Trailing arm reinforcements? And wheel studs Options

[mb911]

I am at the point where I will be sand blasting the suspension and doing the 5 lug conversion. Do the trailing arms flex that much that they need reinforcement for a street car? And what length wheel stud should I use for the 5 lug conversion?

[TravisNeff]

the stock 45mm studs should be fine, unless you want to run spacers.

Racer Chris did some great investigation about how much a trailing arm can flex. You'll have to do a search to find it.

For the trailing arms, if you smack a curb with an un-reinforced arm, the trailing arm will bend. If you smack a curb with it reinforced, it most likely will bend the tub too. Of course if you hit hard enough in any condition you risk messing up the tub.

I do like how Eric Shea had reinforced his trailing arms by using tubes laterally through the arm vs. a boxed sheet metal reinforcement. Enough welding on those arms can bend them too!

[mgp4591]

the stock 45mm studs should be fine, unless you want to run spacers.

Racer Chris did some great investigation about how much a trailing arm can flex. You'll have to do a search to find it.

For the trailing arms, if you smack a curb with an un-reinforced arm, the trailing arm will bend. If you smack a curb with it reinforced, it most likely will bend the tub too. Of course if you hit hard enough in any condition you risk messing up the tub.

I do like how Eric Shea had reinforced his trailing arms by using tubes laterally through the arm vs. a boxed sheet metal reinforcement. Enough welding on those arms can bend them too!

And when Jamie bent his arm up over a year ago, he was pretty happy that the arm gave way instead of twisting up his console, tub, or worse. Not only how you drive it will determine your choice but what kind of power you are using. Jamie is running the Subie 2.5, over twice the power of a 1.7 stock 4 cyl... Bottom line is, arms are easier to replace than a twisted car.

[JRust]

And when Jamie bent his arm up over a year ago, he was pretty happy that the arm gave way instead of twisting up his console, tub, or worse. Not only how you drive it will determine your choice but what kind of power you are using. Jamie is running the Subie 2.5, over twice the power of a 1.7 stock 4 cyl... Bottom line is, arms are easier to replace than a twisted car.

Absolutely. If I had a boxed arm when I had my wreck. IT would have screwed up a lot more down below. The fact that my trailing arm buckled helped take that pressure off my suspension ear. While my fencer was screwed up good. I literally bolted in a new trailing arm & My alignment wasn't even off (IMG:style_emoticons/default/confused24.gif)