Hmmmm Nice.

[Water Boy]

Before (extreme control arm/tie rod angle, tie rod in stock down pointing position)


Aftter level arms, no extreme angle, excellent handling


notice the balljoint is now pointing up, that is PMW spacers and tie rod flip kit,

[Jarred]

The A arms have a spacer under them do they??

Never heard of that before. Heard about the tie rod flip kits though.

[Oneofthegreats]

Yep.

They are tie-rod arm flip kit's which requires drilling & a new tapered bush & also the Ball joint extension kit's.

Valver has the same type of ball joint kit's fitted to his mk1.

It's to eliminate bump steer.

[WABIT]

i had a chat with my old man about this.... he was sayin something like it could be unsafe and could be weaker than orig setup? could this be true?

dom

[Oneofthegreats]

i had a chat with my old man about this.... he was sayin something like it could be unsafe and could be weaker than orig setup? could this be true?

dom

It can be if the material's used aren't upto scratch!

The ball joint extension's I read about are made out of some extremely tough stuff, as the bloke said it was a pain to machine.

I'm sure preeny could tell you more about what should be used.

[Preen59]

It can be if the material's used aren't upto scratch!

The ball joint extension's I read about are made out of some extremely tough stuff, as the bloke said it was a pain to machine.

I'm sure preeny could tell you more about what should be used.

Quite true.

Mild Steel would NOT be an option. I'd use 4140 or possibly 4340. 4340 is pretty tough to machine, but you can do it.. I don't have too much trouble but i'd much prefer to be machining 4140.

Both these steels are pre hardened and tempered and are extremely strong. The absolute best to make this kind of equipment from (readily available..).

If the bloke said it was a pain, i'd say it was 4340 or EN26 (The stuff Terry Sainty makes his Billet Top Fuel crankshafts from).

The main thing would be that you ensure you have no sharp corners, so you want a radius in every shoulder. This may mean that you will have to reduce the diameter in the corner (if what ever butting up against it does not have clearance to allow for it) to allow for the radius, but it is far stronger because it eliminates a potential crack point.

I hope that makes sense. Let me know if you want more info. Hell, I might even do a drawing for you!

[rayray086]

Are those pictures at the same ride height? It looks like the "after" picture is of a higher sitting vehicle than the "before", which to me isn't really a fair comparison when looking at the control arms.

I can appreciate the tie-rod flip though - does the knuckle-section where the tie-rod threads through need to be bored out, or does the tie-rod flip kit cater for that? I've looked at it on my Mk3 and the angles are off so you wouldn't be able to thread it through unless the hole was bored out a little.

[pepperwhite]

Where did you buy these?

I have seen them on vortex one time and sure there would be a few people here who would love their roll centers above the road..

very nice mod.

[Valver.]

Mine were made by Performance Machine Works in the US. They are bloody expensive, but not the sort of thing you want to fail.

They're only made in 17 and 19mm spec, so you need at least late model hub carriers, which aren't the easiest thing to come by at the end of the day.

[Water Boy]

Yeah I got this off Vortex but they are the same height cars that run the same wheel specs.

[rayray086]

That's incredible, that's a huge reduction in the angle in which the control arm sits... any links to these products?

I've seen others achieve a similar geometry by raising the strut towers in order to run their Golfs low but still maintain parallel control arms... a bit more extreme!

[Retired]

I like the look of them when they are at the stock angle with the sump a few cm off the ground... but thats just me

[Dan]

I've seen others achieve a similar geometry by raising the strut towers in order to run their Golfs low but still maintain parallel control arms... a bit more extreme!

Raising the perches does not change the geometry of the tie rod or control arms to allow them to be parallel. I think it is done for different reasons.

[Preen59]

Raising the perches does not change the geometry of the tie rod or control arms to allow them to be parallel. I think it is done for different reasons.

Yeah it stops you from bottoming out your shocks. Means you don't have to go to shorter dampers if you want the car quite low (WITH suspension travel).

[gtimk5]

I raised the towers on my old golf 30m/m and a customers as well and it does alter the angles. I did it to stop the dreadful bottoming out of the shocks in the mk1. I bent a few struts and damaged valves in the bottom of Konis too many times in the early days of mk1s. Bottoming out shocks do not make for good handling either.
Andrew