after getting into a huge fight with my ol lady last night, i started thinking. i know on long arm setups they incorporate the upper controls arms halfway into the lower arms. no what would happen if you were to reverse that and run the upper control arm to the lower control arm mount, and bring the lower control arm to the upper control arms.

is there going to be any huge problem with that? anything im not catching?

anyone?

interesting to see what comes of this. Just in the 8 seconds i thought about it, might give you more clearence, kinda like the "BENT" kits they have out. Axle torque may be a factor though. Not sure.

i dont know if axle torque would be any different, but i mean would it be a problem seeing as the upper arms are closer to the inside of the axle, and the lower are further out. would you get any bad "triangulation" per say?

What does this have to do with your ol lady?

haha, absolutely nothing, i think the fight turned a bulb on. i have no clue why this popped into my head, never have thought of it

As long as you use an instant center relationship to keep the bending forces of the "short lower control arms" that tie into the full length uppers at a minimum, structurally you will be a-ok. We have been doing this for years with our YJ coil over conversion front ends to simply get better ground clearance!

Rock Krawler

i know on long arm setups they incorporate the upper controls arms halfway into the lower arms.

this is known as a radius arm setup.

not a bad idea, but the stock mounts for the lowers on the frame are bigger than the uppers. if you could run the arms from the lower mounts on the frame to the upper mounts on the axle, and then used the lower mounts to determine the pinion angle, that wouldnt be a bad idea to try.

but i thought this design was bad because it rotates the tubes the more it flexes.

this is known as a radius arm setup.

not a bad idea, but the stock mounts for the lowers on the frame are bigger than the uppers. if you could run the arms from the lower mounts on the frame to the upper mounts on the axle, and then used the lower mounts to determine the pinion angle, that wouldnt be a bad idea to try.

but i thought this design was bad because it rotates the tubes the more it flexes.


ya, the mounting sizes would be different, but i imagine a setup like that would have to be completely custom, i think youd even have to rotate the frame end of the mount so they face a little more towards the middle of the axle.

Don't re-invent the wheel. Linked suspensions have been tested and re-tested and built to the point where you really can't improve upon them anymore by guys who have already forgotten more then we will ever know in our life times.

Not to mention your design would be excessively punished on trail obstacles to the point of failure. Instead of 2 joints to break, now you have 3. Instead of one long piece of tube that likes to slide over things, now you have 2 short pieces with an angle inbetween them. I don't see any benefits.

well, black sheep, the 2 shorter peices of tube would be stronger than one long peice, and as for joint failure, it would be exactly the same as say the RE front radius kit, just upside down. Now is RE's design bad because of joint failure? i think not. I'd say the tube that attaches to your upper/main arm would be good with a poly bushing and joints or heims on the rest.

and on a personal note, Black sheep, i see you have posted around this section a bit, and i dont think one thing you have ever said has been encouraging, up beat, or most of the time on topic. You just tell everyone why there doing everything wrong and why they should search or go to a different site, and to be honest, its not very helpful to anyone. This is non-hardcore, meaning these guys arent going to be doing many hardcore trails or competitions. If a guy has an idea that may work, give him the advice he needs, let him try it out. If we read about him in the paper that his design ripped the brackets off the frame and killed him in the process, i guess we'll know it was a bad set-up. but in the mean time, chill out, your not god of all. Let these guys be, flame free.

and on a personal note, Black sheep, i see you have posted around this section a bit, and i dont think one thing you have ever said has been encouraging, up beat, or most of the time on topic. You just tell everyone why there doing everything wrong and why they should search or go to a different site, and to be honest, its not very helpful to anyone. This is non-hardcore, meaning these guys arent going to be doing many hardcore trails or competitions. If a guy has an idea that may work, give him the advice he needs, let him try it out. If we read about him in the paper that his design ripped the brackets off the frame and killed him in the process, i guess we'll know it was a bad set-up. but in the mean time, chill out, your not god of all. Let these guys be, flame free.

