RPG Upper Control Arms

[signalbobby]

When I first started looking at upper control arms I thought the on truck adjustment capability would be nice. But then I watched one of the EXO or other baja run videos on YouTube and they had a truck down, it had a billet control arm come apart, it was only in the frame for about 3 seconds but you could clearly see the heim joint had pulled out of the control arm. This is caused by either one of two things. not enough threads into the control arm OR the locking system (jamb nut or pinch bolts) coming loose and causing back and forth pressure to be put on the threads until they failed.

Right then I decided the on vehicle adjustment was an extra failure point and didn't want it.

Vehicle probably had too much preload/lift and had to push out the UCA to get alignment to have very little threads of the heim actually in the UCA. Odd though as the joint has no way of unthreading in the arm so the aluminum failed.
Another reason to not **** with the engineered ride height to ensure proper up/down travel.

 

[TomDirt]

The Raptor suspension attachments are just regular f150 pick up pick up points. They were not re-designed to handle big geometry changes. Billet UCA's with adjustments are not practical on a street-driven daily driver. EXO's videos confirm this. The majority of Raptors on the EXO & TRR tours that have no issues are using the oem (steel, 1 piece) UCA's.

 

[ToadSmasher2K1]

Does anyone make a billet UCA without heims? 74Weld makes some nice looking UCA for Tacoma/4Runner.

I’m new to the UCA game, is there an advantage to heims?

 

[BenBB]

Does anyone make a billet UCA without heims? 74Weld makes some nice looking UCA for Tacoma/4Runner.

I’m new to the UCA game, is there an advantage to heims?

Not that I've seen but there are a few steel ones (other than OEM, which like @TomDirt has mentioned are super cheap) like Camburg. The heims allow for camber/caster adjustment when the LCA slots have been deleted, or (more likely) just to look cool...

 

[TomDirt]

Total Chaos gets $900 for theirs, which gets you better geometry and replaceable bushings & uniball. Blitzkrieg, Camburg, and all the others ask similar prices for their version of tubular steel/uniball UCA's. The OEM replacement cast steel/balljoint UCA's are about 1/5 the cost and work just fine, they just aren't rebuildable. If you upgrade to the aftermarket ones and find your OEM UCA's are still tight; you might want to hang on to them for spares or bring them along on any Raptor Runs you do. You might save the day for someone else who broke theirs.

 

[TomDirt]

These guys make billet UCA's (for the BRaptor) that are adjustable without removing them. https://automotiveperformancegroup.com/product/bronco-midrunner-uca/
They use a "double jam nut" design to align the heim joint ends while on the truck.

 

[TomDirt]

Their installation video: