vpk944 wrote:
Thanks for the info Joe. Looks like I need to call Skip at Paragon this morning. Does anyone have issues with the aluminum front control arms. My previous car had Charlie Arms installed. Am I right that after market control arms are not allowed? I have seen several cars destroyed from broken ball joints on the aluminum arms.
If you car is 85.5 or 86 it is early offset so backdating to the steel arms is great idea. However if it is 87 or 88 then it is late offset. You can still back date, but you will alos need to go with early hubs and go to early offset. Then you will have late offset in the rear and earyl in the front. Legal only if you use the right wheels to return to stock track width. You may also be able to run the steel arms with late hubs and late wheels, but since the arms are shorter you will give up track width in front. Legal, but not sure what impact it will have on handling. Heck I am not 100% sure it will even work as you may have camber problems like that.
In the end what the racers do is those with early offset aluminim back date to steel. This is a pretty easy swap. The late offset guys just run with aluminum arms. Most will replace the ball joints and given the tires we run and the spring rates the number of failures does not seem to be high enough to push for the expensive charlie arms. Remember 2600lbs with driver and only 225/50 R15 RA-1s put alot less stress on parts as compared to a 3000lbs car running 245 hoosiers.