alright... i have had numerous requests for a review and comparison of the Chassis Tech upper control arms with camber plate that i puchased and used in my build thread.
THESE ARE AVAILABLE FOR 3rd, 4th and 5th gen preludes.
THIS REVIEW IS ON A 4th GEN!

comparison picture between oem and Chassis Tech.
the Chassis Tech unit feels slightly heavier then the OEM unit. this is expected considering it is made of thick steel and has a large camber plate with matching hardware.

you can also see that the Chassis Tech is slightly longer. This created a bit of an issue... this is explained below.

as you can see, the welds are pretty clean/decent. it also uses some pretty heavy duty hardware.

the chassis tech obviously come with a new ball joint, so for the price you are definitely getting your moneys worth.

the adjustment is a quoted +2.5 to -2.5 which is the best front camber adjustment offered for the prelude.

it is also very solid.. i dont see this thing breaking. and after 6 months of use it has held up very well.

these pieces are not all perfect.. getting the joints in place can be a bit tricky because it is a tight fit on some. with a rubber mallet you can knock them into place though.


after using these Chassis Tech control arms on my 94 JDM prelude and also just recently installing them on my brothers 1995 USDM prelude i have come to the conclusion that these arms are somewhat poorly assembled. i am sure the company has to be using a jig of some sort to make sure all of the arms are build the same but they either rush or the jig isnt very effecient. the outter piece that holds the camber plate in place seems to be in a slightly different location, like it was guess fitting and then they just welded it in place. it is not noticeably off (as far as looking at them go) though so the difference is very minimal. however... my brother ran into rubbing issues. the inside of the shock tower was rubbing really bad on both edges of the portion that the camber plate bolts onto (see picture below). my brother and i are both running the same suspension and the same ride height.

to start with you can see that with the Chassis Tech arm being longer then the OEM arm is creates a tiny bit of a clearance issue. the arm may rest on this little section circled below when lowering the car off the jack stand after installation. this is not a big deal. if you take a hammer and knock spine out just a hair it clears with ease. this is not an issue when the car is being driven... only when you are lowering the car back down after having it in the air.


here is the clearance issue. we couldnt source the problem of the rubbing (squeeking noise for about a week and a half). we thought it was the upper control arm bushings we we replaced those with poly bushings and grease fittings. this wasnt the issue. as shown below you can see where the edge of the metal on both outter corners (circled in red) were rubbing against the inside of the shock tower.

to remedy this we took the suspension off and took a mallet to the inner fender. after a few good hits the UCAs cleared with no more rubbing issue. the inner shock tower is double layered and the layers are spaced out from eachother. knocking in the inner portion a little will not effect the outter shock tower so this will not be visible in the bay.

overall i like the Chassis Tech arms. they are very sturdy, extremely well priced, it offers the most camber adjustment available for preludes, it comes with a new ball joint, and they have numerous powder coat options for a minimal additional $15 cost. the company also has good customer service from what ive had to deal with.

the price when i purchased them was $125 with $15 for powder coating and free s/h.
this price has gone up over the past year and is now $144.95 with $15 powder coating and $9.99 s/h.

but still for $170 you are getting a new ball joint, maximum camber adjustment and a strong UCA. compared to SPC ball joint camber kits (which i am running in the rear of my lude, so is my brother) which are normally around $150 for 2 and offer -1.5 to +1.5 of camber or ingalls camber kits which replace the UCA bushings that cost around the same price but only offer +.75 to -.75 of camber these UCAs are very well priced.

WARNING: if by chance you are trying to get even more camber adjustment for some reason. the ingalls camber kits that replace the UCA bushings will not work when using Chassis Tech UCAs... it pushed the arms out a little bit farther even on the lowest setting and the UCA will not clear and your car all be resting on top of the arm (i tested this). however, replacing the ball joint on the Chassis Tech arm with a SPC ball joint camber kit should, in theory, allow an additional -1.5 to +1.5 of camber. however i dont know if this will create clearance issues.

these can be purchased off ebay: (the sellers name is: pricebusterchris)
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...SA%3AUS%3A1123

or you can go onto their distributers site:
http://www.airbagit.com/product-p/carx-pre-9296.htm

if anyone has any further questions or concerns let me know and i will do my best to answer them.
i hope this helps for those who are interested.
thanks for looking.
_zac

 

Zac, thank you so much for taking the time to do a propper write-up on these. I can't believe there have been so many views and no replies! There are a handful of weekend warriors that are going to be very interested in these.

Did you buy these to remove or add negative camber?
What did your alignment specs come out to be camber/toe/caster?
Have they slipped at all?

Thank you again,
Brian.

 

thanks a lot man!! i havent noticed any slipping at all actually. i lost my alignment sheet actually and cant remember what he dialed it in at. as of right now i am running almost static camber in the front if i remember correctly though. later on the additional adjustment will be used to help me fit my next set of wheels so they will be used to add additional negative camber and i plan on doing occassional track events once i have my kswap in but nothing to serious.

_zac

 

Awesome review, very interesting read.

 

Thanks for reviewing for us!!

 

Now it is time to show the review of the 3rd gen UCA from airbagit:

I have emailed and talked to James at airbagit to get a compped UCA to test and show the actual UCA kit.

