Car is a 95 civic coupe with 16" rims 215/45 r16 tires and tien flex z coil overs, lowered to about a 12" ride height when measured from hub center to fender edge. It's low enough to fit a finger or two.

Two year old HardRace brand lower ball joint separated while slowly turning and hitting a small dip.

Seems like ever since car was lowered, ball joints need replaced every other year or so. Is that normal?
Potholes or other awkward road dips and sometimes rarely the adjustable upper control arm will slam into the strut tower as well.

The geometry, like in this YouTube video at 5:00 he says it's preferable for the lower control arm to slope down towards the tires as it would with the stock ride height
https://youtu.be/xcUKeCt57aY?si=qRPiAt-89cXiglbX

also understand that Ideally, the line between the center of the inner lower control arm mount and the center of the lower ball joint should be level (horizontal) with the ground to maximize suspension performance.

But the car's geometry looks like it has to slope up to reach the tire as you can see from the picture or maybe it's fine?

also pictured is the rear geometry which I'm not sure what's ideal there. Those are winter tires on their third year and i adjust toe camber and caster all myself

Planning to correct the geometry with HardRace roll center ball joints and the new honed rear roll center kit and eventually adjustable tie rods if necessary. Also cutting and welding in the raised strut tower sheet metal pieces. Many in forum have said roll center ball joints are bad for these cars so open to drop spindles or whatever or just leaving everything as is. Not experiencing any extreme bump steer as is, just running through lower ball joints. Has 24mm sway bar up front and 25.4mm sway bar in rear

 

Bump

 

I've used Truart and Sanki 555 lower ball joints with good success while circuit racing on track, far exceeding forces seen on the street.

Being that low shouldn't cause ball joints to wear out prematurely.

If you can weld, just make your own rear LCA geometry correction kit, like I did, for like $10-20 in metal from home depot.

I don't notice any difference in handling, or bumpsteer after going from no geometry correction to extended front and rear lower corrections mid-season last year. Changing my caster by flipping my EK's upper A arms changed steering feel the most.

You got pics on how it separated? Did it fail completely and fully disconnect from the LCA while driving?

But, also earlier last season I had a passenger lower ball joint fail mid corner, on track, driving hard, and it slammed the LCA into my rim, cracking the rim. Then because the knuckle was disconnected from the LCA, the wheel got further destroyed by wedging under the fender arch. My ball joint failed due to being old having overly worn threads on the ball joint. I ripped the castle nut straight off the threads, cotter pin was still somewhat left behind. It was no fun. But its all fixed now....

 

Was your ball joint failure before or after you did geometry corrections?

i can weld good but not confident enough to cut knuckle up if that's what you mean. Im not sure about how to use the home depot metal to make geometry corrections. I would have to see what u did.

so you think i am low enough to warrant getting extended roll center ball joints but not low enough that it should accelerate ball joint wear?

as u can see the ball joint just separated into two pieces, no metal sheered or anything

 

Bump

 

Hmm. Well, remind me to never use hardrace ball joints! Lol

A failure like that should never occur, even being slammed to the earth.

My failure happened before roll corrections. The threads were super sus before that event. I basically saw it coming. I was kicking myself for not changing them earlier.



You don't cut any knuckes. The rear correction is part of the stamped steel rear trailing arm. Yeah, not messing with welding cast knuckle. You see the bit of metal added to the bottom where the LCA attaches? Super simple to make.




As you can see, the shank is still in the knuckle. I've never seen a shank pulled out, but I have seem them sheared off. Which makes me think the ones you are using are just crap quality or a crap design.

My friends are slammed on autozone ball joints without issue.

But I think the ball joints you used were just crap. Try Sanki 555 for standard ball joints or truhart if you want roll center correction. Never have roll center correction ball joints been marketed for the purpose of solving a brittle lower ball joint problem, so don't expect that to make any reliability change. They exist only to supposedly fix handling.

Yo this isnt facebook. There's not a whole ton of people that come wandering thru here, prob wait a day or 2 to bump..

 

x2 on the Sankei LBJs if you're not moving to a roll center correction joint. I have found that some of the aftermarket joints have a limited range compared to OE quality ones, but I'm a little surprised by your issue with HardRace as they are usually fairly decent stuff. That being said, I've never seen a ball joint separate like that except for in a crash.

It would be wonderful if someone would cook up a fabricated knuckle with some geometry corrections. I wouldn't hold my breath but I would expect it to be expensive if someone did make it. There was a company that made a set of lowering knuckles and trailing arms decades ago. I don't think they sold very many and the design bounced around for a few years before disappearing completely.

