Interchangeable Ball Joints?

[SVXRide]

Question!

Are the ball joints on our lower A-Arms interchangeable with those of any other Subie (STi, WRX)? I'm looking at the steering geometry for autocrossing and the Impreza/Legacy crowd has a lot of aftermarket ball joint options.

Thanks.

Bill

[Hocrest]

Completely different. No other Subaru uses a bottom plate like to attach to the control arm. They all have a tapered pin that goes through the control arm.

Now, I have seen ball joints of a similar design to the SVX for other makes. I have no idea on specs though. If you have an auto parts store that will let you browse their shelves maybe you can find something?

[Hocrest]

What are you trying to reposition?

[svxfiles]

Originally Posted by Hocrest

What are you trying to reposition?

MOAR CAMBER!

[SVXRide]

Originally Posted by Hocrest

What are you trying to reposition?

Dave,

I'm rebuilding a set of A arms with the yellow Polish bushings and figured that while I was at it I'd look into different ball joints that would handle the car being lowered and, as OT noted, cranking in even more camber.

I've seen the ball joints I'm thinking about for WRX/STis. I'll probably take your advice and take a photo of one of my space ball joints and send it to some of the aftermarket folks to see what they might have that is close. The spare A arms that I'm rebuilding could be modified to work with a different base plate. Anything special about our hubs and how the ball joint mates up that I should keep in mind?

Thoughts?

Bill

[Hocrest]

Is there a reason you can't use the stock bj mounted to the CA differently?

If your set on using an STI bj, you could have the end of an STI CA (maybe leg/imp?) Welded into place on our CA. I think I have some SVX and Leg hubs in the basement I'll try to see if that end would work?

[Hocrest]

Forget about it. SVX is about 3/4" other soobs are about 1.75"

[scoobydrvr]

Only slightly off topic:

How hard would it be to start a repository of information for putting parts from different cars on ours? With OE parts starting to get hard to come by, it would be nice to have an index of things that will work in place of factory originals.

[1986nate]

Originally Posted by scoobydrvr

Only slightly off topic:

How hard would it be to start a repository of information for putting parts from different cars on ours? With OE parts starting to get hard to come by, it would be nice to have an index of things that will work in place of factory originals.

there's already a thread around for that.

As Dave mentioned, what about bolting the ball joint "above" the control arm rather than below? From an engineering standpoint, it may not turn out too well for the control arm but seems to me it would be okay.

[scoobydrvr]

Originally Posted by 1986nate

there's already a thread around for that.

Oh, neat! I thought I surely couldn't be the first to think of it but hadn't seen much on the topic for the past few months. Thanks for the suggestion.

(Found the thread. http://www.subaru-svx.net/forum/show...interchangable)

[B 4 You]

What about swapping the entire control arm altogether? I've fantasized about swapping the entire suspension with an STi one. Control arms, hubs, bearings, brakes (bremos ), etc... One day when I have nothing but money I'm going to do it.