Hi

With the ball joint extension picture that Wally just posted they could be made to make the fitting of the 944 stubs easier instead of using an adaptor bush.

On another tangent. Real weight gains could be made with a 3 bolt set-up using molly lower control arms, those cast lower control arms weigh quiet a lot.

Steve

We never use adaptor bushes, just buy the german ball joints thats what those are in the pics, id never trust a bush:eek:.

another way of doing it would be to use a spherical bearing rather than a ball joint in the outter end of the tca. that way you can then use a shaft to attach to the strut. this shaft can then be made adjustable in hieght so you can set it up to what ever ride hieght you want. this is commen practice on many rally/race cars. yes a spherical joint might be a bit much for a road car and wont last as long as a ball joint but it works and is very strong.
this is on a golf but uses the same idea
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y28...9042008031.jpg

Great 2 problems solved in one, much better than the adaptor bush

I agree with all of that and Rob's compression strut. But just to add my 2p worth; I don't feel comfortable with the butt joints either side of the anti-roll bar bush housing that will be weaker than the plain tube. The TCA has really only an axial load (horizontal for most of the time) so the tube can be light. But the antiroll bar exerts a bending moment at the point of the bush within the bar. Add in the fatigue factor of many load applications and it does seem weak although no figures have been applied. The solution would be to take the bush out of the centreline of the TCA - put it above or below with a speader to prevent local distortion. Put it below and it realigns the anti-roll bar towards a standard geometry. However, put it above the TCA and you have reduced the pitch forward, creating more anti-dive. Classically, you would have done this by dropping the pivots down on a strut car but there is nothing stopping the other end going up instead. You can't drop the anti-roll bar bushes down because of ground clearance issues on a lowered car.

Is that logic correct?

Clive

Already do these versions just about to make them adjustable next little project.
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a1...6.jpg~original

This is a PROTOTYPE it is not the finished article , i love the way some people always got plenty to say about others work like oh iam not happy about butt joints. just give it some time the finished article will work and will not be sold until its had a right good hammering on our test cars, unlike some folks that spend all there time on internet forums i drive my cars to the limit on the road and try to brake every thing we do way before it goes public. rant over:angry:, The finished product will be bigger od tube and one piece with an incert for the antiroll bar rather than butt welds also will have diamond shape strength plates top and bottom.

Regardless of what people think or prefer,I´m sure you´ve given your products a lot of thought and sounds like you wouldn´t sell anything without trying it out and giving your approval first.It´s good to see that another person is offering quality products to the acvw community! Keep it up!

Mark

Yeah, I would REALLY like to try this new tca on my car for the new TimeAttack2012 season. Which starts BTW already in march Lee, so get on with it! :D

There is nothing more id like than for you to have a set on MYTH BUSTER, proof of the pudding as we say.;)

Sounds like a perfect opportunity for some testing/prototyping.A high speed 400+bhp test bed (relatively heavy even) under race conditions.Can´t get any better than that.And if he takes the win,you can always say it was due to your parts:D

I confirm you did say this was a protype and you had some reinforcing to do but by posting the photo you invited comments - perhaps I should have said that its the most wonderful piece of fabrication that I have ever seen? If you had bothered to read my full comments you will see that it revolved around the load applications on TCAs that I also invited (instructive) comments on. Forums are about debate not sycophanic praise and I for one am fully aware that anything I post may be the subject of unflattering comment.

I thoroughly enjoy the debates on this forum as it attracts very knowledgable people in intelligent discussion - long may it be so.

BTW I too drive my ideas and am more than prepared to admit mistakes and change anything if doesn't work out. Unfortunately, my interest in cars and engineering has to take third place to my business and family commitments so I don't get the time to produce as much as I could.

Just finished our new late model vented deck lid available in carbon and grp here is a carbon one, factory style fixings for the hinges, drill your steel ones off and rivet to carbon/grp...............
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a1...4.jpg~original
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a1...2.jpg~original
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a1...3.jpg~original

Now all we got to do is finish the door molds then its carbon doors folks.

Wow! verry nice!

BTW, when are the front control arms ready Lee?
I need a pair asap for coming TimeAttack season ;-)

I no mate ill do my best but i have a lot of full on cars to build aswell, here is the prototype one on , once we finish the front end build on this car we will have the final ones done and ready for sale , want to get them right mate...
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a1...9.jpg~original