Outer Limits 4x4 Board

I just found these long arms on suspenion stuffs web site. I have never heard about these long arms before and I did search and nothing came up. Is anyone running these long arms?

https://www.suspensionstuff.com.au/shop ... hukjp9jpo3

I haven't sold many. Maybe Superior has. But every dude at Tuff Truck has some kind of long arm system.

You get less bump rear steer and better and more traction when 4WDing and a nicer ride on road. One of the reasons the Rangie has a nicer ride then the Patrol is because of the longer and more level trailing arms.

Shane

when you run a long arm kit, wont it move you diff back so you need to move your shock and spring monts??

mud_runner_GQ wrote:when you run a long arm kit, wont it move you diff back so you need to move your shock and spring monts??

Nar m8 the kit comes with new control arm mounts cut ur old 1s off weld the new 1s on 300mm foward on the chasis top arms dont change but dont fit a shorty unless u move he diff shock and spring mounts back

There was a thread a while back about winch challenge suspension setups that went into the development of the long arm kit regarding squat characharistics.

1madengineer had a bit to do with it that i think. Their R&D was pretty impressive and for real world application Robbie Marshall seems to do extremely well with them.
I have micks old set and the flex is that good i'll be buying 16" shocks with limit straps and spacing them as wide as possible at the top.
The kit comes with new front mounts that are welded in foward of the old ones.

If any one has a set of mounting instructions could you pm me the measurement of where to weld the front mount.

cheers smitty

Massively long lower arms and stock length uppers?
I don't know how well the stock length arms deal with pinion angle throughout the suspension cycle, but usually really long lowers and short uppers induces bad pinion angles at full flex.
Also won't lengthing only the lowers with stock length uppers lower your anti squat %? causing the rear to unload when power is applied?

hammey wrote:There was a thread a while back about winch challenge suspension setups that went into the development of the long arm kit regarding squat characharistics.

1madengineer had a bit to do with it that i think. Their R&D was pretty impressive and for real world application Robbie Marshall seems to do extremely well with them.
I have micks old set and the flex is that good i'll be buying 16" shocks with limit straps and spacing them as wide as possible at the top.
The kit comes with new front mounts that are welded in foward of the old ones.

If any one has a set of mounting instructions could you pm me the measurement of where to weld the front mount.

cheers smitty

There's a very simple way of doing it which requires no real measuring. All you do is put your uppers arms in, set your pinion where you want it by moving the rear wheels or using a jack to lift your pinion a little in need be. Once your happy with your pinion angle bolt the arms onto the diff end. Then bolt the chassis mounts to your arms and lift the arms up to the chassis and this will give you the exact spot to weld the mounts.

Cheers Mick.

Using a long arm setup moves the IC forward and down, which helps ride and putting power to the ground. And almost gets rid of the annoying diff steer when flexing, and the 'jacking' effect when 'powering on' around a corner! and the diff trying to drive itself under the back of the car.

To explain it a little better. Ideally between 30 and 70% antisquat is considered ideal for most offroad conditions. This is so that there is JUST enough resistance to compression to stop your bum dragging and not TOO much that it resists EVERY bump and punchs out your spine. Simple way to describe it is if you imagine the 6" lifted bottom arms, they stick up and ~20deg so there is quite a lot of 'verticle component' to resist the downward force, where a long flat arm allows the end to swing verticly very easily. (try pushing on the end of a near verticle rod!) When you have a lot of anti-squat the suspension is pushing UP a lot which fights the free range of movement, which in turn gives a terrible ride and doesn't allow the rear end to compress or extend and soak up bumps. 99% of all offroad race trucks use long flat rear suspension, AND so did your GQ/GU when it was stock!


this is the geometry of a 4.5-5" lifted GQ/GU with STD rear arms.




this is the geometry of a 4.5-5" lifted GQ/GU with Superior LongArms.



