The Mustang Forum for Track & Racing Enthusiasts

Taking your Mustang to an open track/HPDE event for the first time? Do you race competitively? This forum is for you! Log in to remove most ads.

  • Welcome to the Ford Mustang forum built for owners of the Mustang GT350, BOSS 302, GT500, and all other S550, S197, SN95, Fox Body and older Mustangs set up for open track days, road racing, and/or autocross. Join our forum, interact with others, share your build, and help us strengthen this community!

Front Lower Control Arm Needs Replacing

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Boone

Professional Thread Killer
The ball joints on my 14 year old Mustang GT have given up. I need replacements quickly since I am running the Roval in Charlotte in four days. I believe the minimum upgrade is the GT500 arms. As I understand it, the GT500 arms come with nylon bushings instead of rubber. Edit: stamped arms are stiffer as well.

Second step up is the Steeda arms with extended ball joints. These appear to be the GT500 arms with swapped out ball joints. My car is lowered ~1.5" with coilovers, and, as I understand it, the extended ball joints correct the roll centers. I'm not sure what effect this will have on the alignment, but I have Max MoSport C/C plates, so I assume I can get things back where I want them.

The next step I see is fabricated arms from BMR. More money, but are they worth it? Would you suggest going "adjustable" to get the heim joint? I think I'm going to stop one short of this one to lower my maintenance burden and preserve NVH.

I think I just talked myself into the Steeda arms, so time to call to see how quickly I can get them. Comments are still appreciated, because my work here is never done.
 
Last edited:

Grant 302

basic and well known psychic
Or order a set of the Howe tall ball joints and have the collar tack welded in your current set. Depends what you want to do with the rear bushings.

See Hatter's thread on his failed BMR arms and you can see why I never liked those for road race use.
 

Boone

Professional Thread Killer
It's nice to have a Mustang parts source on the east coast. I just purchased the Steeda Boss arms. The "standard" Steeda arms come with rubber bushings in lieu of the hydraulic stock units. I upgraded to extended ball joints (19mm) and urethane bushings. It's a good compromise between street and track. Ended up costing me over $500 with the shipping, but I'll have them in my hands by noon tomorrow. I'm curious to see how camber and toe are affected by tightening up the connection points.

There's no going back after this since the spindle will be drilled from 18mm out to 19mm.

Also, I need to call Steeda back and ask how high the ball joint is extended, and does this require a corresponding adjustment to my bump steer? Any thoughts from the geniuses here? I don't want to get to my track day this weekend and have issues. Charlotte's Roval is full of walls.
 

Boone

Professional Thread Killer
I don't have measurements on the location of the tie rod heim joint from a reference point on the bumpsteer shaft. All the info I see says to terminate the tie rod so it is in the same horizontal plane as the lower A arm. I'll make sure to get it close before the alignment. If I feel like there's any sign of bumpsteer, I'll look into plotting a chart through the range of motion on the suspension.

Let me know if I'm not on the right path. Death sucks, and wadding up my car just may be worse.
 

Grant 302

basic and well known psychic
If the car is okay now and you lower the tie rods by ~1/2", it should still be 'okay'...in the sense that you are maintaining similar geometry. Checking it would be good and getting it zero is 'ideal', but I like a little toe-out under compression. Helps the car turn better in low speed corners. Just my personal preference.

Getting the arms near parallel works to some extent, but I'd want to understand how it behaves and at least get a rough plot.
 
179
309
Utah
I had the GT500 arms on my car with urethane bushings and the FR500S tie rod ends, which was the setup on the FR500S I believe. After three years one of the ball joints became loose and I installed the Steeda ball joints. It did change the bump steer to the point where I noticed it in tire wear. So I purchased the Steeda bump steer kit and went to work trying to measure the bump steer the right way, no spring on the front so you can run it through the travel and measure the toe through the range. It was time consuming, but I learned a lot and it made a big difference in tire wear and corner response. Definitely worth it.
 

captdistraction

GrumpyRacer
1,954
1,698
Phoenix, Az
Just a quick warning, I've had real bad luck with those arms. The balljoints wouldn't last on the street or track, they'd wear out prematurely. Same with the bushings once I started tracking the car more often.

They'll replace the parts after complaining, but just be vigilant. I've since moved onto the 302S solution after struggling with those arms, then adding howe joints and replacing the steeda bushings with prothane (made a bad situation worse), then went through opmustang to get the 302S arms and all my front LCA woes were solved. Its a lot more money, but I could own several sets of the 302S arms after all the trouble the steeda ones caused me.
 

Boone

Professional Thread Killer
Now you tell me!!:( I just finished up my alignment, and I must say, the car feels great during a brief street test. We'll see how it goes on track this Friday. I'll keep an eye out for any issues that may come up down the road. Hopefully, I'll have a better experience than you did.
 

ChrisM

Mostly harmless.
1,180
1,419
Exp. Type
HPDE
Exp. Level
3-5 Years
South Carolina
Now you tell me!!:( I just finished up my alignment, and I must say, the car feels great during a brief street test. We'll see how it goes on track this Friday. I'll keep an eye out for any issues that may come up down the road. Hopefully, I'll have a better experience than you did.

Boone, I've had the Steeda ball joints on for a few track days without issue, HOWEVER, I do plan to replace them with the same stuff Chris mentioned just because his is not the first horror story I've heard.
 

captdistraction

GrumpyRacer
1,954
1,698
Phoenix, Az
I went through 3x sets of the balljoints and 2x sets of the arms and bushings.

The good news is this: you can always install the Howe joints on them (we found that you couldn’t replace the steeda balljoints as the press fit was worn after you press them out) and you can upgrade them to the 302s bushing set down the road if it becomes an issue.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Boone, I second the stuff that captdistraction said. Had Steeda balljoints and they ended up wearing out. Made itself very known during braking (insane shudder through the steering wheel). This is what they looked like before I removed them.

I now have Howe balljoints with the sleeves welded in and Prothane bushings.

I went through 3x sets of the balljoints and 2x sets of the arms and bushings.

The good news is this: you can always install the Howe joints on them (we found that you couldn’t replace the steeda balljoints as the press fit was worn after you press them out) and you can upgrade them to the 302s bushing set down the road if it becomes an issue.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


What issues did you have with the Prothane bushings? That's what I'm using now and love them so far. Can't stand up to the abuse?
 

Boone

Professional Thread Killer
I'll keep an eye on the ball joints. I hate the feeling of impending doom, but it is what it is for the time being. I wasn't overly pleased with the handling of my car. It felt like the front end was chattering during long sustained turns (most of the infield at CMS Roval), so I'll be taking a long hard look at the bumpsteer to see if I'm getting dynamic alignment issues.
 

TMO Supporting Vendors

Latest posts

Buy TMO Apparel

Buy TMO Apparel
Top