RC Forged Aluminum UCA's.....Hear me out

I’m running the SPC’s, have been since 2019. Lately I’ve got some looseness in the bolt bushing area and a clunking sound over small bumps. The play is in the bushing I can see and feel it clicking when moving the arm. I’m not a fan at this point, I don’t even wheel the truck,
It’s a daily

 

Have you contacted them? They had a bad batch of bushings somewhat recently and were shipping free replacements not too long ago.

This is why I couldn't go with SPC. They have had a history of quality control issues from arms snapping to bushings failing. Almost, if not all, manufacturers of UCAs with ball joints don't manufacturer their own ball joints. So that aspect is sort of out of their control.

You can't flame SPC on here without someone coming to their rescue. People will say that SPC sells more than any other UCA because of their price and quality, blah, blah, blah. You read about more failures with them simply because there are more of them on the road and you are bound to have some failures when you sell that many products. You can't blame them for the fact that they continually have problems. It's annoying and the fact is that I've been reading about SPC problems for over 10 years. In that same 10 years, I've seen them switch from SPC to "Light Racing" to try to escape the reputation of SPC. Then, they switched back to SPC. I presume to get away from the reputation of Light Racing, or maybe to increase their price. I'm not sure the reason. They also increased from ~$370 in price to closer to ~$670. That's a big increase for something that seems to have only improved marginally in quality.

Total Chaos had an issue with their earlier generations of their uniball where they were pitting and not holding up. They changed the material of the uniball and I haven't read of those problems in years. The problem with TC is that they are expensive and a uniball isn't ideal for everyone.

JBA is the other that I've read about having issues, but those issues are always with the ball joint that is readily accessible and available to be purchased at local auto stores. There were some issues with the spacing of the threads on the ball joint shaft and seating properly, so JBA started including 2 washers to account for the extra space. Then that sort of went away, I think. Then they had a bad batch of ball joints, and just like SPC they sent out free replacements to anyone who reported having the issue.

For the pricepoint, I'm kind of surprised that we don't have more people putting the RC UCAs on. I'm following this thread because it is interesting to me to see how the various brands hold up. Considering the absolute critical nature of an Upper Control Arm, this is not an item I would go cheap on the purchase. Shameless plug for a thread I created after going down the endless rabbit hole of UCA options: https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/bds-upper-control-arms-ucas.741470/#post-26395370

 

Update! I put a few thousand on my uppers. Highway, mild-Moderate off road. Grease looks good, bolts good. Cap good. Checked torque and they haven't budged.

 

So I just ordered a set last night because I was drinking and I’m curious about them. It’ll be interesting if they’re really good and this price is just introductory. Wouldn’t be surprised if the price goes up in a few months. My vertex coil overs were $999 last May, now they’re $1,200.

 

At 3.5" of lift I'm curious to see how long until the inner CV boots fail? I never had much luck when going over 3" of lift. My 06' Tacoma was changing CV Boots every year. I got really good at replacing CV boots.

 

Did you ever try the CV Boot Stretch mod?

 

Tried it once but it ended up pulling/slipping back to the original position. ( I probably didn't make the metal strap tight enough) I ended up trading that truck in for a Tundra.

 

I have not done it personally as I haven't had an issue with my CV boots, but I think I saw a video where they cut the base off the original boot and slipped the new one past that which essentially leaves the base of the old boot in place to prevent the new one from sliding down.

 

Has anyone here run these will less lift, 2"? How did the alignment numbers come out?

 

That looks great!! The fact that you only have slight rubbing with 285's is really good. I think RC is trying to turn a new page with regards towards their past reputation. I've been reading some good things about some of their new shocks, looks like they are really trying hard to improve their name and produce higher quality parts.

 

I have zero rub with the 3.5 coil overs and did the boot slide mod, my boots were rubbing pretty bad. I say no rub with 285’s but in all honesty if I was to flex it super hard, pretty sure there would be. I go through RC because they offer financing with AFFIRM and can get 0% interest for several months

 

Mine showed up today and one of the ball joints looked like this underneath…I’m gonna send it back for another, just fyi

 

That's no bueno. Glad you inspected before install.

 

Ya grease would’ve been everywhere. I contacted them by phone sent a few pictures and they shipped a new one that day no questions asked. I even get to keep the messed up one for spare parts

 

Another thing U noticed about these arms is they don’t utilize a cotter pin now, just a Teflon nut…. I’m not really down with that

 

Total Chaos, Icon, JBA, All-Pro... all use friction-based locknuts. Haven't caused a problem in the past 17 years. My Mevotech (SPC) upper arms came with castellated nuts. However, after I added spindle gussets, the extra gusset flange thickness pushed the cotter pin hole to the wrong depth, so I had to buy

$16 uxcell 4pcs M14 x 1.5mm Pitch Metric Fine Thread 304 Stainless Steel Hex Lock Nuts

M14x1.5 nylon lock nuts. They haven't loosened after a few wheeling trips.

 

Good to know!

 

Just had mine installed today, I was correct in my diagnosis of failed bushings on the SPC arms. The Axis bushing were trashed after 25,000 miles and almost no off-roading. So far the RC seem to be good quality and all the looseness and clucking disappeared, I enjoy driving my truck again

 

Just got them installed with my fox 2.5 resi ext and I know the preload is crazy but I wanted my 3" lift.

 

Well it’s only been a few months with the arms installed and the first red flag has made its self visible. The ball joint rubber boot has already dried up like an old tire and is now leaking, cheap ass rubber. I contacted RC and they sent me a new set of ball joints no questions asked in warranty, but that is still a major flaw. Other than that they seem alright for the $.