I was impressed when I first saw them because they were real beefy, however that faded to black once I got them on the 3GP, let me show you:

As you can see they are longer and thicker than the OEM ones.







Fitment between the UCA bushing brackets were perfect.





Here is the test fit on the 3rd gen:






All seemed ok until this:






I would have recommended them to my community but with the arm hitting the chassis at static heigh(when lowered) this product would not suffice for the community and is not recommended.

I did email James back many times, but never got a response. I even called and no answer to my messages. I left messages via email as well to redesign the arm so that it can exceed the current angle of articulation that is shown in the above pictures so that the arm would not smack the chassis and thus cause damage.

My thread back on pp.com went dead after this pictures showed up and no response to my recommendations.

We were hoping to resolve this so that we could have a better product for lowered 3GP's but nothing to date.

So 1 for the 4th genners, and 0 for the 3rd genners.

 

damn, that sucks. i havent attempted to get in touch with them yet in regards to the few small issues with their UCAs but i have contacted them in the past numerous times about ordering and shipping and questions on the product and never had a problem with getting in touch with them. i hope that they arent showing their true colors in your situation. i would think companies would want to better themselves and better their products...
thanks for posting 1funryd. if i get in touch with them i will bring up the 3rd gen issues as well.
_zac

 

Yeah no problem, I was dissappointed but I am not trying to discredit them or anything like that, I just wanted to show that they made a strong part but it needs some tweaks and until they are fixed it is not a feasble option for the 3rd gens.

 

just got back from my cruise... i will try to contact chassis tech sometime this week.
_zac

 

you have quite the interesting perspective on that thread. you seem to forget that a couple of us told you that was going to happen before you ever got one in hand to try for yourself. (and still nobody can suggest what the hell those other two holes are for).

your thread went dead because you kept trying to push this **** on the members despite a few of us pointing out that it could not and would not work. your thread went dead because you kept telling those of us who do this for a living that we didn't know as much as a guy who struggles to push papers as a hobby.

the thread, if anyone cares...remove the star in the popup.



oddly enough, the total lack of correct fitment and likely damage to the car isn't preventing them from selling those parts on ebay.

of course....the engalls kits don't work either, and people are still selling them too.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/88-91...Q5fAccessories



i wish someone would come up with a way to mount the 3rd gen upper ball joints in other upper control arms. it would likely be the most elegant solution for several honda camber issues.

 

still havent contacted the anyone thats worth talking to with the company.
_zac

 

you are very welcome.
if you are getting squeeking noises it may be your rubber bushings...

see my grease fitting/poly bushing thread (my brother was having the same issue and this is how we solved it):
https://honda-tech.com/forums/honda-prelude-4/custom-grease-fittings-poly-bushings-2726995/

_zac

 

**UPDATE (see below for a a response i got) i figured this may be helpful questions and answers for those who are interested.**

thanks for the kind words. i have had no issues at all with my set. i got them in the mail and they were exactly as described. i had zero fitment or installation issues. i have used them for almost 2 years now i think and they are still doing great with no problems at all. my brother got the same arms but he ran into a few issues with fitment as shown in my review of the UCAs. we had to use a weighted hammer and bang out the inner wheel well a little and since then everything has worked great with his arms. he dailies his prelude and has had zero issues since then. the parts that join the UCAs to the shock tower that have the oem rubber bushings created issues for my brother with the arms. we ended up ordering energy suspension urethane bushings and doing a grease fitting mod to them to keep them lubricated properly. i made a how to thread on that as well:

https://honda-tech.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2726995

(the oem rubber units were creating binding and squeeking due to them being worn out and falling apart) the urethane bushings with grease fitting mod fixed these issues.
i dont know why the UCAs would raise your car back to stock height... they should have no effect on your ride height. as far as you stripping the ball joint... i had to remove mine and reinstall them because i originally mounted them on the wrong sides. i still had no issues with stripping. we removed and reinstalled my brothers UCAs 3 or 4 times and never had any stripping issues. either you ate your wheaties that morning or you just got unlucky. i would suggest contacting chassis tech and asking if you are able to order just the camber plate with ball joint. also, you may want to save up and invest in coilovers or at least GC sleeves with koni yellows so you have adjustability in your ride height so you can dial it in to where you want it.
i hope this response helps a little bit and i am glad my review thread has helped
_zac

 

These look good.

 

please read the entire review and comments prior to purchasing.
thanks,
_zac

 

So after one day of driving around my drivers side ball joint stripped out and pulled out of my spindle arm on the chassis tech arms. I called the company they are very understanding and are sending me a new ball joint assembly buy they had to temperarely charge me $25 till they get the broken one back to actually see what happened even though I sent them five different pictures of what happened. I would post pics but can't figure out how to with my itouch I will upload them onto my comp later to show you guys what happened. I've been talking to slim about has build and he has pulled his ball joints off numerous times with no problems, maybe it's just the luck of the draw but who knows. Just be causious when you buy these control arms. I did read this review before I bought mine and talked to the company for a long time before ordering seemed really legit to me before I order them I'll let everyone know how well they take care about this problem.