Best street LCAs
 

What are the best aftermarket LCAs for a street car setup? I don't want to be driving around and constantly be hearing noises from them, so preferably the best quiet and performance street LCAs?

The Founders with Poly Joints would be my vote. I have them. They have poly bushings like everything else, but they articulate more like a rod end.

UMI also has the roto joints which are a rod-end like that's very streetable. In fact, I may eventually step up to the UMI Roto-Joint LCAs if I ever need adjustability in the LCAs.

I have been looking at those Founders 3 Point Poly Joints recently and heard great reviews. Since they dont have zerk fittings, is it hard to grease them?

Yes. Grease the shit out of them and then install best you can. I'd recommend drilling a hole and installing a zerk fitting. I know Founders says you don't need them, but that makes a lot of sense to me.

I have those on my car. I don't know what good a zerk fitting would do since the way it fits together the fitting won't really get the grease anywhere.

I haven't put a lot of miles on my car with them yet (2 or 3k I guess) but so far so good. Not noisy at all.

Yep I'll be going with the founders 3 piece joint LCA's in the near future

BMR with rubber bushings. You have to call them tho cus they dont have them in their website.

I had the UMI poly/roto LCA's and they made a slight "grumble" upon deceleration. I switched to BMR's adjustable LCA with rubber bushings and haven't heard them make a noise so far. However, the UMI's were much more well-built: beefier design, powder coating was better and it had massive bushings. I was happy with the rubber bushings BMR offers but was unimpressed with their LCA's. Check out my review thread:

https://ls1tech.com/forums/suspensio...-umi-lcas.html

Thanks for the responses guys! You just cant really beat on the price on the 3 piece poly lcas and cost per performance. I think ill pull the trigger and go with Founders

The Founders were well built and had a good powder coating on them for the price.

This shows the powder-coating quality of the BMR PHB Relo Kit and Founders PHB. Seem very similar to me.


http://i1000.photobucket.com/albums/...ps01e35410.jpg

Stock

My UMI poly/rod adjustables were silent. Going with the adjustable also allows for a four-wheel alignment (along with the addition of an adjustable panhard, that is).

No problems with my boxed stock arms & 1LE rubber.

+1 for Founders Poly-joint.

Well, ours have only been around for about 10-12 years now and are on everything from daily drivers to single digit drag cars and road course cars. I still am not quite understanding all the hate on polyurethane bushings, but everyone has a different idea of how their car should perform. We have 8 variations of f-body lower control arms, so whatever your driving style we have an arm to work with what you are doing. From the standard non-adjustable poly/poly arms to our chromoly on car adjustable rod end arms we have a variety of options for you. For a street application I would suggest Poly on at least one end or, depending on you power level, both ends.

http://www.bmrsuspension.com/siteart...A001_large.jpg

http://www.bmrsuspension.com/siteart...A004_large.jpg

http://www.bmrsuspension.com/siteart...A003_large.jpg

No offense but the reasons for the dislike of poly/poly on street cars has been gone over a bunch of times, so I would think you'd understand the reasoning after looking at the geometry of the rear axle :confused:

Poly doesn't allow for the twist motion the axle is going to go through on the street. That bind can be rather uncomfortable and can hurt traction and some stability over bumps on the street, particularly around turns. On the street you want something that will allow for that twist motion, whether that be rubber (most comfortable but most deflection), a rod end (least comfort but least deflection), or something in the middle like a roto joint, poly joint, etc. For a drag car the resistance to twist can be a good thing, so poly would be well suited for that.

This isn't saying poly/poly should never be on the street, as it is streetable, but streetable doesn't mean best or comfortable. If a car is 100% street though I wouldn't want to get a more drag-oriented component.

I have seen this theory thrown around a lot lately. While it sounds good on paper, in actuality it is a non-isssue. The only time twisting force is applied to a bushing is during cornering or hard launches where torque tries to twist the car to the right. Twisting on lower control arms means the body is trying to articulate separate from the rear end. This is factor that many other parts I.E. swaybars, higher rate springs, shocks etc try to counter act. So why would you try to counter-act parts that try to prevent an unwanted force?

BTW I spent years building custom air ride suspensions using polyurethane bushings. People seriously underestimate how much they will articulate if needed. They are just more resistant to it than a rod end.

Sure they are more resistant, enough that on the caster bushing on the front they can break the control arm completely off... Yeah that is an extreme example, and we're not asking that much counter-axis rotation of the LCA bushings as that caster bushing, but it does show how resistant poly can be.

The rear axle simply does not go simply up and down. If you go over an uneven bump, one side or the other will go up and over, while the other side wants to stay put. With a bushing that allows for some twist, that uneveness is no problem. But poly will resist that, leading to a rougher, less planted ride on the street.

We can debate whether it is that noticeable or not. I don't know, I never ran poly/poly on the rear of my car. But others have and have mentioned how much of a difference they felt when all they changed was the bushing type on the control arm.

It stands to reason the freer the axle is to conform to unevenness of the road, the better the ride and grip will be. The shocks and springs keep it pushed on the road, the sways keep the body from rolling on the axles, but they still need to move under the car. This is one reason why independent rear suspension is generally superior to a solid axle on the street, as it can conform to the uneven road surfaces better than a stick axle.

Again, I'm not saying you can't use poly/poly on the street. I'm just saying if you want a 100% street car that there are far better options for that sort of driving, as poly/poly isn't really ideal for it. The thread title is "best street LCAs" and poly/poly really doesn't fit in the "best street" category.

What about when one side of the car hits a bump while the other doesn't?

"Counteracting" roll/pitch etc. is the job of the spring, shocks and swaybar, all of which can be tuned to do the job, not the job of the bushing of a control arm, which should allow full unrestricted movement.
If you want the car to not have any movement you could argue that we should just replace all suspension with fixed iron rods allowing no movement or travel at all, but that isn't the case is it? Because you NEED suspension travel for good handling, period. And there is a reason you don't see race cars (that turn) running poly bushings in control arms.

+1 :)