I thought a lot about it but wasn't sure it matters? Here's the logic behind my thinking. There's many upper control arms sold and only a couple of them offer the bracket, as far as I know no one sells just the bracket. If the bracket was a problem it seems like anyone selling an arm would include the bracket? Also I think if you only changed the upper arms and not the lower arms it would be more of an issue since your rear end would still be dancing around side to side. With the rearend pinned down with more solid busing it seems like the only force applied to it would be back and forth which I think it's totally fine for, I would worry about the side to side strength though. Has there been any issues with the factory brackets?

I should have welded some supports on it while I had it out of the car, that would have been pretty simple and effective.

Btw this was a total pita to change that arm, you have to remove the bracket to get the control arm bolt out. The bolts for the bracket were the toughest bolts I've removed from the car yet. It required a heavy duty impact turned all the way up and it barely got out the top bolt, it fought me the whole way! First I tried a ratchet and a cheater bar and nearly ruined the socket, had to go buy a heavy duty socket.

 

Yeah that upper is a bish! I paid to have it done by a buddy/shop. He tracks his MR2 and is very familiar with all the adjustable suspension bits, so I trusted him. Even he said he had a 3 ft breaker bar and a pipe on top of it to break that bolt loose. I think it's almost 200 ft/lb from the factory? Anyhow, I see your reasoning with not doing the bracket. I bought them as a package though, so didn't feel a reason to not use it, since you have to take it out anyways.

 

Finished the trunk wiring and cleaned it up

 

Got the key wired so it cranks the car, before we were jumping the starter relay. I got the seats installed too.

Car cranks but doesn't start, Lexiion think he knows why and when he makes it over I would assume we can start it and go for a drive!

 

That was 2 hours ago.
Drive it yet????

 

Nope. Haven't been over there yet

 

How about now?

 

Cause it's funny.

I'm wanting a video of this first drive too.

 

We drove... Video coming soon.
LEXiiON

 

It's sweeeeet! Feels strong but I didn't get on it to much yet. A few videos coming.

 

*****!

 

you said to drive easy until we get the tune! Haha

 

 

Congrats! Can't wait for more.... tune time soon?

Walt

 

Yes, we will get the tune uploaded and go for another test drive. After that we need to take the dash back out again to finish the wiring.

 

Niiiiiiice!!!!!

 

First drive!

 

Loving the progress!!! Making me wish I had the money to do something like this....

On a related note: Whats up with the speedo? Almost looks like it is sensing throttle position.

 

Thank you!

The speedo is currently possessed, we think it might be reading boost?

 

There are a couple of things wrong with the cluster. We probably have to add ZeroAviation's black box to fix that.
LEXiiON