Southside machine upper front arms? tall ball joints? need help picking parts

[Silent viewer]

I am looking at the Southside machine upper control arms right now, they are on eBay for 165 dollars with free shipping. For about 100 dollars more they will include 1” taller upper ball joints and they call it a stage 1 kit, and then a stage 2 kit that includes .5” taller lower ball joint. so I started reading about the advantages of the tall ball joints and it seems that you need to be careful with exact combinations that that the upper control arms are usually shorter to accommodate the changes in ball joints height. Right now I have a pair of stock arms with poly bushings sitting there ready to bolt on but they need to be cleaned up and painted, I don’t have much time to do that right now so I was thinking that now is the time to just go ahead and do the upper control arms. So I guess I have 3 options here if I buy south sides control arms, arms only, arms and uppers or arms and both upper/lowers. And if I buy their ball joints is the 1” taller upper and .5” lower the best option? is one or the other only better? I guess I need to figure out bang for buck here, what’s the best for the most reasonable amount of cash? I also read that there was a 1” taller lower ball joints that helped correct steering geometry by raising the steering arm. There is allot of stuff here to think about and want to buy the right parts the first time. can someone point me in the right direction??

 

[454cutlass]

I have a set of these
http://www.ubmachine.com/uppermetric.html

Got help from a member on here to get exactly what I needed. Believe it was pontiacgp

 

[pontiacgp]

If you have the front end together take a look at the tie rod angle and see how close it is being parallel to the lower control arm angle. You want to have them parallel to stay away from bump steer. A taller lower ball joint will decrease the angle of the tie rod so check to see if that would help or worsen the discrepancy between the two angles. The advantage of a tall lower and upper ball joint is to get the upper control angled up instead of the stock position of being angled down. When the upper control arm is pointing down when you compress that wheel the top of the wheel follows the arc so it goes out which is positive chamber before it goes in which is negative camber. You want the negative chamber, not positive. The negative camber keeps more of the tread of the tire on the ground. If you look at a stock set up the outside of the front tires wear out before the rest of the tire and that is caused by the positive camber. For the length of the upper control arm if you use the tall lower and tall upper the stock 8" length of the upper control arm should be good. I have a screw in 1/2 tall lower ball joint and the F body tall spindle with a stock length upper ball joint and the 8" upper control fits without too many shims. The cross shaft on the tubular A arms (which sure look like UB Machine A arms) can be turned and adjusts the upper 1/4" For the camber settings I have mine set at negative 1º

UMI would have more info on the front end set up. They test their Green Machine and have a little more in the R & D budget than I have and a lot more qualified guy and gals working on it....

 

[UMI Sales]

There's a lot of info needed to determine if taller ball joints is the way to go for a particular car and purpose.

To simplify it a bit: Taller ball joints in upper A-arms achieve more negative camber which sticks the car harder when cornering.
Taller ball joints in the lower A-arm lowers the ride height and can "possibly" help if your car has bump steer issues.

Without knowing what your main use of the car is it's kind of hard to recommend what would work best for you.

Many of our customers that just street the car and want the best "bang for the buck" go with tall upper ball joints and standard lowers.

The best thing might be to give us a call and explain in more detail what your application for the car will be.

We will be glad to explain to you what will work best for you.

Craig

 

[ssn696]

The best thing might be to give us a call and explain in more detail what your application for the car will be.
We will be glad to explain to you what will work best for you.
Craig

In the era of mergers and acquisitions between the big-name aftermarket parts companies, this kind of customer service is what disappears. Thanks, Craig, for taking the time to surf the Forum and make a helpful post for the benefit of all.