Great info. Really helpful. For those of us upgrading our stock subframes.

James you want to elaborate on how that 9.5 inch wheel fits with the stock subframe?

Looking at speedtechs web site I do not see a seperate reference for high clearance arms other than with the complete subframe set up? are there two different ones or are they same?

And do the speedtech and hothckins arms have the corrected geometry built in, and the Gull mod is not needed? am I getting this right.

So many decisions, again thanks for helping us narrow them down.

Pricing? Is the complete Chicane kit 5-6K, Great kit as I was reading but close to a full subframe cost?

While I am learning too, I do believe that none of the arms will correct what the GS mod does. To bring the car up to modern geometry specs you need to do onlyONE of the following along with geometry corrected arms:

A: do the Gulstrand mod

B: use tall balljoints, although I have seen both upper and lower extended bj - and at differant lengths. Not sure what is 'ideal'.

C: use the ATS tall spindle

Is this correct guys?

Thanks Carl,

Good to know the stock spindles/bearings will hold up. Thanks also for your webpage, I appreciate the effort and will be using many of your DIY projects on my build :cheers:

Alright, what's the deal with the 285's :question:

Thanks for the tip! Don't know why but it seems circle track/Nascar parts are less expensive? I have one of there catalogs from years ago but forgot about them :cheers:

Essentially yes. UCAs have some caster built in already making it easier to get to a good performance alignment. A good aftermarket LCA will reduce if not eliminate tire rub caused by running lots of caster (which moves the wheel to the rear of the wheelwell) by moving the lower balljoint forward in the wheelwell. Other than that, after-market arms are pretty.

Pete; when you call speedway,ask for a street rod,muscle car & a race car catalog.They will have a lot of the parts you need.They have direct fit 1st gen a-arms w/nice poly bushings.Can save a ton of dough.And might even get the parts shipped so you get them the next day.I get mine the next day & the shipping charges are alot less than jegs or summit.Scott.

Great, Thanks Scott :cheers:

I second that! I saved a grand on my DSE stage 3 front end kit buying it "used". It too was only taken out of the box, if that. Most of it had not even been opened yet. I also just picked up a used Ricks stainless tank at Pomona last weekend. I wasn't planning on one, but the price was right. I've also saved on engine components I'll be using, too.

Tall ball joints or tall spindles achieve the same thing as the Guldstrand Mod.

The idea behind all of these is to get more negative camber as the wheel travels up through the suspension... this is done by increasing the downward angle of the UCA (in towards the subframe) relative to the LCA.

a) Tall ball joints move the ball joint end of the UCA up, steepening the UCA angle.

b) Tall spindle with stock-height ball joint also raises the ball joint end and steepens the UCA angle.

c) Guldstrand Mod lowers the cross-shaft mounting point on the UCA, thus steepening the UCA angle.

I think it'd generally be a BAD idea to combine any of a, b, or c because it would steepen the UCA angle far too much and make the handling twitchy and drastically reduce the tire contact patch, since the tire would tilt inwards (negative camber) so much.

But I'm not an expert, just what I've come to understand thru lots of reading.

I fully welded my stock subframe and have SpeedTech UCA/LCA as well as QA1 coilover conversion, Hotchkis hollow 1.125" swaybar, and Guldstrand Mod.

I also boxed in the very front cross member support, not sure if it'd do much but I could flex the c-channel by hand so any little bit could help torsional rigidity...

http://www.ls1tech.com/forums/11903865-post169.html
http://www.ls1tech.com/forums/11919822-post170.html
http://www.ls1tech.com/forums/11929393-post171.html

Cheers!
-Joe