I recently changed the LCA on my car to get better handling. My car has low millage and the factory LCA and bushings were still in very good condition.

I purchased Granatelli LCA. When I istalled them, I realized that the bushings were not fitting really tight in the car frame. I just thought it was made like that.

After my frist test drive I realized something was wrong. The rear was feeling very loose and it was making knocking noises over 60 mph. The handling was worse than before.

I decided to try something different to fix the problem. I modified big washers and inserted them between the two bushing pieces. It made the bushings fit very tight in the car frame and also made them "semi-solid".

The drive is awesome, no more loose feeling, no road noise. The handling has deffinately impoved.

Here are some pics.

 

First mistake was buying anything Granatelli. I can't say for sure whether or not your fix is adequate or safe. But I do appreciate ingenuity and problem solving. What I don't appreciate is vendors making knock offs and subpar parts.

I recommend you and others reading this scour the internet a bit and review this company, far from the first issue their behalf.

Once again, I'm glad you seemed to have worked around the issue, but just another showing of garbage on their part.

 

[quote=blyth18md;4354513]First mistake was buying anything Granatelli.[quote]

I got what I paid for. $80 for new LCA seams to be a good deal.

I will let you know if I break one.

 

I'll start by asking what you found "worse" about the handling with the UNmodified LCAs.

No, I'm not a granatelli rep (blyth might as well have taken the words off my keyboard).



Technically, you have probably increased the amount of rear suspension roll bind by making the poly fit tighter, when what you really want in the way of better handling is less bind. It may feel a little like you either added a rear sta-bar where before there was none, or doubled up on the original rear bar. Use a bit of caution in the wet, as it'll be easier to get it tail-happy.

There are a couple of things that you can still do, and the fact that you'd probably shorten the life of Granatelli's bushings should not be of much concern.

In truth, I've considered doing a similar sort of LCA bushing modification, and Maximum Motorsports actually offers three-piece polyurethane bushings for the Fox/SN95 Mustangs. The biggest difference between your development and MM's part is that they use a stiff poly mid-section and softer poly for the outer two pieces instad of metal + 2 regular poly pieces.

MM's part


Norm