QA1 Lower Control Arms

[73restomod]

I also have the QA1s on my car,  HP your thinking of the spindle test they did they compared the factory arms to QA1, and Firm Feels arms. The test was done in an actual machine that deflected the arms till they broke. The FF reinforced arms were stronger than the QA1 arms. Both FF's and QA1 arms had more travel than the stock arms. They are both longer. QA1 arms advantage was being 5 pounds lighter than the FF arms. Both are considerably stronger than factory stock. My main consideration in buying was the unsprung mass reduction,  my old instructor at wyotech and one of the first pro touring guys I had met pounded that into my brain years ago. Overall weight on the nose is another concern for me. As light as I can get it one my goals for the car.

[brads70]

" Both FF's and QA1 arms had more travel than the stock arms. They are both longer. "
  I'm not understand this? FF just welds a reinforcement plate onto a stock LCA ? How could it be longer?   Travel is controlled by a bump stops on the LCA and the upper control arm.
On my car I used A-Body LCA because they were slightly longer and I needed that to get camber because I used a taller spindle ( C-Body) This combo did add about 3 inches more travel but that in itself was not useful. 

[73restomod]

From what I remember the FF arms are actually F body arms? Could be wrong on exactly which body style they sourced them from, but I know they are not B-E bodies, unless you send your arms in to be done. Like your car it does offer more wheel travel than stock. the QA1's give like 1 more inch travel over stock, and the FF arms give about 3 or 4 more? I think the primary reason they do this is to allow for more travel on lowered cars, its been awhile since I read the article, so I'm just going off recollection. OR it could have been E-burg doctoring the results by intentionally using the longer arms....

[brads70]

I've used later B body LCA's before on other projects. Maybe that's what your remembering? FF was thinking of offering a kit but never did as far as I know?
Here is FF picture.


Here is the later B-Body LCA

and a couple projects I've used them on.... They can be used to increase the track width and/or adjust the scrub radius.

[73restomod]

I've used later B body LCA's before on other projects. Maybe that's what your remembering? FF was thinking of offering a kit but never did as far as I know?
Here is FF picture.


Here is the later B-Body LCA

and a couple projects I've used them on.... They can be used to increase the track width and/or adjust the scrub radius.

Yeah that's what it looked like as far as I can remember.

[EbodyMod]

  The only issues I had was with the k-frame. as we know these cars were never produced to perfect specs and it took some wiggling to get the mont bots to line up. but other than that installation was a breeze.   

[72bluNblu]

The QA1 arms aren't longer, they "add travel" because they have a shorter vertical profile than the stock arms. This gives you about an extra inch of travel before the LCA hits the frame.

As far as lighter, they are. As far as stronger? Depends on who's doing the welding. I had a set of CAP tubular LCA's on my Challenger, right up until I broke one of the welds.



On further inspection, the weld that broke was extremely cold, no penetration at all. It was then ground down and powdercoated.  Which is probably why CAP sold out.

QA1 bought the CAP design. The design is sound though, and after purchasing a set of the QA1 tubular LCA's for my Duster I can say the welding is MUCH better. Like I'm not afraid to run them better. That said, after I inspected the old CAP tubular LCA's I came to the conclusion that there were two gussets that could be added that would seriously improve the strength of the welded joint that bears most of the load. I'm going to the adding those gussets to my new QA1 LCA's regardless of the improved welding. As far as voiding my warranty, even the CAP arms lasted well over a year, so I'm not worried about it.

[73restomod]

Good to know, like I said I was just recalling from the article, after 2 years it gets fuzzy lol.  I had heard about CAPS issues from others as well, most stemming from QC. I also can tell where you could further gusset and box the end, after looking mine over.

[72bluNblu]

Exactly. You can see two issues in the picture I posted. The first, the cracked weld, is obvious. What is less obvious is the distortion to the plate at the top. The stock gusset there forced the plate concave at the top. There's a good 3/4" available between the end of the box and where the lever comes through on the top and where the adjuster bolt needs room on the bottom, I plan to box both sections. That should add strength the the corner with the weld on the bottom, and back up the factory gusset on top. I doubt the top plate would have deformed without the cracked weld, but hey, why not.

[73restomod]

Yeap, those gussets will definitely help by boxing the excess space after the adjuster arm. I agree they are not necessary, but when you plan to lean on it hard why not make it as strong as possible, and the weight would be negligible. I will TIG mine in and post up photos.

[72bluNblu]

Here are mine. Gussets were added top and bottom, and I also welded the corner joint (where my old CAP set failed) from the backside as far in as I could reach with the torch before adding the gussets. Yeah, my TIG welding skills are a little rusty, I don't get enough practice to run perfectly straight nickled beads all the time. They're plenty strong though...