SPC UPPER CONTROL ARMS.. YAY OR NAY?

^255/85-16 doesn't have broad availability. If you change to 2nd gen TRD Sport wheels, 255/80-17 opens up a lot more choices, and you can clear that tire on stock suspension.

 

is says 3° of caster built in, with no adjustability. Do you have a link?

Also is this caster towards the firewall or caster towards the front of the vehicle? Caster towards the firewall is the same issue as the JBA, where as the SPC can push the ball joint forward (a long with moving the LCA and lower ball joint forward) and clear the firewall.



If the caster on the upper ball joint moves towards the firewall, and you have to max the lower control arm forward towards the front of the vehicle. Does my hub move enough forward to clear? Does the cam adjustment with the LCA allow for enough movement to clear the body mount, and allow the caster to remain in spec due to the 3°?

You gain Caster on the strut yes, but does the hub and subsequent wheel move forward in the wheel well, because if it's just adjusting the caster and not moving the wheel hub assembly forward then it pretty much defeats the purpose of clearing larger tires. Granted that might be why the SPC exist, because otherwise that's impossible.

Unless I'm just grossly misunderstanding something here. You can't move the UCA ball joint forward because they don't have cam adjustment bolts like the LCA.

 

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No not that one. This one.
https://exitoffroad.com/product/dobinsons-billet-aluminum-ucas-toyota-tacoma/

 

Backordered, but thank you for that. I'd definitely buy those over the SPC or the JBA

 

Yeah they look like one of the best adjustable control arms on the market. Quite expensive. They were not available when I was looking for a uca but if I could go back I may have got the Dobi instead.

 

Unfortunately looks like they might not be available for a while. Wonder if anyone else has a similar adjustment UCA, kinda makes you wonder why SPC didn't do the same style of adjustment.


Looks like quite a few manufacturers make similar UCA's notably ICON and Dirt King

 

Well I’m late to this party- but I have 4000km on Spc light racing upper control arms and the ball joint has play and I feel it over bumps on the drivers side. Is it worth putting the same ball joint in? What others work with Spc control arms?

 

From what I've seen you can risk it for the biscuits and put their newest iteration in as a replacement or just purchase a new UCA that doesn't have any issues.

Someone posted prior in this thread a picture of their updated ball joint.

Good luck

 

Thanks guys. Have a nice day.

 

If you’ve had them less than 3 years and bought them new from one of their resellers that should give you a replacement set.

If you can get a video of the movement by shaking it, send it to them on Instagram and they’ll walk you through the process.

 

Thanks a bunch!

 

JBA > SPC. I'll die on this hill.

Sure the SPC has adjustment, but it's not adjustment you really would need when compared to the JBA which is already built to about where most would adjust the SPC's to in the first place.. but with less parts to fail, greaseable, and much easier to service in the event of a failure.

I love my JBA's, but FWIW, I would pick almost any UCA over the SPC's.

 

Crap…. I just had SPCs installed last month….

 

Can I avoid another alignment if I’m swapping out ball joints and keeping the same settings?

 

Yes you shouldn't need one unless the old ball joint was really bad. I just put mine on the same setting and it was fine

 

SPC's design decouples the caster & camber adjustment, which the other adjustable UCAs are not able to do. The horizontal slot in the SPC control arm allows camber to be adjusted without changing caster. For the other brands of adjustable UCAs, changing camber also changes caster.

The various places I've used for alignments say SPC is easier to align than the billet adjustable arms, but that doesn't really matter to the end user.

 

I had SPC's on my 2nd gen and I now have them on my 3rd gen. I put about 30,000 HARD miles on the SPC's on my 2nd gen before the ball joints wore out. It was my DD for many years. Off-road I put it through the ringer including jumps off the ground, trails, etc... When the ball joints wore out, instead of replacing them, I just had SPC send me a new set of UCA's. After the warranty runs out, you pay full price, they ship you new ones in like 3 days, then when you send the old ones back they give you the core charge back. All said and done for the new set I want to say it was only a few hundred dollars. I bought my 2023 12/28/24. Before I even picked it up I already had 4" spindles, 3" coilovers, new 3rd member from ECGS, 36x13 Amp All Terrain Pro's and new SPC UCA's ordered.

So within a week of buying it I had my 7" lift, tires on it, it was regeared and I brought it to straight to my driveshaft guy and had custom aluminum driver shaft built. So before it had 200 miles on the truck it was all setup. So far I only have 7,000 miles on it and have done some mild wheeling and have had no issues with the SPC's.

As far as alignments go, I run 0 camber, 0 toe and between 5 and 6 caster. Without the SPC's I have no idea how I could get those specs.

Yes over the years they have refined the ball joint design, but with each iteration they got better. I think it is a big PLUS, that the manufacturer is always improving on the design. I have no idea why people complain about SPC's, all things considered they have been great for me. and customer service has been excellent!

 

ABSOLUTELY YOU WILL NEED TO GET ANOTHER ALIGNMENT! Anytime you adjust anything or replace anything with the front suspension you need to have an alignment done.

 

I ran SPC's on my 15' for 45k with NO issues. Might've greased them once a year.