTrader: (4)

Like the title says are tubular a-arms worth it? If so which brand and fully adjustable or semi-adjustable, etc? For Autox use btw.

XxWICKEDSSxX

The arms are definitely lighter and give more adjustment so yes in most opinions they are worth it. The only negative thing about them is street driving, people have complained about the tab where the shock is mounted on the bottom a-arm is not strong enough and in some cases has deformed or collapsed basically under the pressure. I was thinking about getting them anyways and welding up the shock mount to try and prevent this as my car is daily driven. The aftermarket K-members are also worth their weight in gold as you take much needed weight off the front of the car and add some chassis torsional strength. All in all, the k-member and the a-arms combined are supposed to take 35-45lbs off the car I believe.

urock NO IROC88

iTrader: (4)

nice, i was looking into the UMI street version. Not fully adjustable but I guess if there is a weak point I could always weld some support on there

lordrazo

iTrader: (18)

for myself it was worth it due to weight reduction on my full drag car but for my street car with some track time i didnt worry about it as for adjustment i went with the solid mounting to much adjusting for me would get to be a nightmare the rears im use to adjusting just not front end except for the qa1's lol if you have the money go for it but get a complete package the k member is most worth it for anyone the room it creates is amazing

kidreno_21

I was looking into this a year ago. I called Sam Strano and he will sell them, but says they are heavyer than the ones your car was built with. I opted to not buy them due to his recommendation against them. He also mentioned that they are better for a drag set up where a car will see the front lifting during a good launch.

Good luck with your decision.

1QWIKBIRD

iTrader: (25)

If the car is lowered (Strano springs lowered, not slammed in the weeds lowered) and you run an aftermarket upper arm you run the very real possiblity of the upper A-arm hitting the inside of the upper fender structure and bending during full compression. This may or may not be a problem on a stock ride height vehicle. I have a friend that has been through 2 sets of upper arms on his 98 car that he autox regulary and drives on the street. The seconds set was supposed to be a revised/updated version to correct this problem and they bent also. I'll see if I can get some pics in the next day or so. The problem is very real. He noticed it when doing a quick check on his alignment after an event and his camber was all over the place. He though maybe the lower arm wasn't tightened enough and slipped. But the lower arms are fine. The upper arms are junk.

After seeing that I'll stick with stock upper arms and Sams offset bushings

Get a copy of the rules for the club/organiztion you will run with. The K-member mod could bump you up really quickly into a class where you would have no shot at being competative in a 4th gen F-body. The same might be true of the A-arms as well.

2000Z28M6

iTrader: (13)

If you are not concerned with SCCA rules on a certain class, this setup doesnt offer the negative camber you might want. I think the max was in the - 1.6 area.

The GW upper arms will easily get you to -2.1, should you need it. Personally I have the GW but I only run -1.6 because my car is still a DD too.

I actually had my GW do this you describe, but it only happened when I had old Konis setup too soft. Once I replaced them under warranty and setup properly no problems on the street.

198esp

I am the owner of said 98 camaro. I have bent 2 sets of uppers. The first set hit the upper wheel well area. umi stepped up and repaced the pair no charge, they changed the position of the balljoint plate in relation to the forward arm to gain some clearance on the new set. The second set bent by hitting the upper arm mount. Now I dont run the car super low about the same as a strano spring set up, but I had koni build a set of alum bodied coilovers. I pretty sure they are causing the latest issue. To much travel in compression. I have some ideas how to fix it. Just ask yourself why you need them and what they do the stock ones dont. Stock arms with the strano bushing is tuff to beat.

1QWIKBIRD

iTrader: (25)

Here's some pics of the arms as promised. (I'll add a pic of the stock arm as soon as I can dig one out.)

Working Left to Right (in the shots with all 4 arms)

Stock Arm

1st design UMI Arm

2nd design UMI Arm

GW Arm

And this is by no means meant to put anyone's product down or in a bad light. As was stated above, shock valving and maybe even spring rate changes should be RECOMMENDED/REQUIRED when running ANY aftermarket tubular upper arm on a car that has been altered from stock ride height, but that never seems to be brought up. Additionally the GW arms appear to be susceptible to the same type of interference based on the post above by 200z28m6.

These pictures aren't the result of abuse or from track days and driving over curbing or wild off-course excursions. There were no bent wheels, blown out tires or shredded studs or anything as result of what the pics show.

Another thing to consider is that if you put aftermarket rod-ended upper and lower arms you are also freeing up the movement of the spindle a decent amount compared to the stock rubber bushings. So not only is design of the upper arm at play and shock valving/spring rates all of that is probably now seeing a greater range of motion or at least requiring less force to reach the extreme limits of that motion compared to rubber bushings.

Just a friendly word of caution to the OP. They might look trick, but on a car that has been lowered you may need to consider supporting mods (shock valving, stiffer front springs, bump stops?) in conjunction with the aftermarket upper arm.

It's only fair to say that the UMI lower Arms have performed flawlessly with no sign of trouble and again I stress this is nothing more than sharing up close first hand experience with tubular upper arms on a 4th-gen.

Chris

2000Z28M6

iTrader: (13)

I want to make sure my info was not misconstrued, yes the GW arms bottomed out on me once or twice, however it did not damage the actual GW arm itself.

It simply put a dimple or small impression on the upper fender well. I'm guessing over time it would eventually possibly bend the arm itself as the pictures show.

Again this was street driving thru your average shitty street. Please note, I autox with the soft konis for one event and it never bottomed out on the track.

Simple fix, run the appropriate spring and shock combo.

FYI - I currently use fbody hypercoils and SA Konis in the front. I dont recall the spring rate off hand but the Konis are set 3.5 sweeps from full stiff.

I also autox the car monthly and still functions as my DD, no problems since I addressed the soft Konis.

Good luck.

1QWIKBIRD

iTrader: (25)

The damage to the arms shown was not a result of an autox event, but from driving on less that perfect public roads as you mentioned. It just wasn't realized until after an event when the times turned in were way off the pace and the car handled horribly. That's what prompted checking the alignment and one thing led to another......

The shock/spring info is good and if it helps someone else avoid this kinda of headache in the future, that's a good thing.

99Bluz28

iTrader: (35)

I had the same issue with my GW upper arms hitting with LT1 pro-kit and KB Hypercoil front lowering springs, and this was just with street driving. So now I just run the factory upper arms with the GW bushing kit.