Targa Miata
MIATA BUILD
July 25, 2011 - Time for some camber.
With the current ride height, it's hard to get much negative camber in the suspension. Almost none in one corner, actually. I've tried a couple of different control arms, but it was time for more dramatic measures. V8Roadsters stepped up with a half set of their tubular control arms: a pair of front lowers and rear uppers. These particular arms have an extra camber adjuster built in, allowing me to cant the wheels in as much as I like. One really cool thing about them (other than the bright red color, of course) is that the new camber adjustment is independent of toe and caster. The front toe is affected a bit, but that's easy to adjust. So I'll be able to play with my setup in pit lane without having to worry about interrelated settings.
The only downside? I used to tie the car down via a big hole in the front lower control arms before. I can't do that anymore!
entry 884 - tags: alignment, suspension, control arms
August 13, 2014 - Adjustable rear control arm test.
First note: white gets grubby handprints all over. This part is a new adjustable arm from Paco Motorsports that will be available from Flyin' Miata soon. It'll let me adjust camber in the rear without affecting toe, which is a nice ability to have. The fact that it uses stock size bushings is a bonus as well.
It's also designed for maximum suspension travel. To my surprise, I found that the previous aftermarket upper control arm wasn't quite so good in this regard and had been making contact with the body of the car at full compression. The body of the car lost, so there's some damage to the lip above the arm. No problem, although it would explain why the hit on full compression seemed a bit abrupt.
entry 1128 - tags: suspension, testing, control arm