thank you very much. and i already have the baer bumsteer kit so i can ajust it to pretty much whatever i need

 

Can anyone validate this with actual photos of a failed tube kmember in a race environment? Not a weld quality control issue either but an actual component failure?

 

the only member on this website I have heard of having problems with a tubular K member was redraif. I believe she got hers from PA racing in it had problems because they had subcontracted a company to do some welding and they used material they should not have used and did not check the welds.

 

I have seen reports of 4th gens cracking welds by engine mounts because of flex issues but that was on old kmembers which have been redesigned by now by most companies.
Just seems to be a common internet lore with not much real data. And one case here and there doesnt necessarily prove anything. Every part of any kind will break, or atleast someone has done it once. Cranks, rear ends, suspension pieces, wheels, you name it... There probably is a case of a so called indestructible part breaking

 

I have seen plenty of incidents where qualified officials will deny a racecar from going through tech (and then immediately out on course) with a decent size dent in tubing of a frame or safety cage. They do not play games with that becasue once the structure is damaged in shape form, it has a weak failure point.

Hence the above info is why I strongly suggest against running one of these units on the street. One good wack of something on the freeway, or a rock in the middle of the road on a canyon or mountain run and wham- right into the tubular cross tubes of the kmember denting and damaging the integrity of the kmember- you now have to repair or replace it becasue it will not be as strong and is probably bent from impact- needless to say any damage now to the oilpan. it's alot of money to risk running on the street.

As I stated before, it can happen to anyone just merely following a large truck down a single lane rural road. The truck goes over something large in the middle of the road, yet, you have no time to react and unfortunately you are not as high ground clearance as the truck in front of you....wham. its happened to me many times in life- even on the freeway with a plastic container a few weeks ago (The plastic didn;t hurt anything, but I try and swear and I het a car next to me- who knew it was plastic at first, could have been a piece of 2x4, etc...anything.)

Once tubing is bent, it will buckle much easier. Try and bend that stock Kmember- heck, hit it with a sledge hammer just for sh*ts and giggles. Its pretty darn tough.

 

When it comes to strength, you're never going to beat the factory K-member because it uses excessive material to achieve great strength. This comes at the cost of weight. We tried our best to balance this strength to weight ratio that will be a solid option for street use, road racing, and punishing wheel stands. Our K-member has proven to hold up to all of this.

- Kevin

 

http://m.summitracing.com/parts/SUM-77-1130003


What about 1 inch?

 

I've got +1/2" summit LBJ's. Keep in mind they don't come with boots, the howe universal ones should work, but they're $12 a pop. I slotted the steering box to raise the centerlink rather than run a bumpsteer kit. No other way to do it for wheel clearance unless you're okay with running 8" wide wheels.

I wouldn't suggest running them if you can't do anything for bump steer.

 

Unless something has changed Racecraft did all PA Racing k-members and front A-Arms

 

You know what, I thought I remebered that on Shannon's car and tried to check up if it was in fact Racecraft and PA racing that were linked- I could not find that info so I never posted anything a few days ago.

 

While that is extremely rare i believe it could happen. I have seen it happen with odd objects but nothing hard enough to cause damage. I am not sure of the thickness of the kmember tubes but i would love to see what kind of impact one could tolerate before any denting or damage occurs. I no longer have any roll cage piping around to test. I do have my stocker kmember. Very tempted to wack it with a sledge haha. Take out my frustration on the car from the years of tinkering on it and having it fail on me even tho likely most my fault

 

I agree its rare, but like all statistics, the more you drive the more the likely of an incident. I have logged well over 1 million miles of driving on public roads in my lifetime so far- over 700,000 of them in "Vetruck"- and I willingly admit I have hit alot of crap on the street with its kmember, and that is a truck.

LMAO......I even once hit a friking plastic kiddy swimming pool on the freeway flying through the air. I got up next to that guy trying to get pissed but just could not help laughing how rediculously silly it was...mostly becasue my passenger was hysterically tearing up.

 

Lmao that is something. Worse i hit was a snow shovel in an impala at 70. Thankfully it was a plastic one. I went thru a sheet of drywall in my trans am at 75, and in my camaro which is the lowest vehicle i killed a few rabbits and possums with the airdam/kmember and hit a tall rock that washed up on the road. It missed kmember and crushed my downpipe.

Other than that incident free. Able to avoid anything else so far, knock on wood

 

I got this from frrax.com I'm sure someone could find some there

 

So what about the 1" eagerly waiting response

 

See! Shi happens. Not only ate stock parts cheaper to replace, n some way they can be stronger

 

I looked for a 1" joint and see it on Summit, but it looks lke their own label product. I do not know who makes it for them so I think I would be leary about using it. The steering arm could just be drilled out and bolted through using shims a castlenut w/ coitterpin drilled into it (grade 8) and just use a rodend on the outer tierod. That way you have the distance to bump it.

your major factor is tire to tierod clearance.

 

Also to 91camaroRS-I once was looking at different center links. I remeber pondering I think it was Coleman racing on adustable Idler and pitman mounting centerlinks but i never actually measured the car to see if one would fit- mainly becasue I never needed it- just something I remeber coming across and looking at.

edit- may bad, I mean adjustable centerlinks where the inner tierods attach, not adjustable where the pitman and idler attach, Sorry.

 

Like these?

http://pitstopusa.com/i-5070614-alls...-gm-78-88.html

At one point I poured through the catalogs and there are a couple centerlinks that are close, but nothing that would be a direct fit. Coleman is very willing to make custom parts so it may worth a call if that's the route you want to take.

 

Here is the link where Mark the owner of Racecraft states that they made the PA racing crossmembers for several years

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/susp...r-options.html

Here is the quote

10-10-2007, 03:09 PM #28 Racecraft Inc.
Junior Member

Join Date: Oct 2007
Posts: 17

Classifieds Rating: (0)


Re: Tubular K-Member Options
We will update our camaro section with more picks after we get back from Memphis this weekend. It looks like PA's because we used to private label for them several years ago. Our current K-member is similar, but different mainly in the engine mount and rear buckets.

Mark

http://www.racecraft.com

 

so will those 1in extended joints work with our cars?

 

Not unless you address the steering geometry issue- we answered this in above posts.

 

Yes, exactly what I meant. I remember years ago seeing a page with specs on the mount hole lengths, but I never bothered measuring anything to see if one would work. The weight on these do not matter since it is sprung weight, the tierods are of lightweight importance, but not this.


Also these from Howe. These are the adjatable ones using custom pitman and idler arm spacer bushings to basically do the same thing. Obviously anything here would be a custom ffit, but it could be done. The steering box and Idler could possible be spaced off the frame with plates to get closer if the centerlink was lets say an inch shorter- the main focus is on the tierod length matching the same we currently have so it matches the stock A-arm length.
http://pitstopusa.com/i-5072928-howe...-assembly.html

 

Yeah I remember that incident... it was not a k-member it was the tubular a-arms. It broke on the tube, not a weld. But it was due to the subcontracted company...
I think they got a k-member and new a-arms from aje. Never heard how it all turned out though.