Project Cleaning the Clutter in Our Engine Bay

[NC-V]

Whoa Whoa Whoa... when were you out in NC last year visiting DSE? My house is about 1 mile from DSE and you didn't even get ahold of me? I see how it is...

[Kronix]

Nate I have the Pfadt Arms and when compared to the stock ones, they're hands down better all around. I'm not sure you'd want to take the material out of them, why not just go with the Pfadt? Don't they even coordinate with your color scheme?

[Moreno1]

Originally Posted by NC-V

Whoa Whoa Whoa... when were you out in NC last year visiting DSE? My house is about 1 mile from DSE and you didn't even get a hold of me? I see how it is...

SERIOUSLY! I didn't know you were that close Bro. My Aunt and Uncle lives about an hours away and I took the opportunity to go by. By the way, the owner of DSE has a cool name, LOL. Hows the shop coming along?

Originally Posted by Kronix

Nate I have the Pfadt Arms and when compared to the stock ones, they're hands down better all around. I'm not sure you'd want to take the material out of them, why not just go with the Pfadt? Don't they even coordinate with your color scheme?

Kronix, we are both on the same page. I am using the same Pfadt arm package. They are definitely the way to go, stronger, lighter and basically a work of automotive engineering art. The arms in question are the GM ZL1 lower control arms. I are using them to allows me to run the Pfadt ZL1 bar.

[NC-V]

Originally Posted by Kronix

Nate I have the Pfadt Arms and when compared to the stock ones, they're hands down better all around. I'm not sure you'd want to take the material out of them, why not just go with the Pfadt? Don't they even coordinate with your color scheme?

He is using Pfadt's toe links and trailing arms. He is referring to cutting up the actual lower control arm (Pfadt doesn't make this piece) to look like the Pfadt pieces.


Nathan beat me to it.

Nathan: yeah I am about a 2 minute drive to DSE if that. Shop is going well! Staying busy, A lot of Resto-mod stuff, couple numbers matching restorations. Some Camaro stuff. Need more time in the day to get caught up with all my Late model stuff!

[Moreno1]

Originally Posted by NC-V

He is using Pfadt's toe links and trailing arms. He is referring to cutting up the actual lower control arm (Pfadt doesn't make this piece) to look like the Pfadt pieces.


Exactly!




Nathan beat me to it.

Nathan: yeah I am about a 2 minute drive to DSE if that. Shop is going well! Staying busy, A lot of Resto-mod stuff, couple numbers matching restorations. Some Camaro stuff. Need more time in the day to get caught up with all my Late model stuff!

That's AWESOME Bro. Can't tell you how happy I am to hear that!

[Synner]

I wouldn't remove too much from a stamped steel arm especially considering the racing you'll be doing. Also when boxing in the top you'll be making it much harder to ever drop your coilover out. You may end up needing to drop the whole arm to get it out. Up to you if you consider it worth the hassle. If you're doing the newer style bars you can cut off the older mounting point tabs and box in that portion with no issue. The pfadt arms are a fully boxed truss design which is what gives it its strength. The stock arm has no such plate on the bottom extending out past the arm so its not nearly as strong if you were to remove material. Stiffening the top plate won't help the lower portion.

I've considered adding some internal gussets as well. I think there would be some significant stiffening benefits there whichever way you go. I see no reason to buy BMR units since there's been no arm failures and 50 cents in scrap metal will get you a very strong arm. But you may want the BMR units for the thicker metal if you give it the pfadt "look". I wouldn't recommend it on the stock ones from a structural standpoint.

[PfadtRacing]

Hey guys!

First off, thanks for getting us involved in this discussion. This is the type of stuff we thoroughly ENJOY doing, although we do not have a ton of spare time to do it as often as we like.

So basically I will get straight to the point: We would not recommend modifying that arm in anyway beyond what you have already "trimmed" up. This is one reason why we don't currently offer an aftermarket Rear Lower Control Arm; because the stock one actually has pretty good strength to weight ratio, and it ISN'T overloaded with useless material. You can certainly improve on the arm's strength with a new design, but it will have a similar strength to weight ratio at best. Please remember that lower control arms carry more than their fair share of suspension loads.

We did some analysis to show exactly what we are referring to, regarding whether it would be a good idea or not to remove material. Below is the report from our engineering staff here in the office:

The strength of the part is on the marginal side already and it has substantial deflection at load which would be exacerbated with the proposed modification. The amount of material that could be safely removed is small and could only be removed in an application that does not utilize the inboard sway bar mount.

