Though we've been keeping this quiet, I guess now is a good time to let the cat out of the bag.
The control arms for our popular applications have gone through a complete re-design. This included, altered ball joint positions for vehicle specific requirements, a forged cross shaft with caster slugs, and self lubricating Delrin bushings.
Here are the highlights. . .
Bushings:
-injection molded Black Delrin with PTFE (Teflon for self lubrication)
-no maintenance required
-screw driver slots for easy removal (should they ever need to be serviced)
-internal grease slots (should one want to add lubrication zerks)
-direct replacement for popular poly sizes
Control Arm shaft:
-forged steel
-caster slug slots
-aluminum caster slugs
-liquid ferritic nitrocarburizing (sort of like anodizing for steel; this is the same process many guns go through) (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferritic_nitrocarburizing)
-inner sleeves (like those use in poly bushings) are built into the shaft (fewer parts and mitigates potential for noise)
-control arm "locking" feature
Control arm "locking" feature:
Though 99.99% of the populace will never need this feature we added it cause we could.
We found in very extreme cases that the control arm could deflect under braking. . .basically pulling the control arm sleeve away from the shaft nut over the bushing toward the front of the vehicle.
To solve this issue the cross shaft has a large "washer" built into it on the rear side which holds the bushing. The steel control arm sleeve has a ledge machined into it and the bushing has a ledge that fits inside. Once assembled this locks the rear of the control arm to the cross shaft so the control arm cannot move forward or backward, only up and down.
I have attached a couple of images for reference.