Nice work on the arms. If only I had an 03. Love the white car.

Explain a bit more walt iam having a blonde moment ???????:D

Howdy mate ........... those carbon parts are gathering dust ;)

Sorry mate, I could not find the right words atm.
I think I meant 'ball-joint-extenders'.

As our arms are horizontal to begin with after a more serious lowering, the camber change when taking a sharp turn can become negative. You want the wheel to gain more negative camber on turning (wheel moving upward). Like the original suspension geometry was laid out, as much as I hate to say.
Does that make any sense at all?

What about adjustable/excentrical mounts at the top of the shock towers instead? Imho that would give you more adjustability and stability.Those are available for Golf MK2 and they fit on the 02/03 also don´t they?

Wally's point:

As the stock suspension geometry is lowered, the design of the lower arm becomes a problem. At a certain point (when the pivot angle >90 degrees) the wheel gains positive camber as the suspension compresses.

As per this-
http://photos.motoiq.com/MotoIQ/Tech...13_WZJpU-L.jpg

on the left, stock ride height, compressing the suspension results in more negative camber (blue shadow). In the middle, the lower arm is pointing up as the suspension is lowered so further compression results in the bottom of the tyre being pulled in. On the right, the balljoint is spaced downwards from the spindle reducing the angle between the lower arm and the strut to less than 90 degrees. This fixes the problem.

The other option is the raise the inner mount of the lower arm. Changing the strut angle will reduce the key angle but not by much and it adds a lot of unwanted static camber.

If you could machine a spacer with the correct tapers and internal/external threads this would really improve the handling of lowered cars. As a bonus, it would also fix the similar issues with the anti-roll bar.

Thanks Bruce, that is EXACTLY what i meant! Not sure if possible with new arms from Lee, but if there would be a way to incorporate the extension, then that would make it an extra selling point and I would want a set now as I am contemplating extension possibilities at the moment.

The higher up mounting on the inside is theoretically a sound alternative, but the arm is already on the high hole of the mounting (as original) with '74-> suspension and higher is fysically not possible there..

Whats the weight difference with stock arms Lee? Seems like it would be hard to shed weight on the original design, but would be happy to be proven wrong of course! It would be nice if the extra weight of the extension(s) - which would be heavy - could be made up some by lighter arms!

A pic from my first front suspension

I understand perfectly what the extension does and it´s more than likely the cheaper solution.But you are also multiplying the torque on that joint between the extension and the arm.Possibly of no concern,though? Maybe thomas07056 can share some experience on that from racing?

Mark

Right o iam with you all now :D wally you cant believe the weight difference between the two moly is so light . so what we need is higher ball joint end ????

Yep! I have some 9cm clearence towards my 18"wheels from underside ball-joint to wheel rim. I think 2 inches higher will fit any other wheel, make it worth the trouble and be effective enough?

BTW, I really like light-weight in suspension components! :D

ill see what we can do at this stage thanks guys for all the input.;)

sorry, missed that :P I blame a crazy on-call schedule and no sleep for 3 days.

Also, +1 for wally's idea on raising the ball joint area. You could angle and slightly extend the tubing on the outside of the bushing area with minimal work.

Hang on guys, you've got it upside down.

The key measure is the angle between the top strut mount, the balljoint pivot and the lower arm inner mount. This angle needs to remain less than 90 degrees.

If you modify the lower arm, you are just changing the shape of the arm and the balljoint pivot remains in the same place verses the other two key suspension points.

The modification required is to space the balljoint down, away from the hub.

So those lovely arms are just fine as the are. You either need a different balljoint with a much longer stub so that a spacer can be put on first or a machined extension that mounts on the end of the balljoint stub. Substituting a ballpoint with a threaded stub might make it easier to make an extension piece.

If you look again at the right hand diagram above, you should see what I mean.

Cheers!

Thanks Bruce! Your right of course. Its easy to loose track of things sometimes ;)
I agree we won't get past something like these:
http://www.pmwltd.com/grfx/extenders.jpg

Those will weigh though, so its great Lee makes something lightweight to compensate :cool: