Project - Hip Replacement -

[CrazyTalkSVT]

I started this project a little over a year ago and have been dragging my butt on it ever since. Finally made some pretty good headway.

I'm lacking in the "stock photos" department so these first couple I had to borrow.

This is from Tousley and we are looking at the #4 bar in which the sway bar bolts to:

I borrowed this from KyleQ (put my own arrows on):

Some how it has become "the norm" to just apply boxing plates to the bottom of these arms. This is a huge waste of time if you end the boxing plate right at the end tabs. If you have knowledge of stress risers or stress concentration you can understand the simple concept.

So why redesign the arm completely?

Coming from a stock setup side, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. From a performance side or air ride side it makes tons more sense. Safety was a major concern of mine. Airing my car up and down puts my suspension through a very broad range of motion. It becomes drastic one way (up) and drastic the opposite way (down). There is no way around it...it's the nature of the beast.
So, the rear sway bar attaches to these arms and through the chassis range of motion, the sway bar has to articulate in conjuction with the arm. The bushing(#15) design between the sway bar dog bone(#14) was not designed to take up that much range. Because of the bushing maxing out and still having more distance up/down to contend with, the sway bar starts to pull/twist on that stock lateral arm.
The fear of the bar being twisted one way only to be pulled and twisted the other way puts the yield strength of the arm in jeopardy. So until I get these arms done, there is no rear sway bar for me.

Design picture:

This is the prototype which allowed me to mock-up for clearance issues and check for any binding:

Then we have the money load :laugh::

This is as far as I am now. The bars are fully polished and need to be sent off to be clear anodized. I misplaced my new dog bones that I bought from Tousley. I need to track them down or buy new ones again. DOH! :blackeye: Then hopefully I will have some assembled pictures. Until then, have a good 4th!

Cheers!

 

[blu_fuz]

Damn you! :drool:

Those look great.

 

[imnotacop420]

Ill take 2!
:drool:

 

[Beans]

holy moly

 

[imnotacop420]

are you going to run the ES bushings too?

 

[gameOVER]

sweet Jesus

 

[LocoLobo]

i'll take a set also.

 

[ZeroHour]

Awesome work!

Btw, where do you work? haha Do you have access to CNC machines? Own a shop? Friend that owns a shop?

 

[3xzsucof]

Awesome work!

Btw, where do you work? haha Do you have access to CNC machines? Own a shop? Friend that owns a shop?

because were interested. haha

 

[CrazyTalkSVT]

I own a shop that has design capabilities, manual lathe, manual mill, fabrication, and media blasting as a background. Then I have access to a shop because of a friend, that is big into the high end/endless possibilities of the casting world. They have multiple CNC machines.

 

[ZeroHour]

So are those cast than machined? or just straight machined from one large block of metal? I would imagine machined, but if they could be cast I would take a rare finish set

 

[KingpinSVT]

Some how it has become "the norm" to just apply boxing plates to the bottom of these arms. This is a huge waste of time if you end the boxing plate right at the end tabs. If you have knowledge of stress risers or stress concentration you can understand the simple concept.

So for my own curiosity, why aren't both ends on your arms solid? It's been too long since I installed my boxed arms, I really don't remember if its an install limitation or what. . .

If these are that much better than plain ol' boxed arms then :drool: I remember my setup being a huge improvement over stock. I also did TCAs, boxed subframe, rear sway, etc at near the same time. The whole package was chub worthy if not more.

Beautiful parts! Start making these for 8th gen Civics please.

 

[dubsac2]

Bling Bling! How much travel do you expect to safely achieve w/these? How much do you get now?

 

[CrazyTalkSVT]

So are those cast than machined? or just straight machined from one large block of metal? I would imagine machined, but if they could be cast I would take a rare finish set

They were cut down from 6061 T6 aluminum bar stock and then the tooling marks were sanded and polished out for that high gloss look. *BLING*
We did toss the idea around of machining them from the tooling aluminum that is a poured casting plate. I think they refer to it as M1 aluminum. It has better machining characteristics and holds tolerances better, but I didn't have the cash money to buy a huge sheet of it.

These bars have been in the works for a little over a year as I said before. When I had the prototypes handy I put a post up about them in the Suspension forum, which quickly turned into a nag fest about them having no camber adjustment. From the negative response I just assumed I would be the only one to run them because they do benefit me (as I explained) and didn't feel the need to go back to the drawing board to engineer camber adjustment so that people can really screw their handling up and point the finger at me.

Don't get me wrong though. I am very interested in making these for others who feel they can benefit from them or even if it's just so they can say "hey, check this out!". If enough people are down for a pair (Cougar owners as well) then having a mold made and casting them in aluminum would ultimately be the best route both in cost effectiveness as well as productive speed.

If there are track stars out there that really need camber adjustment built into the bars so they have more options when it comes to track day then PM me and we can get something going. However, the likelihood that they would be made from aluminum is very slim.

 

[elraido]

 

[CrazyTalkSVT]

So for my own curiosity, why aren't both ends on your arms solid? It's been too long since I installed my boxed arms, I really don't remember if its an install limitation or what. . .

If these are that much better than plain ol' boxed arms then :drool: I remember my setup being a huge improvement over stock. I also did TCAs, boxed subframe, rear sway, etc at near the same time. The whole package was chub worthy if not more.

Beautiful parts! Start making these for 8th gen Civics please.

The way the arm bolts to the spindle is somewhat a limiting factor. Could they have been made even more stout on the tabs side? Sure! The added cost for thicker billet would be a kick in the pants though. I felt this design would suffice for my needs. There are machined stainless inserts for the tabs side which is not pictures yet, but they serve multiple purposes. For one aluminum riding on the cast steel spindle wouldn't be good. Another purpose is so that there is more surface area being pulled in when the bolts are tightened to the spindle. I'll have pictures later to show this.

Bling Bling! How much travel do you expect to safely achieve w/these? How much do you get now?

It's not so much that I'm looking for more travel. I think my rear struts only generate 4.5" - 5" of usable stroke, which isn't very much. It's the maxing out of the sway bar bushings on the low side and the twisting it induces on the factory arm that is the problem. On the "up" side of the suspension travel it doesn't push nearly as hard because all the way up is pretty close to stock ride height.
Over time, being twisted hard one way only to be thrown back to a neutral position is very stressful on those thin stamped arms. I couldn't say how long they would or wouldn't last. I just don't want to find out cruising down the highway at 70mph.

 

[qbcsvt]

I would like to know if these will be available to the enthusiasts group? In raw without polishing would be great as well to save some money. Several of us are interested, price range for making such a thing?

 

[frinesi2]

This is pretty awesome. Out of curiosity, did you do any force analysis to design these, or just base it off of experience/research? Also, wouldn't cast aluminum cause a problem down the road with fatigue cracks and what not?

 

[yamaha racer 686]

I own a shop that has design capabilities, manual lathe, manual mill, fabrication, and media blasting as a background. Then I have access to a shop because of a friend, that is big into the high end/endless possibilities of the casting world. They have multiple CNC machines.

i literally despised learning that program in college that your using to design those arms. i like inventor the best for my designing. they look awesome man.

 

[CSVT#49]

i literally despised learning that program in college that your using to design those arms. i like inventor the best for my designing. they look awesome man.

HA! I've had to learn Solidworks, Pro Engineer, Pro/E Wildfire, Catia, and AutoCAD. All that and I only use Pro/E Wildfire now... well I guess I have Solidworks at home.