Aftermarket A Arms – How’d it work out for you?

[SDCoronet]

Hi Guys,

I saw David (1970 RT) is selling his aftermarket A Arms.

Can you guys tell me, in your experience, how specifically did aftermarket A arms affect your steering characteristics? What about the different brands and styles out there?

My car is a 67 with orig power steering.

Thanks

 

[540 XRAM]

I put the QA1 arms on my '62 and ended up getting +5 degrees of caster with camber at -1 for drag racing. It had tons of adjustment over the originals.

 

[SDCoronet]

I am mostly asking about regular street driving, specifically, how exactly did handling change from stock?


I ask because on my car, when coming out of a turn, the steering wheel wont go back to center on its own like in every other modern car I have driven. My (limited) understanding is that additional caster is required to solve this. Do these A arms solve this problem? If they do help, by how much?

 

[WileE]

You need pos caster for that. Since I installed them on my current car, it's the first thing I would do on any other car I got.

 

[540 XRAM]

I am mostly asking about regular street driving, specifically, how exactly did handling change from stock?


I ask because on my car, when coming out of a turn, the steering wheel wont go back to center on its own like in every other modern car I have driven. My (limited) understanding is that additional caster is required to solve this. Do these A arms solve this problem? If they do help, by how much?

The steering wheel wont return to center because you have no positive caster. I bet it wanders down the road and follows every crack or ridge in the freeway too. For a regular street car I would put 3-4 degrees of caster in the front end and it will drive awesome. The QA1 a arms will do this, or you could get away with a set of the Moog offset upper bushings. I rebuilt my car with all new stock replacement parts and on the alignment rack we couldn't get any positive caster. I think the original alignment specs for an early b body was -1/2 degree for manual steering and +1/2 degree for power steering. With my stock stuff all rebuild we couldn't even get the +1/2 degree. I put the QA1 arms on and we could get anything we wanted. Do it! It will make your car drive night and day different! Also make sure you have a good alignment shop that will take the time to get it where you want it, and then do a road test and put it back on the rack to make it perfect. Its worth the time spent to make it right!