|
I understand that people are still trying to figure out what the differences are between the A-arm kits. Here is what I posted up for some guys over on the Samba....
Just looking at them the Mendeola looks to be beefier and stronger. Welding is always fun so I wouldn't mind that, but I'm not to keen on the big in your face advert for their company on it, kinda vain. I'd say leave that off and give me a decal I could put on the window if I wanted to. The UK model looks good, but I like the videos on the eyeball site. What's funny is in my Jegs catalog you could buy one of these for a Mustang for about $2k or less, so why are these so expensive? I like the other products on the Mendeola site and wouldn't mind an entire pan from them, if it didn't cost so much. I'm not naive, I'd rather pay for quality than for some cheaply made crap, but someone on these websites needs to say WHY their product is better than another, not just because they say so. Look at Jack Raby at aircooled.net YEARS of testing go into his products and he's not afraid to show off the test data to prove why his stuff rocks.
Sorry,
I had to jump in here on this one.
Like Jake Raby we spent and spend endless amounts of time to fully refine our products. If you look into our transaxle line we've been known for quality products.
Our new chassis line went thru a lot of testing. We first looked at the Red 9 and the Eyeball, we also looked at the Pete's a-arm bolt on kit. They all had good and bad points. Just for the sake of examples here are some of the things we did and did not like. Also to achieve the high level of performance we wanted, we had to design our own.
Please understand we are only pointing out our findings before designing our own. Hell, we made our front end handle so well we needed to design a rear system to tighten up the rear suspension also. Our rear kits features the same great Fox racing shocks, a rear sway bar, toe and camber adjustments. Originally we did not intend to sell these to the public, however after I drove one of these and being a VW guy for over 20 years, I knew I had to make these available to all type 1 based vehicles.
Red 9:
The good
good design
very strong
The bad
no sway bar
shipping cost
wait time to clear customs
very little adjustability
steering knuckles being bolted onto the spindles
Eyeball:
The good
bolts on with out removing the body
The bad
Difficult adjustments. in a-arms
No sway bar at the time we looked it over
Bolts being in sheer
Overall design seemed to light weight possibly a little weak?
Reeling on the sheet metal portions of the pan to support the twist
the use of tie rods in key pivot positions
Pete's A-arm kits
The good
plenty strong
bolt on
uses a stock beam style bolt on frame so that the weight of the car is supported just like it was originally Bolts not in sheer
The bad
not very adjustable
no sway bar
not really designed for street cars more for off road
out weighed a stock beam by 12 lbs
Cost (you still have to get spindles and buy the sway bar)
As far as the MENDEOLA name on it. It's not that we are trying to show off or act like we are better then anyone else. It is to protect our investment. We have 6 major lines of transaxles in current production and a few years back we had a company copy three of the 6 lines. They splashed almost every part. You could even see our Mendeola name in their first cases. Needless to say they saw the inside of the court room a few times over this. Having our name on it does two things. For us it protects our investment. For the customer it say quality. If you ever want to sell your car it will add value.
|