Hey all,
Wasnt sure where to put this, but figured "corner carving" guys would be the most interested. These are adjustable strut rods that I completed this afternoon. All 4130 tubing(USA MADE), 4130 teflon lined heim joint, 4130 weld-in tube adapters, grade 8 hardware, etc. I personally feel like it would be hard to build a better product to accomplish this task, but I would like to hear everyone's opinions and ideas. What do you like? Dislike? Improvements? Let me know.
Thanks.

For reference purposes, how are these different from the Hotchkiss bars? These look thicker...

They look great!

They are not thicker, however the diameter is up slightly from most others I have seen on the market. Most others are 7/8" O.D., while these are 1". Most others are also simply threaded tubing, where as these have machined inserts welded into them. This puts the thicker material where its needed(around the threads), but allows the rest of the piece to be a thin wall, hollow piece of tubing...cutting down on weight. Thanks for the compliment. Looking forward to everyone's opinion on these.

Very good post jcc. I like your way of thinking and may use it in the future to address the "problem and solution". I have been around the automotive industry, and especially drag racing all of my life. It is not an unknown that the factory did what they needed to do to get the job done, make the ride as best they knew how, as well as keep the cost down.
The original design implicates rubber bushings, which for one, wear out over time and can become dried out and/or brittle. More so than that, and the main reason behind the strut rods I have built is the fact that the big flat rubber bushings supplied by the factory greatly reduce vertical movement. We all know a suspension setup travels in a vertical plane(or almost vertical if you want to be technical). With a rod running horizontally, which is used to locate the lower control, and that control arm moving vertically, one can easily see how the rubber bushings are not the best idea. Do they work? Absolutely...are they the best option? Far from it.
By utilizing a heim joint on the front mount, the vertical movement is improved greatly. This is the main consensus behind the rods I built...to simply utilize a component that is meant to travel in a certain plane, rather than tightening down rubber bushings and letting the bind up every time the control arm cycles.
Some people have talked about increasing caster by shortening these strut rods, in essence pulling the lower ball joint forward and increasing caster. On another note, some have expressed their concerns with this idea and mention it would place a bind on the lower control arm pivot(true), and cause premature lower bushing wear(also true). I see both sides here...would it really hurt anything? Probably not. Is it 110% correct? Probably not. I feel making the strut rod slightly shorter would add to the caster of the suspension geometry, and not be too much of a side load on the control arm pivot. Moderation is a good thing...so it would be up to the consumer to decide how much he/she wanted to mess with this geometry.

I will agree the strength in this design is probably more than it needs to be. I would much rather build a product in this nature, rather than something I had to worry about. By no means am I saying these are indestructible, but they are much stronger than previous renditions of this same project.

Hopefully this answered your questions...I kind of like getting real feedback and having someone put me on the spot. Keep the opinions coming...thanks guys!!

Hard to tell from pics since we cant see how the end on the radius arm exactly attaches... but, how do you adjust it? What i mean is, can you back off the adjusting nut and adjust on the car - or do you have to remove one end adjust? (former would imply reverse threaded on one end).

Also - pet peeve of mine... I see lots of people using heim joints and not spending a little extra fro the heim joing seals... greatly improved life. Seals-It is one mfg of them.

Otherwise - looks really beefy, i like it.

Oh yeah - how does the end that attaches to the K-frame look from the front side? I always worry that a non-bushed (solid) attached strut could put more stress on the K-frame where it attaches... I've not seen/heard of a failure there - but I would imagine a plate/washer/etc. to spreadh the load would be beneficial.

I love seeing new stuff like this.

They attach to the control arm with a 5/8" bolt. Both ends of the tube have the inserts welded into them...so the insert is placed against the lower control arm, and then a bolt threads in from the back side. They are both right hand thread...I thought about doing one right and one left hand thread to allow adjustability on the car. However, this would need to have another jam nut which would tighten against the lower control arm. If not, as you shortened the bar, the lower mount would become loose on the control arm(hopefully that makes sense).
I like the idea of the heim seals. These are teflon lined, so it will do a decent job of keeping stuff out of them, but Ill look into the seals. Thanks for that. The front mount...I am undecided on using the aluminum "pucks" like other manufacturers use. I too am not positive I like the idea of a completely solid mount. I was thinking about simply using Poly bushings...they will not be under the same twisting forces as the stock setup, because now the heim joint allows the vertical movement, so the force would not be put against the bushing. On the other hand, it would not positively locate the lower arm, as even the Poly will give a little. Im open to opinions on this aspect especially....

Thanks guys!

They look nice. Well made and beefy. In terms of function, light is good. For me a big benefit of adjustable rods is the ability to tune and adjust without tearing the suspension apart. I really like the RH/LH threads on my set which allow me to adjust in position on car.

I like and use the reily motorsports solid adjustable strut rods.
http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w203/slcalddrag/DSCN0023.jpg

Thanks guys. I appreciate the honest input.

I would like to see someone make a tube upper arms that will top out and hit the frame before the balljoint goes into a bind and limit the suspension travel.

I wish that I could weld as nice as you do.
I've tried and tried, but my skills are slow to improve. I'm thinking of taking a class this summer!
Nice work. Its great to see these new offerings becoming available. My Charger is undergoing some upgrades this year. I've never given much thought to strut rods until now. Thanks for posting.

Thanks for the input guys. Franken...when you're ready, let me know and we'll use your Charger for mock-up for that body style. Wheels up...maybe I am not thinking of something that should be obvious...but where would the upper control hit the frame? Seems to me if the ball joint wasnt the limiting factor, and the TBar or coilover wasnt bottoming out, the upper arm would continue moving upwards until it hits the inner fender? Im probably missing something...just cant figure it out.
Thanks again all! If I can push a few of the strut rods, we'll go right into making fixtures for control arms, and also subframe connectors.

Im not a fan of the teflon lined rod ends, but maybe circle trackin is harder on em than salt sand, road tar, etc!
Looks like a nice product you have there, I had to lathe down some strut rods to get a little extra caster on our b body race car.

I'm curious to know which Heims you prefer as well. These are heat treated and then cryogenically treated, which realigns the molecular structure in the Teflon making it smoother, as well as almost 400x more durable than non-cryo treated Teflon.

Kinda got confused.It is the point of where the wheels leave the ground that I am talking about. The upper arm is limiting my upward suspension travel. I installed a 3/4 inch high bump stop in the stock location so the balljoint won't try to rip its self apart when the wheels leave the ground. If the balljoint angle was alittle different then I could get another inch of upward travel.

Here is a video of the front end of my Dart, it is alittle dark til the car moves. If you stop the video at 38 seconds you can see the tall bump stop the upper arm hits, and that is the point of the balljoint binding. I would like to cut that stop in half for more travel but the ball joint won't allow the extra travel.

http://youtu.be/ux4dEsgBY7E
Next time you are at the track I would like to talk to you!
Thanks Steve

Steve,
I may be at Sac next weekend(2/18) if we can get our Top Sportsman car together for some testing. Thanks for the video. I may be mistaken again but...you said it is limiting your upward suspension travel...but isnt it limiting your downward suspension travel? Although now that I typed that...we could be talking about the same thing in two different ways. Lets rephrase...its limiting your "extension" or "droop" correct? If so, it is very obvious what youre referring to.
On the flip side, if you made arms with the ball joint angled, to help your situation, would you be giving up anything on the compression side of the suspension? Would the ball joints be more prone to bottoming out when the suspension is compressed?
Just thinking out loud here...
How many people are interested in these strut rods?