Control arms on sale

[Wolf]

Just found this at Summit:

http://store.summitracing.com/partdetail.asp?part=33343

Complete set of lower and upper rear control arms for Mustangs for $250. Most of the sets I see are just lowers for that price.

[SVOPaul]

Those are standard replacement arms and despite Summit's claim, do not "reconfigure" the suspension geometry...that is all marketing hype.

These arms are pretty much the same as the MAC rear control arms set which retails for $249.50 except the MAC ones have the added benefit of grease fittings so that you can keep the poly bushings lubed.

This style arm is a great replacement for stock and does make a difference in handling because of the poly bushings, I run them on my car.

For price, I can sell the MAC arms for $219 but need to order them as I do not stock them.

You have to watch Summit....they play the pricing game...just like Walmart. Some things are a very good deal but others are not...that is how they make their money. Sell one thing at or below cost and raise the price on others and market them so that you think you are getting a good deal.

The arms you see for $250 for just lowers are most likely adjustable arms.

Just some FYI to keep you armed with information....

[Wolf]

I'm just tired of the back end feeling squishy for a couple minutes after I take hard corners/slide. That would likely be my control arm bushings?

[svono50]

Wolf, I would have to agree with your diagnosis. Over the years the rubber in our control arms has turned to jello, which doesn't help performance in any way. Replacing the arms will help, but be careful and don't over do the poly bushings in back. I would suggest running poly bushings in all 4 lower arm points and only 2 in the upper axle housing with replacement stock arms that retain rubber bushings.

A few years ago I replace all 8 rear bushings with poly units and found an unpleasant surprise, snap oversteer. What I mean by "snap oversteer" is you make a hard turn then at some point in the turn your a** ends up leading the way or you make a dramatic 360 degree swing that scares the c*** out of your a**! I did some reading to find out what the heck happened and found that having poly bushings in all 8 rear control arm points is a "no-no" in Mustang road-racing/auto-x circles. The way the Mustang's rear suspension works is the upper and lower control arms move in different planes. Simply put, the bushings help compensate for the mismatch. If you put in stiff poly bushings your rear suspension will bind in a corner and cause the tires to break loose.

I now have only 6 poly bushings (all 4 lower points and 2 in the upper axle housing) and haven't had any "snap oversteer" since. I replaced my boxed/poly uppers with some stock units before the 2001 Reunion and had no issues on the auto-x track. At 2002's Reunion I ran the road course and the rear suspension behaved itself very nicely. Just my $0.04.

[SVOPaul]

Ted is correct with his post....but I use poly in all the control arms and replace the axle housing bushings with new rubber ones...never had the binding issue in any of my cars with this setup.

[dryden3]

snap

sound interesting about the break loose thought but where did you get your info from on the rear end of the mustang I would think by putting all urethane bushings in except two would cause a lot of force to be applied to those two rubber bushing in turn allowing them to wear out faster. I would like to know if you are not racing your stang and just driving it as a daily drive would the urethane bushing be fine because I am going to change the bushings I had a friend that had a 86 mustang he drove with all urethane and it was a daily driver and said it handled very well.

[SVOeric]

I know I wouldn't want to be hitting a exit ramp (normal driving for me) and have the back end jump out ....