The Art of Suspension Tuning: A Deep Dive into Adjustable Upper Control Arms and Alignment

As a car enthusiast, there's nothing quite like the thrill of tweaking your ride to get that perfect balance of performance and handling. One often overlooked but crucial aspect of this process is suspension tuning, specifically adjustable upper control arms. In this article, we'll delve into the world of adjustable upper control arms, explore their benefits, and discuss how they can be used to fine-tune your vehicle's suspension for optimal performance.

**What are Adjustable Upper Control Arms?**

Adjustable upper control arms are a type of suspension component that allows you to adjust the length and camber of the arm to suit your driving style and preferences. These arms are typically installed on the top of the front or rear suspension, and they play a critical role in maintaining proper tire wear, handling, and stability.

**Benefits of Adjustable Upper Control Arms**

So, why would you want to adjust your upper control arms? Well, here are just a few benefits:

* **Improved Ride Height**: By adjusting the length of the upper control arm, you can raise or lower your vehicle's ride height. This allows for better clearance on rough roads and can improve overall stability.

* **Enhanced Corner Balance**: Adjustable upper control arms enable you to fine-tune the camber of your tires, which is critical for maintaining even tire wear and optimal handling.

* **Increased Customization Options**: With adjustable upper control arms, you can experiment with different settings to find the perfect balance between performance and comfort.

**Adjusting the Sway Bar**

One common application of adjustable upper control arms is to adjust the sway bar (also known as a lateral link) to ensure proper clearance. A misaligned sway bar can interfere with the metal itself, which can lead to a host of problems. By trimming the arm down to fit snugly against the sway bar, you can prevent interference and ensure smooth operation.

**Megan Racing Coilovers: A New Era in Suspension Tuning**

We recently upgraded our vehicle's suspension from green MaXpeeding rods coilovers to Megan Racing coilovers. While the new setup was more expensive ($600), we found it to be well worth the investment. The adjustable camber feature allows for precise tuning, and the coilovers match the car better than ever before.

**Alignment: The Final Piece of the Puzzle**

No matter how much you tweak your suspension components, a proper alignment is still essential. We spent time aligning our vehicle with Tanner, an expert in mobile alignment, who helped us fine-tune the settings to achieve optimal grip and performance on the track.

In conclusion, adjustable upper control arms offer a world of customization options for car enthusiasts looking to fine-tune their suspension for better handling and stability. By understanding the benefits and applications of these components, you can unlock your vehicle's full potential and enjoy a more engaging driving experience.

