Explain Long Arm Radius Arms please

[volnut77]

Was having a discussion about improving the comfort and ride of my 77 that's in the middle of a frameoff. Please explain the benefits or the necessary.

thanks

 

[NYLES]

comfort and ride are in the springs and shocks, longer arms are for travel

 

[volnut77]

what's the benefit?

 

[bmc69]

what's the benefit?

"Travel", "articulation" or "flex" are all terms that describe how much and how well your suspension will conform to very uneven trail terrain. How much difference in terrain height your rig can manage between all four tires still keeping all in contact with the terrain.

Long arms increase forward suspension travel range..along with the appropriate shocks and other mods, of course.

 

[volnut77]

So I can assume a mall crawler wouldn't get any benefit from Long Arms?

 

[73stallion]

not unless you want just the looks, no. my ride got a little softer, but not enough to justify the price for the street.

 

[MooseyFate]

How much, if any lift are you installing?

 

[JohnJohn]

Some of us (like me) add long arms to get their truck to drive better on the street. You get alot of castor with long arms and it help make the car track better on the road. Another way to get castor without arms is cut the outer C off the D44 and turn them back to get more castor.

 

[volnut77]

2.5" of lift.

The castor point is what I was being told and wanted to understand it better. The guy who suggested it said he thought it improved his street driving a lot.

thanks

 

[bax]

With improved suspension geometry you will get a better ride opportunity. Use the wrong springs or the wrong shocks and you will not see an improvement in your ride or handling. Long arms set up correctly will give you a better ride than the stock arms. There is a lot to this but they are better done right.

 

[Steve83]

If the only change to the suspension from stock is longer radius arms, the ride will be slightly smoother because the front wheels are moving through less of an arc, and more of a straight line, which puts less of the impact on the frame. The tiny increase in unsprung weight isn't significant because it's at the small, non-moving end of the radius arms.

If you've decreased the caster angle by lifting the suspension incorrectly, swapping to longer arms alone will return a TINY bit of caster. But there are cheaper & more-effective ways of adjusting caster, like changing the C-bushings, or cutting & welding the wedges on the axle tubes, or installing drop brackets on the frame for stock-length radius arms.

 

[bmc69]

2.5" of lift.

The castor point is what I was being told and wanted to understand it better. The guy who suggested it said he thought it improved his street driving a lot.

thanks

With only 2.5" of lift, you will have no problems at all achieving a good castor angle without long arms; you need the correct C busings for that lift and yr golden. In fact, that still holds true for 3.5" lift.

Its anything more than 3.5" where achieving adequate castor angle becomes problematic on an EB without resorting to drop brackets for the radius arms (hateful thing on a trail rig) or long-arms.

 

[MooseyFate]

Ha! *see my other recent post