No way in hell I would trust a modified OEM knuckle. You can swap on a 96-00 knuckle. They are a bit shorter (~9mm) and will give you a little more clearance to the towers. It's not much but it is there.

 

Those pics are brutal man that rim wow. Looking at the pictures i posted and my setup, would the front and rear geometry correction kits help? Should i do that? I don't think im confident enough to make it myself but seeing u did it i will feel dumb paying $300+ for a rear kit plus shipping and tariffs.

I wasn't in a crash but earlier that day i was on a backroad that i wasn't familiar with and it had a sudden dip at the bottom of a hill, kinda like a bad speed bump but more like a gutter and i thought i messed something up but continued driving fine then later in the day it just separated as i was making a slow turn in 25 mph zone.

i also have had only good luck with hardrace until this. I will continue to buy from them , just not ball joints, just because this has happened to me before, 15 years ago, but it was before i lowered the car. I was pulling out of driveway and car just dropped. I had on old omni power coilovers that weren't height adjustable but probably did lower the car a little, can't remember. And those were probably advanced auto ball joints.

will probably end up using auto zone ball joints just because car has been out of service too long. I will change ball joints every two years no matter what. Plan to sit it on platforms and really measure the angle of the front and rear lower arms and compare it to stock, but need info on what stock is supposed to be?

 

https://fcsrace.com/ has some custom front knuckles +more

 

Yeah now you see why I did what I did. $300+tariffs just to test if that makes any noticable difference or not...kinda bleh. Not a fan of Honed's design there, I would have sold a weld on kit with a couple spacers..nothing has to be welded or plated before shipping reducing manufacturing costs. I mean, he already sells the weld in reinforcement plates for the trailing arm. If you have a welder, why the heck would you double bolt on an extension when you can just zap it with some weld and it be as strong or stronger. In the name of weight savings, the weld has to save a gram or 2 lol. Pluses and minuses, and to each their own; for me, welding makes more sense. His kit also requires cutting metal so you are already busting out the paint can too...

I literally spent like $20 and a few hours. Using cardboard to mock things up

You are lucky, a failed ball joint can cause a ton of damage. I was lucky I veered into a field and not another car, a wall, or anything else worse than grass.

 

Something doesnt make sense in your photos. Youre saying that the joint separated without shearing, but i think clearly something is missing from the cup area.

Here's an OEM joint for reference I have sitting on my desk...

 

Grade50 oh you're right maybe it did shear a piece of metal off.

theYBLEGAL i might try to fabricate that rear correction kit. Can't be that hard with cardboard templates i will try to copy your design and honed.

that shop has some nice wishlist stuff.

so does the geometry from the pics look like it needs correction based on the pics? Should the lower ball joint be level with where the lower control arm connects to the frame, or should LBJ be below where LCA connects to the frame? Is there a diagram on the exact points to measure from?

also wanted to point out these two lower control arms one is for rear that drops 2"
one is for front it adds caster and does something for ball joints, it only comes in spherical bushings which i don't think i would like though and i don't think it would be easy to find rubber bushings for it
Front control arm option for ball joint angle correction

https://www.pci-racing.com/product/f...8ki0R3xps5esvU



Rear control arm for 2" of lower

https://www.mpcmotorsport.com/produc...rear-drop-arms

also this billet drop forks will it correct geometry or just make car lower than ever
https://slammedenuffshop.com/product...d48747c6d56d2c

 

The whole geometry correction thing is 90% a marketing ploy. It may mildly affect handling, but never in the history of Hondatech have I seen a lowered car have ball joints fail premature.

I would not trust an aluminum front LCA. Where the ball joint fits into the aluminum arm is always sus. Omni power tried first long ago, and they all failed. New ones try to fix the wallowing out of the hole by using a steel or brass sleeve insert, but its still more of a wear item than an oem arm. They are meant for guys that need to lose every ounce possible and are willing to inspect the car after every session/pass/event. Would not daily those.

The rear arms and drop forks are for special cases, you shouldn't need those either.

Since the dawn of tuning, people have cut springs and called it a day. No need to over complicate

Ruined 4banger, not a channel I really watch, but I know if you skim thru his videos you might get some ideas. His cars are generally slammed to the earth cheaply.

 

Is he possibly pushing that balljoint past its allowable angle when he bottoms out? Granted I have a 6th gen, but I'm looking at this balljoint on my desk and dont see how it could possibly handle the angle created by his LCA. OP is saying that his upper arm is hitting the shock tower at times even with a 2 finger gap,... I know aftermarket UCA's have less clearance (and is why i stuck with OEM), but it doesn't seem like he should be having that much travel.

