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I have front tubular suspension (BMR upper A Arms and lower A Arms single adjustable and K member) on the car along with viking coilovers with 350lbs springs.
I have noticed that when I reverse the car, the wheels seem to **** out weird, but when I go forward they seem to straighten up. Seems extremely sketchy to me. The car has been aligned by an alignment shop so everything was pretty square via the computer.
I tighten the bolts pretty tight, so I dont think their loose. The advice I have been given so far is that it could be:
1. Ball joints
2. Tack a washer on to keep the movement down to a minimal
3. Lock-tite the bolts
4. Read a Summit review where a guy had the same issue and it was based on the craftsmanship of the K member that allowed the camber issue in reverse. Link --> here
5. Change in ride height possibly
I never had this problem with the stock A arms. It could be due to street driving. I know that stock struts have a camber adjustment under hood on top of shock tower. The Vikings do not, the camber should be adjusted on the K member.
I am wondering if its a bump steer issue and how this correlates into how suspension reacts.
The first pic is before making a pass. The next 2 pics are after backing up
I have front tubular suspension (BMR upper A Arms and lower A Arms single adjustable and K member) on the car along with viking coilovers with 350lbs springs.
I have noticed that when I reverse the car, the wheels seem to **** out weird, but when I go forward they seem to straighten up. Seems extremely sketchy to me. The car has been aligned by an alignment shop so everything was pretty square via the computer.
I tighten the bolts pretty tight, so I dont think their loose. The advice I have been given so far is that it could be:
1. Ball joints
2. Tack a washer on to keep the movement down to a minimal
3. Lock-tite the bolts
4. Read a Summit review where a guy had the same issue and it was based on the craftsmanship of the K member that allowed the camber issue in reverse. Link --> here
5. Change in ride height possibly
Have you been under the car recently to inspect things? You need to look for cracks or something bent.
Did you ever get the actual alignment specs? Having some highschool kid throw it up on the rack and "get it to spec" means nothing - far too many times they just do their best and shrug it off and go on to the next car.
I never had this problem with the stock A arms. It could be due to street driving. I know that stock struts have a camber adjustment under hood on top of shock tower. The Vikings do not, the camber should be adjusted on the K member.
Drag K-members really shouldn't be used on the street, although some vendors will tell you they flew to the moon and back with theirs and nothing happened, Ive seen a ton of them break on here, and other forums. They are simply not made to take the abuse that a street car sees, the review you posted is prime example.
Also we do not have struts, they are coilover shocks from the factory and therefore have zero adjustments under the hood, all adjustments are done with the front LCA on stock suspension.
Have you been under the car recently to inspect things? You need to look for cracks or something bent.
Did you ever get the actual alignment specs? Having some highschool kid throw it up on the rack and "get it to spec" means nothing - far too many times they just do their best and shrug it off and go on to the next car.
Drag K-members really shouldn't be used on the street, although some vendors will tell you they flew to the moon and back with theirs and nothing happened, Ive seen a ton of them break on here, and other forums. They are simply not made to take the abuse that a street car sees, the review you posted is prime example.
Also we do not have struts, they are coilover shocks from the factory and therefore have zero adjustments under the hood, all adjustments are done with the front LCA on stock suspension.
Thanks for clearing things up.
The people at the alignment shop was most def experienced with suspension. Took them an hour or more to get things sorted out. I do not have the printout with me. I plan on getting up under there tonight to see what the deal is. I am wondering because the suspension is so loose in the front, the ride height has changed....IDK
I dont have no more than 50 street miles on it since the addition of the upper and lower A arms.
And yea thats what I meant coilover shocks. But I thought the holes in the shock tower was for the camber adjustment..... Shows how much I really know
Need to get to the bottom of this before next test and tune!
Your steering arms should run parallel with your a-arms and no alignment rack gives you this and most there wouldn't know to look for it.
As for K-members on street cars, they have been doing it since the 80's. I also use the example of Drag Week, if they could not handle street driving every year you would hear stories of participants on the side of the road every year due to broken k-members or other tubular suspension items.
