The time has come. (see photo) I saw these some time ago and let it pass without a thought since I already had the Kmacs. Well, my car was in a race shop for "evaluation" and an alignment. It seems my Kmacs outer rims hit the A-arms and can't be rotated so I'm stuck at maximum camber which is -2.8º. The engineer (John Paul) began talking about solutions which jogged my memory of these A-arms. The next revelation was that with my Forgestars mounted the front track is wider than the rear. Not a concern for the street but evil on the track with a nose heavy car. So I'll be rolling the rear fenders and using 10mm spacers on the rear to correct the problem. JP wants to brace the shock towers on the inside and fit coil overs. Says he does it all the time on 930 Porsches, it's a piece of cake and would make all the difference in the world. So after buying Eiibach springs and Koni Yellows, K&W suspension, Ground Control suspension, crash bolts, Kmac's, MB arts camber arms, and other stuff I can't remember to improve the track manners, now I'm considering going full custom.
Unless the A-arms are priced out of this world I'll be getting them asap. I hope to have the fenders rolled tomorrow. The custom coil overs ….. depends on how the car works once I get the front camber where it should be, confirm my rubbing problems are solved and have the rear track widened. It's all so exciting!

Les

 

I ordered the A-arms. $310.00 + shipping. ($140.00) Hedgehog-motorsport.com if you have to have a pair. I borrowed a fender roller and have my own heat gun so all I need is enough free time to roll the rear fenders carefully.

Les

 

keep us posted on how the upper A arms work out. My Kmacs never gave enough adjustment. and are noisy to boot.

 

How did this all work out?

I love my car now, but I still have tires rubbing on hard turns. I don't race or track the car, but I do take it through it's paces. I have tons of rubbing if i have a passenger.

 

They're on order, I hope to receive them before September. Are you on stock rims and tire sizes? Rubbing on the front, rear or both?

Les

 

The A-arms are in my possession. The box arrived round and with a hole in the side, sadly the arms got battered. They were in bubble wrap and separated from one another with a layer of cardboard but it wasn't enough. The damage won't affect their function. I'll drop a line to Hedgehog so they know to take additional precautions in the future. Requests for additional pictures? Let me know.

Apart from the shipping damage, I like what I see.

Les

 

Subscribed!

 

They go in on Monday. The shop likes what they see.

Les

 

Ok, they're installed. Starting camber was -2.8º and now I'm at -2.0º. Jean Paul (Boss) was surrounded by people and deep in conversation when I picked up my car so I didn't talk to him. I'm going to call him on Monday for his thoughts as well as range of adjustment. I see lots to the outside, still, but towards the inside, not so much.

I like the new shop. He specializes in high end cars …. and exotics like my SRT-6. We have 2 events coming up which is why he's swamped. A roll race challenge on the 1rst. of november and a 1/2 mile event on the 14th.

Les

 

On my car with my track rims the range of adjustment is +1.2º to -4.2º, for those that are interested or care.

Les

 

DON'T BUY! I'm alive but could be dead. Driver side A-arm broke on track today. More about my day in another post tomorrow after I've had some rest. It was a l o n g day.

 

Good Lord! WTF! Very sorry to hear Les; glad you're O.K. For that to let go, you must have been at or near the limit, I can only guess. Hard to see, but is it the weld that let go, or did the plate just shear? Perhaps a bit of both. I'm hoping you kept it off the walls. Inferior metal or weld; obviously that just should not have happened.

 

Wow, that sucks. Glad you are ok, any other damage?
definitely looks like a weak spot where they broke.
Is that on the passenger side?

 

The car is fine and I don't believe anything else was damaged. The arms are well made BUT the tower that the stock A-arm fits in is too small for the new arms. After pulling the wheel I could see where the forward facing part of the arm was making contact with the body. The arm broke off towards the rearward part of the arm near the end of the adjustment plate sandwich, if that makes sense, not at the weld. It appears to me they used another make for R&D and assumed because our cars use the same A-arm that the tower was also the same.

Up until the failure my car felt phenomenal. 2nd best time ever in mid 90's heat. I could point the car and make corrections easily. It was squirrelly under braking …… now I know why. I first felt an abnormality after the fastest braking zone. The car didn't have the same grip. After the hairpin, the next hard turn was to the right and that's when it let go at 85 to 90 mph. I went straight through the esses and managed to not spin while coaxing the car back on track. At first I though I had a flat. Driving back to the pits it still felt like a flat until slowing to enter the pits. The it started shaking and clunking and I knew something broke.

I'm tired of futzing with parts that don't work as they should. Especially knowing if that arm had broken almost any other place on the track the best case scenario was a total loss of the car and likely worse.

A gratuitous picture taken after the 2nd. heat.

Les

 

Do you happen to have any videos online of your car in Solo 1 events? I have only driven in Solo 2 (Formula Vee and my old Shelby Charger Turbo)

 

Wow now what will you do?

 

Stock arms go back on for now. See if a refund is possible from Hedgehog. At least make them aware and keep them from selling these to others and putting their lives in danger. I haven't written to them yet, I'm waiting until I can pull the arms and get better documentation of the failure.

Les

 

Would I be correct and say that the two areas that I have marked in black are the only areas that support the weight?

If so then these cross sections are not strong at all. They will flex and weaken, the top and bottom plates do very little to support this area at all.

 

That's where the drivers side broke. The weight of the car is supported by the spring and not the upper arm. The lower and upper arms are connected and move as one as much as the spring allows. What happened to me was the upper arm was making contact with the body on the tape measure side (most likely in the heavy braking zones) and supporting weight the spring normally assumes as well as the other forces from weight transfer to the front. The forces it normally resists are G forces from the tire, side to side, not up and down. Hedgehog really farkeled the pooch on these. Huge oversight.

Les

 

Weight is the wrong word, the word load should have been used.

Trusting those two cross sections which are subject to flexing is not something that I would do.