94zgreenmachine

I purchased a UMI k-member with upper and lower adj. control arms. I also swapped out my struts and springs for an 8 way adj. AGX and Eibach drag spring. I measuerd the upper and lower controls arms and have them very damn close to the stock locations. My problem is that I can not get the suspension to travel. I realized this when I went to put on the stabilizer end links. When I jack on the lower a-arm/spindle , the entire car comes right off the jack stands and the suspension doesn't budge at all.

I am completely lost at this point. While this isn't the first time I have done suspension work, it is on my Z28. I had some binding in the suspension which I thought was because the shop that swapped the front springs had the lower strut mount and the upper mount rotated approx. 15* from where it should have been. I find it hard to believe that those springs and struts are that stiff. Does anyone have any suggestions? Has anyone ever encountered such a thing before?

IMHO, there is way too much adjustability built into the k-member and both arms that this is beginning to remind me of a cobbled mess rather than an "engineered" part. Why so much adjustability?
My next move is to ditch the damn arms......

Shon Herron

Thinking out loud:
-shocks set on full stiff setting? I know my QA1s are hard on full stiff and could do that.
-Where is there too much adjustability in the K-member? That is actually nice when having an alignment done per the customer's request.

94zgreenmachine

I like the k-member having the adjustment. What I find ridiculous is the fact that there is so much adjustment in the upper and lower a-arms, which I think is compounding some of the problems. One other thing I noticed was that the upper a-arms have a slight difference in geometry between stock and the UMI arms. The ball joint mount is canted just slightly. I determined the length for the upper arms by measuring from the center line of the a-arm mount to the center of the ball joint. The lower arms I ended up building a fixture from the stock piece to determine the length of the UMI lower arms, again using the bolts and a measured offset for the balljoint. I figured this was a good place to start seeing as how I never had any alignment issues with the stock pieces.

Its hard to think the strut/ spring is that stiff. I did notice the spring was considerably longer than stock. I am beginning to think the problem is in the strut/spring. Could be a bent rod although looking at it, it is hard to see if it is bent.

Shon Herron

I was going to ask, were the shocks new or used? it is possible they are bent, is both sides acting the same way?

94zgreenmachine

Everything is new. I have had the shocks since 2006. I just finally got around to doing them. They aren't what I want to use now but hey were 2 1/2 years ago.
I had a shop put the springs on because a regular coil compressor couldn't compress the eibach drag spring enough to get spring onto the strut. I want to use the QA1 with 275lbs springs but I am not sure if I want to spend the cash right now for them when these are new.

....and yes, it is both sides that are doing this. I can't even get the end links on at this point.

Shon Herron

Is there a collar ring to adjust the ride height? With it sitting on the ground, is the front way up in the air?
does setting the shocks on the softest setting change anything?

bluz28

Wow, I've never ran into this problem before!
Are you sure you have the upper control arms mounted correctly on the control arm mounts?
Or possibly something broke /damaged with the shocks.
Got any pictures , A picture's worth a thousand words!

94zgreenmachine

There is no collar ring like the QA1. Here is a link to what I got:
http://store.summitracing.com/partde...5&autoview=sku

The car sat way up in the air. I did have it on the ground once. I have tried to change the settings, in fact, in all 8 positions. I am trying to get a pic as soon as I unload the card. Should be about 10 minutes from now.

I am sure I have the correct arm on the mount. The mounts can't get mixed up because of the extra hole in the mount for that little rubber thing. I have tried to google for pics and I came across one that looked(orientation wise of the arms) like mine except his tube arms were a little different. I am not sure if the arms were BMR, Spohn, etc...

94zgreenmachine

Links to the pics:

http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/i...n/CIMG3532.jpg

http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/i...n/CIMG3533.jpg

94zgreenmachine

I found this on google. It is from a UMI Ebay listing. This is their installed photo on a F-body: http://umi.umiperformance.com/images/2300m.jpg

If you look on the upper a-arm, the plate for the ball joint is welded to the centers of both tubes. Mine is not. On the back side tube, mine is welded flush with the top. Just something I noticed....

UMI Performance

Hello,

I know the adjustment can be confusing and make the installation a little bit tougher but too much adjustment is not your issue from what I can see. Setting it up can be tough and if you loose a starting point it gets tougher. When we assemble the arms they are preset to factory settings within a 1/16th of an inch... they can however move during shipping.

As for the plate on the upper A-Arms... we changed the design a year ago to prevent the A-Arm from hitting the fender well. On a lowered car our older design would hit the inner fender well and that picture is a few years old. What you have is the newer design and is correct.

Give Jerry a call in our technical support department at 814-857-5400 and go over the issues with him... a few pictures might help him/us as well.

Thank you,
Ryan

bluz28

Will the suspension move freely up/down with the shock/spring assembly removed?

94zgreenmachine

Thanks for jumping here guys.
Let me start by saying that I am not bad mouthing you guys, I am just a little frustrated and with all the adjustment and my suspension binding has me starting to really doubt myself.
All my jam nuts were loose on the arms so I figured they were just screwed in and sent as is. They were adjustable afterall. I don't recall them being way out though.
The day I ordered this system , I did call UMI and ask what the advantages were of having the extra adjustment in the upper arms. For just drag racing the fixed uppers are fine so thats what I ordered. I checked UMI website and My receipt says 2311-r which are the fixed but somehow I have the adj. ones.
I'll give you guys a call around 4 pm , your time.

94zgreenmachine

Just got off the phone with Jerry @ UMI. We are leaning towards the shock/spring combo. Without the strut assembly in the car, the upper and lower arms with the spindle inplace move up and down freely.
I am definately leaning towards strut problems and with the shop that installed the springs on to the struts. I have a stocker still laying around. I'll try to put the spring onto it and then see what happens. I'll post the results.....

Thanks for the help

94zgreenmachine

Here is a pic of the Eibach vs. stock spring. The Eibach is almost 2 inches taller.


I think the AGX shocks are shot. When I push the rod in, it comes out very slow. Much slower than stock, no matter where the shock setting is set at.

With the Stock shock and spring back in, I can't get the suspension to bounce using the UMI arms.
I had to remove a seized, and I mean SEIZED bolt in the lower control arm of my stock unit. Once out, I bolted up the stock lower and stock upper arms and now everything will compress.
I DID change the settings from UMI so I need to somehow try and get back to their settings and try this all over. The instructions don't say that they are within 1/16th of factory specs, which would have been helpful. I didn't change them much but at this point I am very puzzled as to why this isn't working out.