As for K-members on street cars, they have been doing it since the 80's. I also use the example of Drag Week, if they could not handle street driving every year you would hear stories of participants on the side of the road every year due to broken k-members or other tubular suspension items.
Pretty common denominator in all of those post. You can not condemn everyone because others have had issues. There is thousands and thousands of tubular K-Members on the streets today in multiple different vehicle applications.
Using Drag Week is a good example they drive from track to track pulling a small utility trailer while loading their vehicles to the brim with supplies.
This years schedule on horrible IL Roads and they drive to and from each track.
September 10 – Cordova International Raceway, Registration & Test-n-Tune
19425 IL-84
Cordova, IL 61242
September 11 – Cordova International Raceway, Racing Day 1
19425 IL-84
Cordova, IL 61242
September 12 – Gateway Motorsports Park, Racing Day 2
700 Raceway Blvd
Madison, IL 62060
September 13 – Byron Dragway, Racing Day 3
7287 N River Rd
Byron, IL 61010
September 14 – Great Lakes Dragaway, Racing Day 4
18411 1st St
Union Grove, WI 53182
September 15 – Cordova International Raceway, Final Day of Racing
19425 IL-84
Cordova, IL 61242
Dont see how that is a great example, how many guys actually truly drive their cars there instead of using their trailer until they are close and then drop the car off to look like the drove it?
Either way if broken aftermarket K-member were not an issue on 4th gen fbodies we wouldn't have all these threads...
And this is just what the ls1tech search feature has dug up quickly, not counting threads it could have missed. Then there are the guys who either have not posted about it or are not members...
Not really tryna argue this at all. As I struggled with deciding to buy a tubular K member or not. Seems like a lot of these guys had a lot of things in common.
1. Brand/Quality
2. Daily Driven
3. No one said how bad of pot holes/road conditions they encountered
4. Many didnt mention prior problems
I street drive mine but thats maybe 4 times a month during cruise weather with not really doing much more than 75 miles round trip each outing.
Is it smart to daily drive with a tubular k member? Not hardly. But tons of people have done it with success and alot without. Peoples location and road conditions varies on how long the part will last.
Haha... whew looks like we have some air to clear in here.
First I'll address the OP and the issue you are having. Nothing is broken. I see this often. This usually occurs when stock control arm bolts are used with tubular LCA's and K-members. The stock bolts stretch and do not provide adequate clamping force on the lca's to keep them located. The lower control arm mounts are slotted for alignment adjustment, so what it likely happening is the rear leg of the lca is sliding in and out changing your wheel centering and camber. Our k-members use much thicker material around the LCA mounting points, so it takes more force to clamp them to the arm. Also, the stock LCA's have a fluted face on the bushing that digs into the metal and helps keep it located. Aftermarket arms do not so it relies strictly on the clamping. I would upgrade your hardware and make sure it is all torqued down good. What I also see a lot of is alignment shops that will just shoot the bolts down with an impact and call it good. This isn't enough. Make sure they actually put a torque wrench on them and take them to a solid 90 ft lbs, which is higher than the stock torque amount.
As for k-members holding up on the street, I have hundreds who have been street driving for 5-10 years with no issues. We had an issue with our first design of k-members from 12+ years ago. It was a design flaw. We learned from it and we corrected it. New design has had no issues.
Infact, as a testament to that, I have the LCA attachment section of a k-member that recently came off a local car that wrecked very hard. It hit the end of a concrete wall at about 120mph and the k-member took the brunt of the impact. It flat sheared off the material on the crosstube, as it also did the rack and spindle on that side. But the entire welded portion of the k member was fully intact, not even so much as a crack in any of the welds. The a-arms on that side actually even survived without even bending. It and the k member section had to literally be cut from the firewall of the car to remove them. Not to mention this one had been on the car for 5+ years already with the abuse of a street driven low 5 second 1/8 mile car. If it will withstand that, I think most people will have no issues street driving.
06-06-2017, 10:38 AM
Funny Camber 
