Was having a conversation with an engineer from MCS suspension, when he pointed out that the rear LCA design of our older hondas (i'm running an EF) have an extra degree of freedom that is not accounted for very well. The rear LCA has free axial play along the arm axis, especially if you're using sphericals, essentially making the first inch or two of wheel travel not engage the rear swaybar effectively. THe swaybar endlink forces the lca to rotate until it binds inside the inner/outer pickup point where it will then engage the swaybar properly. He recommended having a delrin washer pickup up the slack, forcing the pickup points to bind immediately. He also said using an ITR style rear LCA is an obvious solution.... but with no one offering ITR rear LCA's with sphericals (hardrace & Function 7 not manufacturing them), i don't see this as an option. Has anyone else investigated this and gone down this path? I'm worried delrin spacers would wear quickly when used in endurance races.

 

So the sway bar endlink->lca bolt holes have too much slack? Is that what you are saying?

 

The mounting points aren't perfectly vertical and slightly offset throughout the wheel travel. Meaning upward movement of the arm forces the arm itself to rotate instead of having forces go directly through the endlink, engaging the arb. Look at the ITR LCA/arb endlinks and where the eye on the Type R arb aligns with the LCA.

 

Late to this one, but I do remember lengthy discussions about it back in the day here. Function7 got around this, a bit at least, by using poly bushings in the damper mount position on their spherical arms:



Getting rid of the moment arm that the end link creates would be the real solution but would require a rethink on the ARB setup. Maybe as simple as spacing the whole bar rearward off of its chassis mounting and cooking up some endlinks that are 'forked' at the bottom. Best solve in my opinion, as you already pointed out, would be to have a boxed out LCA with the endlink mounting set up inside the box so it acts more in plane with the rest of the arm.