Can someone school me on LCA's and UCA's? How they work? Installation?

 

the uppers connect to the unibody behind the back seat. they attach to the top of the axle housing. hence calling them uppers. our stock uppers are made of weak stamped steel and they bend and flew under loads and the rubber bushings give way to alot of movement, this weak bushing and stamped upper control arms let the rear end rock back and fore alot. this is what lets you have wheel hop.

the lowers are what holds the springs, and keep the rear end center and from moving side to side. these again are stamped steel and are weak and have crappy bushings.

when you go aftermarket you atleast one uppers and lower that are boxed or soild. and you want at least a poliurahine bushing to help keep the control amrs from moving around.

I hope this helps some.

 

Thanks Spike. How much work is involved to install?

 

Thanks spike, you cleared up a lot of my questions too. Im planning on FRPP uppers and MM lowers sometime in the distant future.

 

the uppers control side to side movement while the lowers control up and down...the lowers reduce wheel hop. I have the FRPP uppers and couldn't tell a difference between them and stock when I replaced them, so I would suggest saving your money there. The biggest difference I felt was from the LCAs. I went with a copy of the MM LCAs (Pro3i), which saved me about a hundred bucks.

 

What do you guys think of the Steeda LCAs? What is involved with the install? What will I actually see after the install? Will I see a drop in 1/4 mile times?

 

they are a quality product...I was just looking for something a little less expensive. Install isn't too bad, you can get the rear bolt easily by just unbolting the rear shocks. The front is a little harder, b/c the bolt is a little tough to get to with the mufflers in the way. I had to unbolt the catback from the midpipe, but then it was pretty easy. Just make sure your axle doesn't move around on you-its a pain to get lined back up if it does.

 

lowers are easyer to install then uppers by far if you ask me.

for the install you have to take the spring out. so what you do is take out the back bolt and take off the sway bar. and then lower one control arm at a time with a jack, slowly this lets the tension off the spring. then take spring out take old control arms out. grease bushings put front bolt in put spring on use a jack to lift control arm up and then put in the back bolt and add sway bar. its pretty easy and they come with instuctions that are very good if you get steeda. also i would love to get steeda to, but i cant afford those high dollar ones so for me its gonna be lakewood lowers and steeda uppers or lakewood uppers. most likly i will be rocking lakewood uppers and lowers becuase of there low cost and the fact that they are nice and boxed and have nice hard bushing like all the other for alot less money. and the lakewoods have a grease fitting so you cna grease them up to keep the sqeeeks down.

Dustin