In his second closeup of the joint, i think i do perceive some sort of bend just below the mushroom end of the stud, as if it was being pushed beyond the joint's angular limit.

OP, how do your bumpstops look?

 

The drop forks and arms won't do anything for geo. They just add shock travel back, which may or may not be a good thing, and decrease clearance to your driveshafts in the front.

The geometry correction makes a noticeable difference in the feel of the car. I don't think it's the source of your ball joint reliability issues though. Something else is going on. Is any part of the suspension hitting the frame at any point? Do you have functional bump stops?

 

I would want to see what camber settings are on the UCA too. If the car is lowered, pushing the camber positive will demand more out of the balljoint.

 

Grade50 you're right again, idk how i didn't see it, the ball joint is all jacked up, no longer straight, the head is tilted.

The bump stops are hidden behind a boot on tien flex z adjustable coilovers but i can feel that it's there. Doesn't feel crumbled.

currently running hardrace upper control arms with adjustable camber and caster but was previously running the skunk2 upper arms, but felt like the upper ball joints were low quality and wanted to learn about caster so switched to hardrace UCA.

Caster was set with the swivel platforms and found they should be all the way in, just same as oem.

spadam that's what im thinking, i see all these companies selling the geometry correction stuff and all these YouTube videos stressing it but searching in these forums most ppl say it's mostly marketing / scam but lowering has to stress out ball joints and has to be more to it.

 

Helps that I'm a forensic materials engineer, lol.

Your UCA is positioned all the way out, so max positive camber unless theres some other adjustment on those arms.... I believe this is traumatizing your lower balljoints.

I have a new set of truhart UCA's I never put in (very similar to the hardrace design), but I compared it side by side with the OEM and the stock position on the truharts would have been fully IN along the slotted holes. The fact you have it fully out suggests that you may be over correcting it out (positive camber)? You trying to correct for rubbing maybe? If so, you might need to consider different options, like changes in the wheel offset rather than cambering out the knuckle entirely.

 

grade50 im not gonna doubt youre right again , camber was set like this

i set the car on platforms that i first make sure are all level by nailing string levels to all four corners and raising the platforms until each are level.

Camber set using this tenhulzen camber tool to get everything close to zero as possible. I don't remember exactly where i ended up setting the UCA though i guess it's possible it slipped but i think there would be evidence of scraping and pretty sure I tightened them good.

maybe i shouldn't force 0 camber and let it go a little negative since when a car is lowered it wants to naturally go into negative camber?

 

Yes, I wouldn't fear negative camber for a mild drop. I'm lowered to about 2 fingers worth and didn't correct camber. I just corrected toe and the tires have been fine (for 15 years ish)

I do think you probably have something else going on that is allowing the UCA smash the tower; not the cause of the balljoint problems but it probably isn't helping. Perhaps you need longer progressive bumpstops.

 

I've been running the OEM replacement Hardrace balljoints for +3 years. No issues. They're warrantied as well. In fact, I run pretty much Hardrace everything and the only issue I had was last year when a rear camber arm wouldn't adjust. The arm seized from rust, but Hardrace gave me a set anyway, so I gave my old arms to a friend. Bushing-wise, nothing has cracked or catastrophically failed.

 

Wait, all these mods and you're running zero camber?

 

Exactly !!! That is more positive than the factory settings. I am not sure that this is the only problem contributing to the OP's failure, but it absolutely is placing undue stress on the lower ball joint. I think the factory "in spec" range is something like -.2 to -.9 degrees camber.

 

I probably misspoke regarding the UCA settings. It looks like the OEM UCA joint is positioned at the full out setting. Maybe your camber is not so terribly far off, but I guess you'd have to look at this for the 5th gen. Your lower arm is definitely more cocked at an angle than the 6th gen.

Reference of stock vs truhart UCA's for a 6th gen.

 

100% on the last couple of posts.

Only good reason to run adjustable arms in the front is if you need more camber. Generally whatever the stock arms give you at your chosen drop is about right on a street setup. Then adjust the rears so they have about 1* less than the fronts and you’ll have a pretty nice tire friendly but still fun street setup.

Mine at 295mm front height gets right at -2.5* in the front and I just shim out the stock arm in the rear to -1.5. Tire wear is perfect with zero toe all around and car is a blast in the canyons.

If I were to take it to the track I’d probably raise it 15mm all around and try to get the fronts to somewhere between -3 and -3.5 and add a couple mm of rear toe out.