It doesn't really take Einstein to work out which would make for the better ride!!

hope that helps a bit.

lukethedork wrote:Massively long lower arms and stock length uppers?
I don't know how well the stock length arms deal with pinion angle throughout the suspension cycle, but usually really long lowers and short uppers induces bad pinion angles at full flex.
Also won't lengthing only the lowers with stock length uppers lower your anti squat %? causing the rear to unload when power is applied?

Yea, thanks for posting up the calculator numbers 1MadEngineer.
Re-reading my post I don't know what I was thinking saying that lower anti squat would cause you to unload, since lower anti squat means more squat. I think I was not thinking right.

But still with lowers that are over double the length of the uppers, It looks like to me that you would have some VERY bad pinion angles.

Does anyone have a picture of full flex with long arm lowers? I want to see this pinion....

lukethedork wrote:

lukethedork wrote:Massively long lower arms and stock length uppers?
I don't know how well the stock length arms deal with pinion angle throughout the suspension cycle, but usually really long lowers and short uppers induces bad pinion angles at full flex.
Also won't lengthing only the lowers with stock length uppers lower your anti squat %? causing the rear to unload when power is applied?

Yea, thanks for posting up the calculator numbers 1MadEngineer.
Re-reading my post I don't know what I was thinking saying that lower anti squat would cause you to unload, since lower anti squat means more squat. I think I was not thinking right.

But still with lowers that are over double the length of the uppers, It looks like to me that you would have some VERY bad pinion angles.

Does anyone have a picture of full flex with long arm lowers? I want to see this pinion....

Full travel out of 18" FOA remote res shocks, and sweet angles!







Hope that helps, i think i have more but i would have to search at home.

a great tech article about suspension geometry!
http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?t=701536

enjoy reading!

lukethedork wrote: But still with lowers that are over double the length of the uppers, It looks like to me that you would have some VERY bad pinion angles.

I still dont follow what you mean If you have longer lower arms, and move the mounts accordingly, how does this affect the pinion angle? (I'm no engineer so need it explained )

I'm suprised all looks good in those pictures 1madengineer, are they stock length upper arms?

Kiwi.
When you put in longer lower control arms they move in a bigger arc, But the upper arms are still moving in the same arc as before. This means when the suspension goes through its travel, the pinion angle change will be different than it was with the stock lower control arms.

At normal ride height on level ground you will have the same pinion angle since you moved the mounting point on the chassis, as you said.

Luke.

lukethedork wrote:I'm suprised all looks good in those pictures 1madengineer, are they stock length upper arms?

luke,
yeah stock uppers! I know its not perfect but for such a simple mod it works so well.... This design came about from supposed 'experts' telling us that you had to have an A frame in the rear to get good flex. So we got one and tried it / measured it and then laughed at it then we started cutting and welding and making different 'test' links. and came up with these. They just flexed amazing, and drove so well, they just put the power to the ground that much better. The hardest part is finding long enough travel shocks! with stock top arms and factory nissan bushs they can easily use up 18" travel shocks.

hahah just been lookinh through this thread and saw my truck in the pic above, damn it gets some awsome flex now, couldn't be happier with the long arm kit and everything else from superior

cheers luke

I like the idea of the 80series bumpstops inside the coils.

If you welded/bolted them to the bottom of some superior coil keepers you could tune the length quite easily.

A good reason to go with the long arm kits is the longer lower arms reduce the amount of rear steer. which causes the tire to roll forward under the truck when flexed.

This is with out the long arms, see how far forward the diff is...



On the other side the tire is pushed back into the back of the Gard.



With a long arm equipped truck the tires wont rub as badly (due to less rear steer) which means you can get even more flex before scrubbing tires

Do you have any photos with long arm showing tire / Gard clearance 1MadEngineer

michael.

how do the pootrol upper and lowers compare in length to 80series?

would the same mod have the same advantages in an 80?

