Who makes great upper A-Arms that fit for a 1978 corvette.
What I am looking for is
1. Strong enough to work for Road Track driving with Poly Bushings
2. Easy to adjust alignment without shims.

Currently Installed in the car is the
VBandp Street & Slalom Kit 1978-79

 

Hi cagotzmann,

Nice to see another Canadian on the forum, and another Albertan for that matter. At any rate to your questions about A-Arms, I have VBandP Tubular offset A-arms with the steel cross-shaft but I haven't installed them on my car yet. I'm not sure if these would be strong enough for Road/Track driving, as Ricky Berg has advised on this forum that his VB&P A-Arms bent from racing. However, I won't be racing my car on a regular basis so I think I will be fine.

With that in mind Ricky Berg installed SPC A-arms on his car and is currently using those A-arms in a racing type installation. If you intend to race your car regularily then SPC might be a good option. Also, from the looks of the SPC A-arms they are very adjustable as per your requirements.

Hope this helps.

 

Been using SPC a-arms for several years at HPDE's. Never had a problem with them. Purchased them through Savitski Classic & Custom. I also had them install longer ball joints to improve the geometry while I was at it.

http://scandc.com/new/catalog/15

Not the best pics, but you get the idea.

 

Yes that is what I am looking for SPC A-arm. Now to see if anyone in Canada carries them or as usual. Order them from the US. I would like to have a 2007 Z06 for the track but there is not enough room in the garage for 3 corvette's. I would like to sell my stock 1978, but I might just update the 1978 for better track use. NOt as much fun as the 2010 GS, but with a few suspension adjustments, new motor / trans, it maybe as much fun as the 2010 GS.

Thanks...

 

Thanks looks great. What ball joints did they install ?

 

Hi cagotzmann,

I believe that JB's Power Centre in Edmonton should be able to get them for you. They show them as A-arms from Specialty Products Company, but they don't specifically say they have them for C3 corvettes.

However, I expect they could order them in if they handle the A-arms for other vehicles from SPC. Hope that helps you out. Let me know how it goes as I may want to upgrade to these A-arms in the future if the VB&P units don't work out for me.

Thanks

 

They have two levels- Street and Race! I think Summit only sells the Street, but you can special order thru them the Race. The Race ones are actually cheaper. These are what I run also on my C2 race car!

The second choice would be the stock arm with Guldstrand sold solid bushings and slotted offset Moog shafts with the arms reinforced gusseted welded with plates.

The third choice would be the Global West arms with their del-um bushings, but no adjustability, but more castor is built in. The Owner used to race Corvette's back in the day so he understands.

 

i have no experience with the c3 arms but, i will be going to global west. i have used their products before and are very high quality nearly indestructible products

 

They offer longer ball joints with their "stage 1" arms now. They've changed the arms and names since I purchased them. I have all steel pivot points instead of the delrin bushings.

I believe the ball joints were 3/4" longer, but I can't find my paperwork right now to find out. I would just give them a call and see what they are offering. 1/2 or 3/4 should be an improvement to the geometry. I went this route because it was ALOT easier than cutting and moving the pivot point down which is what the race cars use to do. I think it was Guildstrand who showed this in one of his articles. It basically improves the roll center of the front suspension.

 

stock car parts guy Ed Howe (Howe racing) sells a replacement upper ball joint with longer shafts. I like the Global West t-arm spherical joint bushing kit over what Guldstrand sells but am not a fan of the Del-Alum a-arm bushings, Moog offset shafts with bronze bushed solid bushings in my factory a-frames.

 

That's what I have in my SPC a-arms. Really nice ball joints

 

What did you do to allow for a bump stop. I assume the old bump stop pads dont do anything since there is nothing to bump against.

 

While I didn't vintage race a Corvette, I did race against a lot of them for a number of years, and every serious C2/C3 Corvette race car that I've ever looked at had stock upper control arms fitted. (To me anyway)this made and still makes perfect sense- the upper control arms on s C3 Corvette (or any 1960's/1970's GM car or truck for that matter) are essentially unloaded. The only serious loads that they would have to absorb in a racing environ would be under hard braking where the aft mounting bolt would be loaded in tension and the ball joint in shear, with a kind of twisting load on the arm itself, but if you look at how they're made they're plenty strong for that. That's why the racers were all using them. The lower arms are a whole different story-they practically bear the entire weight of the front of the car, the balljoints are constantly loaded in tension, the inner shaft bolts are loaded in tension, there is tension on the pivot points constantly, shear under braking, shear on the balljoints in cornering. If any part of the car's suspension requires beefing up for road racing it would be those lower arms IMHO, but from what I've observed all the racers I'd ever been associated with were using the stock stuff, just with hard bushings where they could use them. Otherwise it was pretty much standard road race equipment-real stiff springs, good shocks like Konis or Bilsteins, etc , and a big fat sway bar with solid mounts to keep it flat.

Of course, this doesn't really address the non-shim adjustability issue, but once you've settled on camber/caster settings for track vs. street use you can swap those out almost as readily as adjusting Heim ends...

Not as pretty or glamorous as all that CNC'd, TIG welded, powder coated, tubular gee-whiz stuff, but it works, and you then have extra $$$ to spend on things that really make it go faster or stop better...