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en- $500 Suspension package versus$3,000 suspension package.Does more expensive mean more better?- Let's find out.- Yeah.- Ooh ah!(upbeat music)- Hey, real quick.I wanna thank our sponsorfor this week, Butcher Box.You know, I've come to appreciatethe simpler things in lifelike a fine cut of grass fed beef,seared to perfection and basted in butter.Oh my goodness.Look at that.Even better served to your loved ones,but haven't been really ableto eat with my loved ones lately.Oh, no, it's so good.This is what my voice sounds like now too'cause it's so good.Thanks Joe.I knew I could count on you, buddy.I'll help you fix your Audi, too.Sorry I broke it.One thing I have beenenjoying is a monthly deliveryof hi quality meats from Butcher Box.I cooked that.They offer monthly subscriptions,delivering flash frozengrass fed fed beef,heritage pork, freerange, organic chicken,and wild caught seafooddirectly to your door.Butcher Box offers four curated box, ooh,four curated box options.Plus my favorite,the custom box where I canchoose exactly what meat I want.Better yet, the subscriptionsare super flexible.Say one month I know Iwon't be cooking a lot,just put the subscription on pauseand start back up whenever, super easy.So, click the link in the descriptionand start your subscription todayand feel good aboutthe meat you're eating.Now, let's get back to the show.We bought two identical Nissan 350Zsand we've been modifyingthem to be fun, daily driversthat you can take to the track.- I could take to the track.- Yeah.- One Z, we call it hi car,gets expensive partsand the other one, called low car,and it gets all the cheap ones.- Then we test them tosee which componentsare actually worth spendingyour hard-earned money on.- We've compared a ton of stuff.Coilovers, brakes,wheels, tires, turbo kits,injectors, seats, roll cages, body kits.Now, we already installedcoilovers on both of our cars.- One of them more than once.- But, there are morecomponents to suspensionthan just springs and shocks.(upbeat music)- Today, we are installing some sway barsand adjustable controlarms on low car from eBay.- And for hi car,we are getting sway bars,front, upper control arms,rear camera arms, rear toearms, and sway bar end links,front and rear.- Yeah.(upbeat music)- The more adjustabilitywe add to the car,the more we can tweak the car's alignment.Big Boys sway bars, like these,are really stiff andwill help keep the carsmore flat in corners.So, none of our Zs have anyfront camber adjustabilityfrom the factory, zero.So, these upper control arms will give usmore sweet, sweet camber thanwe could ever hope to handle.We're gonna look likeRyan Tuerck out there.Just like (grunts).Hopefully our car doesn't blow up.That hasn't happened ina couple years actually.These rear arms give us waymore rear camber adjustability than stock.These rear toe arms also give usa lot of adjustability in rear toe,which Nolan does not have.So, sorry, Charlie.- That's literally because there wasn'ta cheap option for those.Stock it is.- With all of these things combined,we will have completecontrol over our alignment.Complete control.(upbeat music)- So, this is the rear sway bar.It connects the left and rightrear control arms together.Let's say you're taking a right hand turn.The car is gonna load upa lot on the left side.So, the control arm is gonna pull upward,but this sway bar is connectedto the other side of the car.So, it also pulls the rightcontrol arm upward as well,which loads the other side of the car,which helps distributeweight and reduce body roll.This is our new one.I can tell you right now,it's a lot heavier than the old one.The old one is probably hollow.This one I think is justa solid piece of metal.It'll twist a lot less.So, it'll better distribute the forcesbetween the two sides of the car.- These are both adjustable control arms,which means that we have options herefor where we mount our end links.A sway bar is basicallya lever arm, right?So, if you mount your endlink all the way out here,your lever is effectively longerand you get more leverage.It depends on how you want things to act.Like your rear bar,if we go for the most leverage,that'll make our rear endwant to come out a littlebit in the corners.And I like that.A lot of drifters actuallyrun no front sway barand a big old rear swaybar 'cause it helps,freeing the rear endback out (screeching).(upbeat music)- Excuse me, gotta go access some tools.Thanks.(light music)Pretty heavy.- Get big, stay big.Get big, stay big.- This is beefier.- Fear and hi team likes beef.(light music)- So, now we've gotour sway bar installed.We're installing our adjustable end linkswhich is what actuallycouples the sway barto the control arms hereand they are adjustableso you can change the height of themwhich allows you greatercontrol over thingslike your ride height whenyou corner balance a caror if maybe you havesomething that's kind ofin the way of your new, big, old sway bar,you can adjust it up ordown to try to clear it.- If you can see right here on the rail,the sway bar is actuallyinterfering with the metal itself.So, what I'm gonna do isI'm gonna trim that downto make sure that the swaybar can travel all the way upand down without interference.- We have no idea what time it isbecause they won't let us leave the shopuntil we finish the Zs.Send help.- Please.- Send help.It's almost Christmas I think,I think it's almost Christmas.