Thread: WHiteline KCA303M

The bushings should not change the whiteline brace, it mounts to the chassis not the control arm.

Really? I thought that the front 2 points mounted the control arms as one and the rest mounted to the chassis as well- "boxing everything together as 1 unit" Maybe I was wrong? Hmmmmmm..... gonna look at the set up again throughly.

As was mentioned, the pivot bolt holding the front of the control arm also holds the brace. So yeah, the offset bushing changes the angle of the bolt hole through the control arm mount, which affects the bolt alignment. My personal experience was I had to enlarge the mounting holes to get it to align.

A picture's worth a thousand:



The angle in the drawing is exaggerated, but you get my point. The holes through the control arm mount (red) and the hole through the whiteline brace (gold) needed to be enlarged. I also took a pry bar/BFH and tweeked the angle of the control arm mounts (red) to get a better angle for the round bushing to pivot against.

It does not angle the bolt, if so how would you be able to get it through the factory holes.

Okay...it all must have been a dream then.




Exactly.

Thanks for the clarification! Yeah just wanted to make sure everything would fit. The picture really helps to illustrate what you were referring to. Im sure this will really help out other members as well!

I installed the KCA303M today. Prior to install I sourced some junkyard control arms and installed new ball joints on the junkyard arms. I also prepped the spare arms to accept new urethane bushings. THe bolt on the middle bushing goes in ok. What I did was tighten the sway bar link slightly and tighten the two bolts for the rear cap bushing slightly. This held the control arm in place but allowed for enough movement to position the bar so the bolt would go in.

I used a dead blow hammer and jack to position the arm. Once the bolt was completely through I just tightened it up with a socket+ratchet. You'll need a small piece of wood that fits in between the bushing cavity so that you are able to move the arm but not lift up the entire car.

After the bolt was in place I went ahead and tightened up the rear cap bushing. There is no need to grind out any metal to get that bolt in.

What I learned through all this though was that I need to find a new method to get a ball joint loose. I used the device shown in the FSM, but I ended up ripping up the boot on a ball joint that has only seen 5k miles of use. Previously I had only changed the ball joints on the control arms that came with my NX2k. I thought the rubber bushings in the control arms were still decent that is why I only changed ball joints. My advice is that if you are going to take an arm off and your car has over 100k miles just go ahead and replace the rubber bushings with urethane or just get a brand new control arm.

I also used teflon tape for the rear cap bushing and middle bushing that has the metal sleeve.

Each car is going to be slightly different. I tried a very similar approach and the bolt was not going in without shearing off the threads. Keep in mind the reason I replaced my control arms/bushing was because the previous owner bent the controls arms. The bracket that the front bushing connects to must have been slightly tweaked. Also keep in mind the whiteline brace adds a new dimension to the install.

^^^Ah interesting. Yeah a bent suspension subframe would change things. I'd like to add that yeah the change in caster is noticeable by just eyeballing it. I'm looking forward to driving my car to feel the changes.

So I went to get an alignment today.

My previous alignment in June 2011 was with stock springs and struts. This time around the car was equipped with Hypercoil/AGXs, and ES+Whiteline bushings in the front control arms.

Previously my car had the following caster and toe in values

Left Right
Caster: +1.9 +2.0
Toe-In: +.09" +.08"

After the install of the bushings + the hypercoil/agx setup
Left Right
Caster: +2.5 +3.1
Toe-In: -.72" -.65"

After the alignment my values were
Left Right
Caster: +2.5 +3.1
Toe-In: +.06" +.06"

I have to see whats up with my increased difference in caster values. Before the difference was only .1 degree. Also I'd like to ad that my right side has been smashed in before. The right strut tower is bent in compared to the left tower. I think the change in caster to be expected by others is probably the change that my left side shows.

Does anybody know how to make small adjustments to caster or camber on these cars? I was thinking of pushing the top of the strut forward as much as possible in order to try to decrease the difference in caster between the two sides of my car.