Leafy

iTrader: (1)

The spacers could easily be aluminum though, its kind of the material of choice.

Failure

Makes sense. What's the magic number here? Looks like it's somewhere around 2", which leaves these off the shelf spacers well short.

I saw this mentioned but thought consensus was reached on welding. Even better, since this would drop the price per sleeve to around $16.

hingstonwm

iTrader: (2)

Add me to the list too. What kind of time frame are you looking at? Not in a hurry just curious.

bbundy

I wouldnt want them as aluminum because Im using that spot for camber adjustment with an eccentric bolt like the V8-r arms have. so I want it not to squish or gall easily. I can quickly and accuratily change rear camber settings without jacking up toe that way while utilizing hub stands and not taking it to a fancy alignment shop.

Leafy

iTrader: (1)

All the more reason to use the aluminum so it would be less likely to have the adjustment slip.

bbundy

Rear upper dosn't have that much load. but I have already squashed steel sleeves with as much clamp load as you can get out of the stock camber bolts.

hi_im_sean

iTrader: (3)

the spacers are and will be aluminum. i used 3/4" 6061 for our spacers.



sorry i didnt go more into depth earlier, i didnt have my notes in front of me. the stock bushing steel insert measures 2.215" long.

the 2 spacers you linked add up to 0.774", plus the bearing... yea its way short. the bore size is right though.

ive never heard of emachineshop, im looking at it now, cool site.



not sure, it really depends on how quickly we get to a target number of buyers and how quickly everyone pays deposits, or whatever. a month doesnt sounds unreasonable, could be 2-3 too though.





i made ours out of aluminum bob, i could have done them out of steel for you if i had known, and i just shipped them out this morning even worse, if you have an eccentric setup, the holes in your arms are larger, so the 3/4" stock i used wont play as nice.

well you want to give em a shot and see if they work? if not ill be glad to make some steel ones for you.

Failure

5mm steel washer x2
16mm aluminum spacer x2
14mm Teflon lined bearing
56mm total = 2.205"

Close enough?

hi_im_sean

iTrader: (3)

i like the way youre thinking, but that bearing is way too small. but yea, 10 thou isnt going to make a huge difference.

im going to take some of your ideas and play around with the options to see how cheap i can get these.

id shy away from any of the bearings you linked. at $3.30 each, how can they be anything decent?

ftjandra

iTrader: (6)

So you're using a stock camber bolt in this location? How many degrees of camber adjustment are you getting?

What about offsetting the holes in the sleeves? Would be a pita to adjust though.

I am still planning on making a set, but will most likely do them in 303 stainless as I have some material sitting around. I only have access to a manual lathe, so I am sure it'll take me at least a few hours to whip out a set.

--Ferdi

Leafy

iTrader: (1)

Theres only 3 bearing options. Aurora, NHBB, or replacing them multiple times a year.

bbundy

Ill give them a shot. Rear upper doesn't have to be that tight maybe it will work. Would be much better if using 7075 which is more like steel in terms of strength. Front lowers is where I have a problem. I go significantly over factory torque spec to keep them from slipping and I have damaged 7/8" steel sleeves there by too much clamp load. Ill probably have to enlarge the hole as well. Stock camber bolts I am using at that location are bigger.

bbundy

Yes using the stock camber bolts. And the V8r arms are setup with slots and tabs to make them work. It isn’t so much the range of camber adjustment it gives. It is the fact that with this meathod of adjustment I can easily and accurately change the rear camber setting in a matter of minutes with the car setting with suspension loaded on a set of FM hubstands in the paddock or maybe even in grid and not worry about screwing up the toe setting.

The worry with aluminum spacers is that they wont handle repeated adjustments too well if I start jacking with the settings a lot.

I used rapid back to back testing of settings to find what works. Found my high hp car likes a boatload of front camber and not so much rear camber. I might even go so far as to change camber for different types of events. Prosolo is much more heavily weighted towards getting a good launch.

Leafy

iTrader: (1)

Bob, how do you get the front camber bolts so tight? I cant even get the box end of my wrench on the nut of the back one next to the chassis. So I just tighten them until I cant get the open end to stay on anymore. Which still gets me to the torque spec of hinnngggggggggggaragghraaerahra. I'm due for new bolts next time I change alignment and the switch to nylocs so the bolts last longer.

bbundy

I use jack handles as cheater bars. I don't know exactly what torque I get them to. I don't use an open end wrench. torque wrench fits everywhere but the aft front lower.
specs from my manual are
forward front lower 69-83 ft lbs
aft front lower 61-76 ft-lbs
rears 54-70

I would guess I'm going to something over 100. forward front lower is the worst. Having grease all over from trying to grease urethane bushings doesn't help. grease works at lowering friction between metal surfaces unlike its rapid complete failure at lubricating urethane effectively.

bbundy

I just had an Idea how to possibly make Urethane bushings 1000X better.

The inner sleeve on my V8R bishings are 7/8”. If I redesign the sleeves splitting them in two pieces machine the center down to ¾” OD I can insert Teflon and oil impregnated bronze sleeve bearing for a ¾” shaft with a 7/8” OD between the urethane and the inner shaft.

McMaster-Carr

Might work better than delrin even because the flexability of the urethane will prevent binding.

Leafy

iTrader: (1)

That probably cant hurt. You can also just make the upper inners with aluminum instead of delrin and use the bronze itself as the inner sleeve. With a precision cut spacer between the two flanges bronze bushings.

bbundy

Looking at it closer I think I would use 3/4" bar for everything accept the inboard lowers. I think they need the 7/8" OD at the ends to provide contact area with the slotted plates of the sub frame so that the things don’t deform and ruin the metal around the slots when torqued enough not to slip. Maybe just use thinner machined 7/8” od spacers at the ends of the ¾” inner sleeve rather than machine it out of one piece though. Standard Teflon/Oil impregnated bronze bushings are 1” long and all the locations are a bit longer than 2” two bushings per location.

I would probably use 316L stainless as it has about twice the yield strength of the mild steel used by the Energy Suspension ones that I have mushroomed the ends on. It’s not that expensive from Onlinemetals.com in small quantities.

bbundy

I dont think the 3/4" 6061 aluminum spacers will work for me. by the time I drill them out for a 12 mm camber bolt and try to clamp them up between slotted adjustment holes they crush the ends way too easily for lack of contact surface area and low yield strenght.

Midtenn

iTrader: (15)

Be careful on using aluminum spacers around spherical bearings. I purchased a name brand panhard rod for my Corolla GT-S (AE86) back in the day that used aluminum spacers. I torqued everything down and didn't see any issues. A few months later the rod end broke because the aluminum had deformed and bound up the rod end. The company I purchased the panhard now uses steel spacers after I found a few other users with the same problem.