(drills whining)Let's do one of thesexy upper control arms.- Let's do it.Oh, I've been waiting for this day.Old one, new one.Basic overall shape is the same,but we've got these bigadjustment areas on the SPL oneso that we can adjustthe overall length of itwhich in turn adjusts the camber.- So, if we spin these boys out,the control arm gets longerThe wheel goes like that.That's called positive camber.We spin them in, these boys get shorter.That's negative camber, AKASteaz, AKA Ryan Tuerck style.(engine whining)So, with the camberarms for track purposes,you want a little bit of negative camberso when your car goes around aturn, say doing a right hand,the weight will go overthe left tire and be flatand that'll give you the mostgrip you can through a turn,but you don't want toomuch negative camberbecause you'll burn out your rear tiresjust by driving around town.And that's what we did.We drove 3,000 miles withsome nasty camber on thereand we had to replacethe tires pretty muchas soon as we got backbecause they were useless.(light music)Come on, you (drilling).When in doubt, swear at your car more.(light music)- How is everything fitting?- Pretty well?- So, as you might've noticed,we are no longer running thegreen MaXpeedingrods coiloversthat we had from last season.- Ta-da.- Rest in peace, MaXpeedingrods.- That's cause we didn't trust them.So, we replaced them withsome Megan Racing coilovers.They're about $600.So, $400 more than the ones we had.A little more expensivethan lowest of the low,but they're still prettycheap for what you get.They are adjustable for a harshness,which I really enjoy andthey match the car better,which is very cool.(upbeat music)- All right, I'm gonnaGoogle up some torque specs.- We never forget to tighten bolts.(metal clanking)Did we tighten everything?(metal clanking)Nope.- Nope, surely did not.- One thing I need toremember is I don't wanna putthe aftermarket arms straightin and just let it go.I wanna make sure that it's close to OEMthat way when our alignment guy comes,he knows that the car ispretty much where it was stock.Obviously he's gonnatake some measurements,but we just wanna give him asolid platform to start withrather than just messingwith a bunch of stuffthat's all over the place.(light music)- Pretty cool, huh?(light music)All right, so, everything is buttoned up.Everything is cinched down.We've made the upgrades.Now, it's time to get our car aligned.(light music)- So, we spent a bunch oftime and money installinga bunch of adjustable suspension stuff,but that's all worthlessif you don't get a proper alignment.So, that's what we're doing today.There are a few different kindof alignments you can get.Like if you go to just somenormal, old alignment shop,they're gonna give youjust a basic alignmentthat follows the factory specs.What we got going ontoday is our boy, Tanner,who came to us and he'lldo whatever we want.You know, we can specout like a drift specor we're going for gripso we're gonna set the car upto get the most grip possibleso we can crush the track.- Hey guys, I'm Tanner,OC Mobile Alignment.I usually do drift cars and stuff.I've gotten to work withlike RAD DAN and Odi Driftsand stuff like that.So, we're setting this oneup a little bit different.I'm gonna set it up forgrip and see how it goes.- And this is a "Hi Low," almost first.We're actually getting thesame exact alignment treatmentas hi car so we can actuallycompare apples to apples.(light music)- So, there are three basic adjustmentswhen you're talking about alignment.You've got camber which is thetilt of the wheel, this way,toe, which is the tiltof the wheel this way,and caster, which is its relationto where the upper mount for the shock is.So, we can't really adjustcaster, but that's okay.We'll get a good adjustment on toe upfrontand camber all around whichshould be the biggest impactfor us that we can have.- So, you've got like three degreesin the front for camber.Do we wanna lower that?This one is three.Let's push this side in alittle bit to three and a half.- So, right now we areadjusting the upper control arm.Again, this is exactlywhat I was talking about.If you could see the uppercontrol arm right here,you adjust it from the top.It looks kinda cool, you know,when maybe when you see thatpicture on eBay or whatever,you're like, ah, it looks really cool,but this is gonna be a nightmarefor our alignment guy tomorrowbecause the whole car isgonna be up in the air.If you can see right here,you can't really get to those boltswhen the car is gonna be settled.How easy is it to adjust these arms?- Not so easy.You get what you pay for.- So, the clamp on the frontwheel has a laser on itwhich shoots back here and shows uswhere it lands on the rear wheel,which is, we're doing that on both sidesand that's how we canfigure out where our toe isor how to center up our toe.Once you get the laserequal on both sides,that's the center of your toe rangeand you can start adjusting from there.(hammer pounding)- How come you don't zero it out?- Zero?- Yeah.- 'Cause your arm doesn't go that far.You'd have to either pull the lower inor push the upper out.- But, for a grip setup,what would be the optimal?- Usually you want a little bit of camber.Three might be a little bit high.You'd have to be turningpretty hard to do that,but like two-ish is probablypretty good, two to three.- But, because of therange of our cheap arm?- Yeah, as little camberas we're gonna get.- So we're limited.- Yeah.She's limited.