You know, there's been a fuckton too many posts like this lately, and they always seem to be directed towards people that actually know their shit, but throw some dickheadedness in the mix for fun. I'm sure I speak for most when I say I'd much rather wade through some joking than through this kind of whining. This is Pirate, hardcore or non, the general feel here is a sort of helpful assholeishness, and like most of the rest of us, BlackSheep is a helpful asshole. He offered up his honest opinion, which was completely valid in every way. ..You don't have to agree with it to see that it is more on topic than your getting pissy about it.
Go cry somewhere else or man up and take whatever shit happens to come along with the answers you're offered.

wow i missed a bit over night. as for black sheep, i do agree with mechanical mongoose. im not trying to reinvent the wheel, as stated in first post, it was something that popped into my head, thats why its non-hardcore, not trying to invent shit. as for breaking 3 joints, i dont see how that would be, with the gained clearance there wouldnt be as much "rock sliding" as a typical long arm. i also wasnt asking about how it would be affected by rocks, or how long it would last, those are obvious things i dont need an answer for, but i was asking about the functionality of it due to mounting points and lateral angles of the arms themselves. obviously if you bash shit on rocks, they will break.


oh i was also curious about the ride as a dd, as far as i know, the flatter the control arms are, the better the ride?

Fine since you want to play...
well, black sheep, the 2 shorter peices of tube would be stronger than one long peice, and as for joint failure, it would be exactly the same as say the RE front radius kit, just upside down. Now is RE's design bad because of joint failure? i think not. I'd say the tube that attaches to your upper/main arm would be good with a poly bushing and joints or heims on the rest.

First off the one long piece of tube that comes in todays lower control arms in the better kits are pretty beefy and even in the most extreme comps almost never get bent, using 2 short pieces is mute. Secondly since you now have a significant angle point between the arms which is now on the bottom and exposes to rocks, logs etc to hit with more force perpendicularly to the control arm, the joints will wear out faster and the increases force would make them prone to breaking as opposed to a horizontal control arm that just slides over everthing. Also who wants to run a trac bar when you are linking a rear end and in the case in the front, why would you spend the extra money on joints and tube when you can have a 3 link that does the same thing and is easier to set up?

and on a personal note, Black sheep, i see you have posted around this section a bit, and i dont think one thing you have ever said has been encouraging, up beat, or most of the time on topic. You just tell everyone why there doing everything wrong and why they should search or go to a different site, and to be honest, its not very helpful to anyone. This is non-hardcore, meaning these guys arent going to be doing many hardcore trails or competitions. If a guy has an idea that may work, give him the advice he needs, let him try it out. If we read about him in the paper that his design ripped the brackets off the frame and killed him in the process, i guess we'll know it was a bad set-up. but in the mean time, chill out, your not god of all. Let these guys be, flame free.

I'm always on topic, I don't know where you pulled that from. And Hardcore has nothing to do with the types of trails people run, it has to do with how much fabbed shit versus how much unfabbed shit is on your rig. Is a generic rig with a production off the shelf Clayton 4 link kit (or hell SOA) on 40s and D60s any less hardcore then some guy running a fabbed 4 link, rockwells and 40"s? The first rig technically belongs in this forum the second technically belongs in Hardcore despite the fact that they can run the same trails and may or may not run comps.

Since you don't seem to know what flaming is let me give you a taste. You are a fucking asshat that has no clue what flaming is. This board would be better without yokels like you with your fairy feel good bullshit, infact please go drink a gallon of bleach, dowse yourself in gasoline, then throw your balls into a blender full of tacks and nails, followed by a match so when you spontaneously combust me and my friends can have drink later in honor of the cleaner gene pool and the fact that "go DIAF" was actually used for the betterment of humanity and our sport.


That is an excellent old school example of flaming that you no longer see in this forum, my first response had nothing or the sort in it and everything about it was quite true. Telling somebody something they don't want to hear IS NOT flaming. :shaking: This is pirate4x4 non-hardcore. Not jeeps unlimited. You may think its ok to hold some dumbasses hand (not saying the OP is a dumbass, his question for the record was more then stimulating and legitimate and this part of my post pertains to nothing the OP said or asked) as they hack up and create dangerous situations. But when some guy wrecks into a school bus of kids or some guy on the city council, We ALL get to pay the price. Most people don't like us already as it is and you are creating a false sense of security by your "Oh don't hurt the dumbasses feelings BS" If you don't have the initiative to search things on your own first then thats tough shit, we aren't required to hold anybodys hand, nobody is entitled to our knowledge that in many cases was earned the hard way through trial and tribulation and at the expense of our wallets. If every post in this forum was "What size tire should I run, what gears should I choose, Can I run XX tire on XXX axle, nobody worth a damn would read it and it would quickly turn into the sausage fest of bad info like JU. The cool guys running 38s on their Dana 35s with 10 inches of lift would be elevated to god like status because nobody would be the wiser.

