UCA question

For those that lifted their truck but declined replacing your uca’s initially. After installing them at a later date, was there a noticeable difference in the drivability? I have the OME887/5100 set up with an add a leaf in the rear and 285’s at present. While it drives not too bad it can be a little wavery on certain roadways. Just wondering if it’s worth the cost to put in new uca’s? I’m contemplating the SPC’s. If swapped out, what is the noticeable difference going to be?

 

The difference in driveability comes from a good alignment, not necessarily the UCAs. The aftermarket upper control arms enable you to achieve a good alignment (specifically caster, which determines how well your truck "tracks" or its tendency to wander)

Depending on your lift and the skill/patience of your alignment tech, you may or may not get better driveability, with or without the UCAs.

Its possible to hit the sweet spot without, as well as possible for the truck to ride like shit with them, too.

If your tech has already said they've got caster as high as possible with your current setup, then yes, aftermarket UCAs will help with the ride a great deal.

 

Yes this!

 

It's a good question. It is vehicle to vehicle but here's the rub. Getting your alignment after lifting without UCAs forces the shop to max out your LCA adjustment for caster. It's asymmetric side to side. This will probably put you around 1.5 deg. on one side and 2 degrees on the other (for road crown) with stock UCAs which is on low end of factory spec. Also if they are maxed you will get ok alignment specs but almost certainly get a pull to one side or the other because they won't have enough adjustment to get it to spec AND to drive straight.

It's ok and you'll be fine but drivability will suffer. It's subtle and you won't realize what you gave up until you eventually get UCAs and get it dialed in correctly.

 

I recently had an alignment done at a reputable shop and they tweaked it a bit. The numbers didn’t change much to be honest but it does handle way better than previous. Tracks reasonable well and totally fine driving around town, the noticeable difference is highway driving where it tends to be a bit grabby if the roadway is uneven. The alignment shop did suggest to change the uca’s to get a better alignment, thus the inquiry.

 

Monitor tire wear as well. Mine drove fine and the alignment numbers were good but after about 2 years you could see excessive wearing of the outer tread even with rotations every 5k miles.

I've had no issues like that since changing UCAs last year.