- Our upper control arms are adjustable.You can adjust two different pointswhich basically means wecan adjust camber and castera little bit.The primary adjustment is camberbut we'll be able to cheatthe caster a little bit too.- You like our stuff?- This has got some good control arms.Yeah, I like it.- They better be good, they were a $1,000.Just bought an engine formy other car, it was $700.(light music)- See what the other side's at.Okay.- So, Tanner finished upthe front end alignment.We were only able to adjustit to a certain degreebecause the aftermarket armisn't adjustable all the way.Caster is what makes the car easy to driveand it gives you that self steeringwhen you're turning inand out of a corner.Because ours is fixed, car might pullto the left a little bit.We've got nine and ahalf degrees on that sideand 10 on this.- Well, we were just going overwhat we wanted to setup the rear end like.Whether or not we wanted totry to emulate what he didon low car where he was limitedby the adjustment of the cheap stuff.But, here we've got somuch more adjustmentthat we can really nail the best alignmentwe could possibly have.So, that's what we're gonna do.That's what you get whenyou buy better parts.You can really dial itin and hit what you want.So, that's what we're gonna do.(light music)- Ah, man down!Cool.Cool.So, we got our camberabout where we want it,but the toe arm, since it's stock,we only have the stock adjuster.We can't shorten it enoughto straighten the toe.So, it's toed in real obnoxious.So, we're gonna have to add camberto straighten the toe out.- So, basically thedriver's side of the car toeis gonna be like this.- Yeah.- Which is gonna rearsteer the car to the right.- Toe it in.There's just a lot of toe in, yeah.- Not where we want it.- No, we're gonna have tosacrifice camber to get toe.- Both cars just have thefactory toe adjustmentbecause the toe arm isactually also the spring perch.So, you basically have toswitch to a true coiloverin the rear where the coilis actually over the shockso that you can run an actual toe arm,which we actually bought.I bought toe arms for that car'cause I was just on a shopping spreeand I was like, ooh, toe arms, buy 'em.- Those termsare expensive too, dude.- I know.So, we got here and I was like, oh,we can't use thosebecause the springs go inthe stock toe arms.So, we're kind of limited by that.But, how do you thinkit'll affect handling?How do you think it'll feel with this?It's toed in a bit, yeah?- If it was a drift car, man,you'd be pretty smooth intransition left to right.- Just going straight,it's probably just gonna drag the tiresa bunch like resistance.- Again, there's pros andcons to stuff like this.For what we're tryingto get out of this car,I'm gonna say that it probablywould have been better offif we just stuck with the stock stuff.Having changed out just the one armand not having that fullrange of adjustment,probably not the best.There's companies out there that kindof make a full one-offkit that will allow youto take advantage of all therange of motion in whole,but we don't have that ability.So, we're kind of stuckwith what we've got.- We've only got the factory adjustabilityfor rear toe because the toe armis also the spring perchand we need our spring.So, we've just gotten thefactory eccentric bolt,which should give us abouta degree of adjustment.So, we'll just make that work.(light music)- Now that we've got car aligned,we're gonna set scalesunderneath each corner of the carto make sure that each corneris as close as possibleto evenly distributing the car's weight.That way we can get avery well-balanced car.The whole process of dialing in a car,especially with a specializedalignment set up like this,can be very tedious.What we're gonna do todayis pretty much align the caras close as possible, corner balance it,that way the car is very evenand sometimes that canthrow off the alignment.So, we're gonna be bouncing back and forthuntil we really dial this setup in.- So, we usually just go for crosses.The cross percentage,this plus this and this plus this.So, these are what we'relooking at right now are at 48.This cross is lighter than this cross.So, what I do is liftone of the light cornersand try and get this to 50%.Once this is 50, then wehave 50% here and 50% here,but we should be able to just jack up oneof these corners, I think maybe that one.(light music)That's what we're shooting for.(light music)Sick.- Never been shot.- Since the upper arm is so adjustable,we can do caster and camber together.So, it kind of took mea couple more tries.- Ooh, that a fast load hopper?- It's a nice exhaust.That's pretty.- We're at 50.3 right now.Just a little further than we're at?- A tiny bit.- All right.We'll get another couple of spins.We're gonna hit this thing dead on.- This is how you gotta do it.(rapid firing)- That's some bright paint.- Invoice me for the paint.