Pirate4x4 will always be Pirate4x4. I'm sorry your got butthurt because somebody called you out on some stupidity or just gave you advice you didn't want to hear along the way but thats how life is. Infact, go ahead and report my first post to an Mod and see if they think thats flaming or not. :shaking:

wow i missed a bit over night. as for black sheep, i do agree with mechanical mongoose. im not trying to reinvent the wheel, as stated in first post, it was something that popped into my head, thats why its non-hardcore, not trying to invent shit. as for breaking 3 joints, i dont see how that would be, with the gained clearance there wouldnt be as much "rock sliding" as a typical long arm. i also wasnt asking about how it would be affected by rocks, or how long it would last, those are obvious things i dont need an answer for, but i was asking about the functionality of it due to mounting points and lateral angles of the arms themselves. obviously if you bash shit on rocks, they will break.


oh i was also curious about the ride as a dd, as far as i know, the flatter the control arms are, the better the ride?

No thats fine. Rockcrawler does something similar with their lowers, they have pre-bent angles in them but they still use a 4 link design. Radius arms are a little outdated. For the front they are OK, but they limit your flex a little. Again in the front thats ok, in the back thats bad, you want your rear to flex as much as it can (correctly).

Its hard to explain this on paper..... A 1 piece horizontal control arm has 2 joints, each tucked up close to the frame and axle. The forces that is experienced are usually parallel to it in most cases from sliding over obstacles and occasionally a perpendicular force from bouncing and landing on a rock.

The reversed 2 piece radium arm design you are talkin about has an angle point with an arm that has to slant back downward toward the axle at a steeper angle then a flat control arm which means theres more forces hitting it perpendicularly then parrallel. Not to mention you would have to go with some crazy geometry that might prove to have some crazy driving characteristics just to get that to work.

Theoretically you can have a bends in your control arms or radius arms but as long as the angles between the joints are good you should be ok. I'm not familiar with how the angles between the arms themselves would have an affect on how it drives because it would be significantly different then a regular radius arm setup. Plus with the radius arms being much higher, you may run into clearnace issues on the motor, steering, or frame. As I mentioned before I'm sure you were not the first person to think of this, especially if clearance was a benefit, If it were better every company that still makes radius arm suspensions would be using it.

haha, wow, someone was beaten as a child. :flipoff2:

repress anger much?

this is a good thread. lots of thinking outside of the box, congrats. but if all you are looking for is better ground clearance, buy a radius arm kit. then put some slight bends in the longer LCAs right in the middle. that way you gain ground clearance, but dont compromise the lower arms and the joints as well. that would solve many a problem.

thoughts on my idea? flame away, or use it. i dont care.

this is a good thread. lots of thinking outside of the box, congrats. but if all you are looking for is better ground clearance, buy a radius arm kit. then put some slight bends in the longer LCAs right in the middle. that way you gain ground clearance, but dont compromise the lower arms and the joints as well. that would solve many a problem.

thoughts on my idea? flame away, or use it. i dont care.

We don't flame :homer: "Special" people. :flipoff2:

ahhh shhiaatt, yall niggas be gittin ruff in herr, sum mean muggin foos......back to being white now, when the time comes to build a long arm setup, i want to refrain from buying any kit, but rather a homebrew type setup, this idea came into mind. like i stated, (kind of) this is my dd, so the ride factor is a must since i got a 9 month old bouncing around with me. the flatter the better?

With the arms on more of an angle the ride will also suffer. And any impacts will be absorbed more by the joints and "frame" then by the coil springs.

Check out pics of any Clayton Longarm front suspension if you want to get some ideas.

ya, the claytons a bad ass kit, if im correct, they incorporate the long arms into the tranny mount? id love to do something like that, but its more difficult for me since i have studs welded to the unibody for the tranny mount. i dont want to add more stress to those, since i dont currently trust them already. i think i would just move it slightly forward on the unibody

check out the red bronco in this thread, it runs the suspension set up you are talking about.
http://pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?t=795859&highlight=front+spring+rate

sweet, thats about what i had thought of in my head, slight differences, but that pretty much it, now that bronco is considered fullsize and it seems to hold up well