The two plots attached are a Factor of Safety plot and a strain plot. The Factor of Safety plot is pretty self explanatory: Red areas are more likely to break first. The strain plot I use frequently for determining areas of material that are not pulling their weight so-to-speak. Red areas are carrying more of the load then blue areas. So, blue areas can be more safely removed without affecting the strength of the part. This does not mean that you could cut out any blue areas and be safe. The load that these areas were carrying will be distributed to areas that are already highly stressed. For instance, notice the small drilled hole and how the effects the area around it.

FACTOR OF SAFETY


STRAIN

[PfadtRacing]

Hope that helps guys! Wish we had found out that there was some room to modify!

[NC-V]

There you go Nathan!

Bravo Pfadt for providing a quick freebie engineering analysis of the lower control arm!

Nathan: Looks like now you're going to have to contract Pfadt to design and build you one that matches their other pieces!

[SS4PK]

Kudos, to Pfadt, thanks for the info.

[572HP]

Very interesting, thanks Pfadt! I was wondering why I could only find one after-market lower control arm. The images show red in some of the areas that you removed material (edges), Nathan. Should this be of concern?

[Moreno1]

Originally Posted by NC-V

There you go Nathan!

Bravo Pfadt for providing a quick freebie engineering analysis of the lower control arm!

+1000!

Nathan: Looks like now you're going to have to contract Pfadt to design and build you one that matches their other pieces!

I might just get them laminated in dry carbon Would look cool for sure!

Originally Posted by SS4PK

Kudos, to Pfadt, thanks for the info.

Originally Posted by 572HP

Very interesting, thanks Pfadt! I was wondering why I could only find one after-market lower control arm. The images show red in some of the areas that you removed material (edges), Nathan. Should this be of concern?

I'd imagine it shouldn't be a concern as some of the waviness/gagged edges seem more like at result of the production stamping than by design.

Originally Posted by jfvyjrjg29

thats a good read

I couldn't agree with you guys more, how can you not love these guys! I think when my brother and I graduate from engineering school, we are going to go work for them! What a great resource to have for all us Camaro enthusiasts, To have an engineering firm like Pfadt take time from their busy schedule to educate us and steer us in the right direction.

Thanks again guys for your time and input

[PfadtRacing]

Thanks for all of the great comments everyone! Like I said we love to do quick stuff like this to help out. We are proud to be members of the Camaro 5 community so if we have the time, we will do whatever we can to help!

Thanks for all of the kudos guys. We are just as interested in this build as YOU!

Originally Posted by 572HP

The images show red in some of the areas that you removed material (edges), Nathan. Should this be of concern?

I am going to armchair quarterback this and suggest that the tolerance for that edge is EXTREMELY loose from the factory and I'd be willing to bet that the removed material could be in excess of what the actual part design shows above in the CAD model. I think he is safe as long as the edge is a relatively consistent width.

[Matt @ FSP]

Originally Posted by PfadtRacing

Hey guys!

First off, thanks for getting us involved in this discussion. This is the type of stuff we thoroughly ENJOY doing, although we do not have a ton of spare time to do it as often as we like.

So basically I will get straight to the point: We would not recommend modifying that arm in anyway beyond what you have already "trimmed" up. This is one reason why we don't currently offer an aftermarket Rear Lower Control Arm; because the stock one actually has pretty good strength to weight ratio, and it ISN'T overloaded with useless material. You can certainly improve on the arm's strength with a new design, but it will have a similar strength to weight ratio at best. Please remember that lower control arms carry more than their fair share of suspension loads.

We did some analysis to show exactly what we are referring to, regarding whether it would be a good idea or not to remove material. Below is the report from our engineering staff here in the office:

The strength of the part is on the marginal side already and it has substantial deflection at load which would be exacerbated with the proposed modification. The amount of material that could be safely removed is small and could only be removed in an application that does not utilize the inboard sway bar mount.

The two plots attached are a Factor of Safety plot and a strain plot. The Factor of Safety plot is pretty self explanatory: Red areas are more likely to break first. The strain plot I use frequently for determining areas of material that are not pulling their weight so-to-speak. Red areas are carrying more of the load then blue areas. So, blue areas can be more safely removed without affecting the strength of the part. This does not mean that you could cut out any blue areas and be safe. The load that these areas were carrying will be distributed to areas that are already highly stressed. For instance, notice the small drilled hole and how the effects the area around it.

FACTOR OF SAFETY


STRAIN

Wow Blair that is awesome information that I did not even know...

Hands down to Pfadt on this, now you realize that THIS IS the company that does all of their own R&D, and has the tools/resources to analyze proper suspension pieces and geometry.