- We just got done aligning both cars.I've got our specs right here.So, let's go over them real quick.On hi car with our sick assfront, upper control armswe're also able to tweakcaster a little bitwhere low car could not do that.So, at the front of hi car,we've got one and a halfdegrees negative camberwhich should be verygood for grip driving.And two and a 10th degreesnegative camber in the rear.Then for toe, we've got atotal toe of zero degrees.So, this puppy's gonna gostraight as hell down the road.And on low car,they don't have as muchcamber adjustabilityso they're stuck withthree and a half degrees,negative camber up front,negative two and a halfdegrees in the rear.And they've got differing casterbecause they can't adjust caster.So, the front left on low caris a positive nine degrees casterand the front right ispositive 10 degrees,it might push them in one direction.It might be imperceptibletoo, but ours is the same.So, low car is stuck with alittle bit of toe in on the rearbecause they don't have thesame amount of adjustabilitythat we havewhich is what you get whenyou buy baller ass parts,Tanner fell in lovewith our adjustability.That stuff, it worked,but wasn't the best.So, the question is whetheror not it'll be noticeablewhen we're driving.So, it's time to go find out.(upbeat music)- Woo hoo hoo hoo hoo!- Wow.- That's so good!What a car!This has gotta be one of thebest cars I've ever driven.The grip is so good.The handling, the steering, itgoes where are you point it.- (beep) It's unreal bro.- Toot, toot, freight traincoming through on rails!On rails!- Oh that's sick.- Was that the drone?- We got 100, going 100 now.- You guys might notice thatwe're working from home,doing our part to level the curve.Without further ado,Does more expensive mean more better?- Kind of kind.- Kind of?- Kind of.I mean, obviously there'sno question hi carhas more adjustability, arguablya smoother ride overall.- Arguably?It's like night and day.- The difference on low carwas night and day as well.Even our baseline cheapas can be components.I was very impressed with howmuch better the car feels.In the same way that the car changedwhen we finally got the fuel injectorsand got the car tunedcorrectly with the turbo,it feels that same waywith the new suspension.Before we put the new parts in,low car felt like you weredriving a radio flyer wagon.It was pretty rigid, pretty ravelly,and now it's still rattely,but it feels a lot better.- And the difference inhi car was huge as well.I think what it comes down for meis the confident driving in hi car.Like I know that none ofthat stuff is gonna break.I think we did have moreadjustability though.- Oh yeah, for sure.We were limited where you guys were ableto go a lot deeper with your tuning.And I think the results kindof speak for themselves.- We haven't even begunto tap the potentialof the suspension setup on hi car.moving forward, as we go tothe track and drive it more,we can really dial it in, inthe way that we really like it.We just gotta figure outhow it is that we do.- Yeah, like you gotta, you know,experiment a little bit,find out what you like.It's an important part of life.- So, Nolan, your blatantlybiased opinion aside,let's go to something that doesn't lie,our super scientific numbers.- Nice launch, Joe.I actually really like this thing.- Night and day.- Oh my God, this thing's amazing.- I saw that smile.- Best car I've ever driven.(tires squealing)- Oh my gosh, this car is awesome.10 outta 10 awesome.- I just wanna pointout that we are testingwith science and numerics.I mean, we don't have GPS.We have a 20-year-oldintern with a stopwatch.- Jimmy!- We're doing our best.Take it all with a grain of salt.(tires squealing)Dang, everybody went faster in hi car.- Yeah.- Even you, Nolan.- Even me, even me.- The average time in low carfor the slalom course was 8.84 seconds.hi car was 8.49.Nolan, half a second on a fulllap of a racetrack is a lot.That slalom course waslike four feet long, man.That's a huge, huge difference.- It's an astronomical difference, James.And I think we really nailed hi car.I think you guys did a great job.Zack said it earlier,it might be the best car he's ever drivenand I have to agree with him, man.Best car I've ever driven.Bar none, bar none.- So, the numbers don't lie in this case,expensive does mean more better.And, as we're getting deeperand deeper into these cars,we're dealing with a lot of parts stackedon top of each other.As both these cars stand, Nolan,which one's would you buy?- If I had a stock Z, definitely shell outthe money for those hicar suspension parts, man.With good tires, good brakesand then those components underneath.- Absolutely.- Such a great car.- I wanna remind you,we are talking about $500 versus $3,000.That's a 600% increase.- Yeah.- With that knowledge, Nolan,which one would you buy?- Oh man, the machiningnerd inside me wants to saythe more expensive onesbecause they look so greatand the adjustability is amazing,but that's a huge difference.For $500, we absolutely changedthe character of low car.So, I think I'm gonna haveto go with the low parts.- Honestly, I might agree with you.- Really?Really?- Yeah. I can't afford$3,000 of suspension stuff.- That's amazing.This is only the second time, I think,that we've agreed on this.- Thank you so much for watching "Hi low,"I hope you guys are not too boredand you're all staying safe out there.Make sure that you tune in next week.During this episode weran into an unknown issue.- We have a small crack in our radiator.I think it's just becauselow car was so low.Going up and down those drivewaysmust have caught up with us.- Make sure you tune inso you don't miss that.As far as we know,Donut Programming is gonnakeep going as scheduled.We got about three weeks in the canand we're currently figuringout stuff to film at homeif we have to do that.So, we know everyone's bored.If you're still working-- You're a hero.- You're a hero.Take care of yourself, wash your hands.We'll get through this together.I love you.- Be kind.See you next time.- See you next time.- That's weird.That's hard to do.