Hey Shane, maybe you could do a special deal so you can sell some more long arm kits....... I have though about them..... I bough the Superior 15mm longer lowers off you a while ago.

Here is what I was talking about happening with the pinion angle, and unless the geometry on a stock patrol is seriously shit, then I don't see how this doesn't hapeen with the 300mm longer lower arms and stock uppers.
Please explain to me.

Shorty88 wrote:

mud_runner_GQ wrote: but dont fit a shorty unless u move he diff shock and spring mounts back

How far back to make the long arms fit on a swb?

A.J. wrote:Hey Shane, maybe you could do a special deal so you can sell some more long arm kits....... I have thought about them..... I bought the Superior 15mm longer lowers off you a while ago.

This is a special deal https://www.suspensionstuff.com.au/shop ... cts_id=773 and it includes freight. Superior put the price up without telling me. By the time you include freight it is a saving of $65.

On a side note. Longer lower arms might make a bigger difference to flex then an A frame setup and should be your first purchase, however, I reckon there is still a case to run both a long arm kit and an A frame setup. After driving a range rover you can appreciated the extra comfort of the setup.

Shane

About shocks to suit the rear of a long arm kit, the Boss adjustable shocks with a 17.27" stroke will be available in a week or 2.
The extended length is 1058mm and the compressed length is 617mm.

You will definitely need to move shock mounts. I think we will send them out with heim joints because of the massive side loading through bushes.

These are some of the other lengths available in both eye eye and pin pin.

904
540

828
502

748
462

728
452

713
444

694
435

Shane

lukethedork wrote: Please explain to me.

Yes a long arm setup will have approx 1.5 degrees more pinion angle change difference over stock when compared in pure bump/droop. But in flex conditions which is 99% percent of the time it is better than stock, not everyone gets air time and then lands with full compression till it bottoms out the shocks. The critical stuff is how it rides and how it puts down the power. ps edit you drawing to include bump, not just droop

Shane, Aframes are fine when they are designed properly! problem is most available ones just bolt into the stock mounting points, which really does nothing to address the nissan geometry. It would be nice if they were 10" longer like the rangie ones and had the top chassis mounting points modified to suit .

1MadEngineer wrote:

lukethedork wrote: Please explain to me.

Shane, Aframes are fine when they are designed properly! problem is most available ones just bolt into the stock mounting points, which really does nothing to address the nissan geometry. It would be nice if they were 10" longer like the rangie ones and had the top chassis mounting points modified to suit .

Don't just sit there, start designing some. I have faith in you. I think it would be worth it.

4WD Stuff wrote:Don't just sit there, start designing some. I have faith in you. I think it would be worth it.

4link top arm kit first

1MadEngineer wrote:

4WD Stuff wrote:Don't just sit there, start designing some. I have faith in you. I think it would be worth it.

4link top arm kit first

Great news. This would be better then the A-frame setup and would achieve the same goal but with more flex potential.

Let us know when you have perfected it.

This sounds more and more like Buggy suspension.

Shane

Once you get that working well you can start working on this suspension on full bodied rigs. http://www.pirate4x4.com/gallery/main.p ... w_koh_rig/

This is a question based on something I noticed on the weekend


With the long arm set up when climbing square steps the arms hit the rock edge and start to lift the weight off the rear wheels before the wheel has a chance to touch and climb the step

And some times lift the wheel off the ground all together

because the arm is lower down further forward between the wheel base

what you think?

wyliespatrol wrote:This is a question based on something I noticed on the weekend


With the long arm set up when climbing square steps the arms hit the rock edge and start to lift the weight off the rear wheels before the wheel has a chance to touch and climb the step

And some times lift the wheel off the ground all together

because the arm is lower down further forward between the wheel base

what you think?

I noticed this while watching Tuff truck DVD's. My theory is that it isn't perfect but the best solution so far. Maybe that is why in my last post they have gone independant with the Buggy.

Shane