Best upper control arms for 1st get tacoma?

Adding caster with the UCA brings the wheel closer to the cab, adding it via the lowers pushes it away from the cab

 

I realize that and should add that the SPCs allow you to ncrease or decrease the degree of castor. I believe the normal alignment spec is 2 degree. When lifting, you change the geometry of the suspension and obtaining the normal castor specs cannot be done without maxing the adjustment of the LCAs. Aftermarket upper control arms are built to counteract that geometrical change so you can use the adjustment of the LCAs as if the suspension had not changed.

 

I do agree with that, the other poster was saying he wasn't seeing any benefit to adding more caster with his SPCs so I was pointing out that it would need to be done via the lowers instead.
The normal setting with SPCs will allow you to achieve at least 3.5° caster via the lowers, that's as much as I've gotten anyhow. May be able to push it more, not sure if that will result in increased bushing wear though.

 

Tc Ucas have heim joints as an upgrade so they would do the same thing as the spcs but with a better design and also a higher price tag. I have the normal poly bushing tcs and I maintain them so squeaks are very rare. My buddy runs the spcs on his frontier and the adjustable ball joint seems like it could move if you hit something hard enough unless it’s tight.. like cheater bar tight. But then again it all depends on how you are running your truck.

 

The SPCs ball joint should be torqued to 150 ft/lbs according to the instructions, that being said I have actually knocked it loose once on the trail. Driver's side. Just enough so that my camber was completely off and I didn't realize it until I got on the freeway. Easy enough to fix though. Hasn't happened since, I torque it a little tighter to be sure.

The TC arms are adjustable but SPCs have the most adjustability of all the adjustable arms. But I would wager most people don't need that much adjustment ability unless they're trying to correct for a tweaked frame or something

 

Yeah my buddy paint marks his so if it goes out he can get it damn close. The frontier guys have a lot of alignment threads where they just kind of get it good enough and some threads on here have it down to a science so it’s funny for him to be like “yep that’s where it was before-ish”.

yeah def agree with the adjustment though. I get mine in a ballpark and it drives better than most. I wouldn’t spend the money to fine tune it that far unless I went long travel.

 

I torque my SPC top nut to 200. It's only moved once on me in 5 years of wheeling them. I also run alignment cam eliminator plates. With the SPC's I was able to get my alignent exactly where I wanted it. If they break in 1/2 tomorrow I'll be ordering another set.

 

I've been considering getting the new version, the ones I have are the older tubular style arms...I think the latest iteration are forged arms? I heard if you send in your old ones you get a decent rebate on the new style too

Plus the new ones have the X axis bushings and not the regular poly ones, I replaced my poly ones recently and they still creak like a damn barn door

 

OP,
Whichever units you choose, definitely add the Total Chaos spindle gussets.
Cheap insurance.

 

You think? lol

 

"best" is subjective, and also depends on what you mean by "dessert driving". I can drive my wife's Corolla in the desert...

Also depends on the equipment you already have. A good set of adjustable coilovers are a far "better" mod than some UCAs.

IMO, the standard answer is that if you plan to beat on it, get uniballs. At this point, brand honestly doesn't really matter, they've all pretty much copied each other.

The problem is that when you upgrade one part to a stronger part, that opens up other parts for failure as the above post shows. So, you start an arms race of mods. Pretty soon you're selling blood and kidneys to pay for it.

 

If you want to stay OEM, do it.
Once you start modifying, there is no end in sight.
After I did the mid-travel stuff, I decided to bypass the long travel mods, saved that cash and did a solid axle conversion.
I went with Diamond axles at each end with ARB lockers.
Also, I have zero steering rack issues that seem to continue throughout each gen of the Tacoma.

 

Did you get the 1” UCA from TC ?? Also what tire size are you running/were you able to run after installing the UCA

 

I went with JBA and prett happy with the result.

 

If you don’t mind me asking what’s your front suspension set up with the JBA uca meaning like what else have you bought. I see you got some kings

 

If you're just wanting to buy new arms, cool.

But many have lifted an inch or two (some even two and a half over stock height) and still achieved proper alignment numbers on the stock arms.

Myself included on two vehicles.

The added caster is nice though.

 

I see yea, I eventually wanna get a uca and some 2.5 shocks. Only reason I wanted a uca right away cause I wanted run some 33” but I’m just get some 265/70/16

 

Depends on the size 33; if you go skinny you can do the pinch weld mod

I ran 32's and 33's without aftermarket UCA's on either, and both vehicles had 2.5's

Just saying, it's possible with stock UCA's

 

Hey Carloss I have the JBA Uppers and Kings with 1.5 - 2 inches of lift dialed in. The Kings are like 10+ years old and I always just thought the truck was loud and I had to rotate tires every 5k miles to keep uneven wear from happening. I did the Uppers recently and it fixed the tire noise and alignment is way better now. I went with the JBA because I didnt want the exposed Uniballs and the JBA was a few hundred cheaper than Total Chaos. I had to take the spindles to a shop to get the top ball joint pressed out and the adapter for the JBA Upper to get pressed in. While you have the spindles out doing lower ball joints is easy, I had the wheel bearing and seals done too. I had the shop do them but if I had to do it again I prob would just have bought some new wheel bearing assembly with hubs and put them on myself.

 

I ended up basically doing the exact same setup recently. Kings at ~2 in lift with JBA uppers. Also replaced the lower ball joints while I had it apart. I used the ball joint C-clamp + socket adapters borrowed from autozone and was able to press out the old ball joints and press in the new JBA adapter myself.