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Lower Control Arms & Sway Bars - Upgrades

6111 Views 59 Replies 11 Participants Last post by  Johnp410
I have been looking at Lower control arms and sway bars to try and control some of the body roll and rear end noise in my car. I have FE2 suspension (OEM) and was looking at putting beefier rear and front sway bars in the vehicle. Read on some old forum posts that a fat rear bar will likely crack the original lower control arms so now I am looking at those as well.

UMI seems to be a great place to get LCAs from... I did see that new POLY bushes will make the car ride stiff compared to the OEM rubber ones. Is this the case? I'm looking to keep the ride as squishy as possible, but remove some sway and roll in turns/corners.

Anyone have any experience with the standard UMI bars? What about the Roto joints? Would those make the car ride more smoothly compared to 2 POLY bushings? Links below to see what I am talking about. The Roto joints look really interesting, but can't find much about just a streetable car that's driven gently most of the time.


Also, it's been recommended that I check out BMR sway bars - their rear bar is fat and should really control the back end pretty well. Front bar is smaller, but the set would probably even the car out well (replace both).

Thanks for your thoughtful advice!
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Probably get the best bang for your buck copying the setup from members who have set their car up for autocross.



My car has a mismatch of stuff since I'm finding everything off marketplace lol. BMR front bar for 50 bucks, UMI boxed rears for 60, belltech rear bar for like 150. Don't seem to have issues with the different bar setup but if I can get my hands on a rear BMR bar for cheap I will swap it in.
I got poly bushings on the front no squeaking, I think I have poly's in the rear? Didn't actually check when I installed but no noise there. UMI LCA's not sure what model but not the one with the roto's.

That being said I feel like the primary reason for a harsh ride would be your spring and shock selection. Is your car lowered? I would think that the sway bar/LCA choices won't affect the harshness of the ride as much unless the bushings are like blown out.

As for the frame stiffening scot has some info on what exactly to do in some older threads here and there, best bet is probably to take his instructions and bring it to a chassis shop since welding is required. I plan on doing that once I finish my t56 swap.
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So I could swap the poly bushings on my extended BMR arms for rubber?
For some reason I don't recall brake lines being attached to the control arms. Could be but it's been sometime.

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I forgot what this was I had ziptied to the top control arm on the driver side. But yea it looks like that line is attached to the frame, need to go through some pics to see if I can find any more for you to reference.

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