Voodoo13 rear camber arms and Nismo sway bars?

Ape Factory

And the rear arms already came in courtesy of Concept Z and SPL. That was quick! Just looked up and SPL's an hour away from me. No wonder

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'13 Audi RS5 Misano w/mods-The Red Mist
'13 G37 IPL-SOLD

Ape Factory

The front camber arms came in today. Not sure if anyone else has seen the new SPC's in person. Got these as there are no interference issues, no cutting, NVH is kept to stock levels and they were a whole lot less expensive due to Black Friday sale. To the tune of three large bills. The really sucky part is I won't have time to put these on for about 10 days. Pics.

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'13 Audi RS5 Misano w/mods-The Red Mist
'13 G37 IPL-SOLD

Ape Factory

Wheels...gotta post the wheels.

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'13 Audi RS5 Misano w/mods-The Red Mist
'13 G37 IPL-SOLD

Ape Factory

I managed to get everything installed yesterday. One question...has anyone else found that the SPL links are shorter, even at max recommended length, than the OEM arm? Looks to be about half an inch shorter.

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'13 Audi RS5 Misano w/mods-The Red Mist
'13 G37 IPL-SOLD

Ape Factory

Talked to SPL about the shorter arm and they said I can go a bit further out BUT they just found out about a change in arm length (assuming they meant a change in OEM camber arm length) that they were not aware of before. And they do have a longer arm.

Car is at a shop now being aligned. We'll see if it's an issue. I still have the stock eccentric bolt in there and that'll offer additional length adjustment. Would be great if they included the lockout bolts with the kit!

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'13 Audi RS5 Misano w/mods-The Red Mist
'13 G37 IPL-SOLD

Ape Factory

Alignment was a success yesterday and I have very conservative numbers all around. See alignment sheet below. I may have them add a bit more negative camber but I'd like to go without replacing tires once a year. I drive between 8-10K per year these days, mostly highway. New wheels/tires going on tomorrow.

The loud clunk persists and I don't think they took a look at it. Doesn't happen over bumps while driving, it's sharp, squared-edge impacts that cause it. Like the lip of a driveway. Sounds really bad (metallic clunk and a bit of a metallic squeak) so I decided go out, pull the front wheels off, yank out the dampers, and re-torque the SPC arms and make sure everything is kosher. I didn't reuse the little bushing that comes with the stock upper control arms, may throw those in too, dunno. Directions don't really do you any good in that regard.

Once the new, slightly taller tires are on, I should theoretically be able to lower the car a few mm lower and be at the same height. Taking measurements today prior to tomorrow's tire change.

I'm also going to go out later, after fixing whatever noise is being created, to see if the new rear alignment numbers help in the traction dept.

Here's the alignment sheet, current specs are on the bottom (checkmark next to it):


And I found the culprit for the loud thunk/metallic squeak/grind. It's the leading bushing/forging closest to the nose of the car.

For those who've changed out their upper control arms, you'll understand. The upper arm is an A arm. The two inboard forgings with bearings connect to the car via a bolt. The forging/bearing basically sits in between the strut bulkhead on one side and sheetmetal on the other. The front forging, one closest to the nose of the car, is hitting the sheetmetal. It's dented it in already.

Now the instructions explicitly say to install either forging end so it's parallel to the sheetmetal/bulkhead. You don't want the bearing sitting at an angle. I did this when I installed them but it looks like the shop that did the alignment did not because they were very much skewed when I took the wheel off. It's easy to skew them while making adjustments.

What I did is loosen the back locking nut on the SPC arms and loosen the bolts holding them to the car. I had a 17mm open end wrench that was the right width and I stuck it in one side of the forging/bearing which kept it parallel to the sheetmetal. I then tightened the locking nut again on the SPC arm. Easy enough. I later found the SPC video below which said to do the same thing.

I did have to take the entire shock out. It's much easier to get everything right and due to the tall adjustment knob on the Aragostas, I couldn't "load" the arm and still have the shock out of the way enough to get a torque wrench in there without pinning the adjuster agains the top of the strut tower. Once removed, I then loaded the assembly by jacking up underneath the brake disk and pushing everything up. I then torqued the bolts and reinstalled everything.

I did a quick run up and down the driveway and didn't hear anything. I'll need to take the car out to see if it solved the issue. Personally, I don't think it did and I'm going to contact SPC to see if they have any insight (update below).

Pics.

You can see the wrench on the left side of the forging/bearing keeping it parallel. This is on the passenger's side, rear forging.


Here's a shot of the front forging/bearing, passenger's side, closest to the front of the car. You can see where the sheetmetal has been pushed out in an arc as the forging is pushed up. This is with the arm pushed fairly far up.


Here's a shot of the damage, with the arm all the way down (decompressed). This is before I took everything out to make adjustments and you can sort of see how the end of the control arm, the forging, is skewed and not parallel to the sheetmetal.


It seems like there's more clearance on the rear side of the control arm. It did this on both sides. I measured the length of each end and there's no difference.

Just found there's a video on the SPC site, with installation on a G35 but it's pretty much the same except we have a different pinch bolt design.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/Lf55rRgBSZY

Ok just got off the phone with SPC. They're coming out with an updated FAQ related to this issue. Essentially it's a non-issue depending on how you look at it. He said straightening the forgings and making sure they're parallel to the sheetmetal alleviates it most of the time but it depends on your caster setting and it can interfere on higher settings. They're also seeing some interference on vehicles that are really lowered (mine isn't) in that spot. He basically said to bend the metal back there at the top back a bit and problem solved.

Ultimately not the answer I'd like to hear and while it'll not really cause any long-term issues I'd rather not have this issue in the first place. As minor as it is (and it's a quick fix if you know to look for it) just take it into consideration before purchasing or installing. It's not enough of an issue, as long as it doesn't further deform or cause any abnormal noises, for me to swap them out to say the Voodoo or SPL.

Hope that helps!

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'13 Audi RS5 Misano w/mods-The Red Mist
'13 G37 IPL-SOLD

Ape Factory

After realigning the forgings to be parallel, I have zero noise and everything's copacetic even over sharp and big bumps. Just make sure they're parallel and you'll have no issues!

On another note, traction is WORLDS better. Just a bit of slip and she goes. This makes me feel better as I can now put that $2K+ I allocated for a rear diff into something else like my 401K or a starter deposit on an RS3

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'13 Audi RS5 Misano w/mods-The Red Mist
'13 G37 IPL-SOLD

Jhill

Cool, glad you go it sorted out. Front camber seems very minimal at -.4. I forget spec but mine before any suspension work was -1 and rear at -1.5(which was pretty much middle I remember). Sport street car I would say you could go -1 to -1.5 without a real wear concern.

Bummer on the arms I was really liking the design of those and thought I may go that route once I check my alignment again (now that I changed suspension) but it doesn't seem like they did all their R&D for them. Hopefully I won't need anything since I'm damn near oem height.

Ape Factory

Yeah I may add a bit more camber back in once I get the new wheels on tomorrow. I want to see how it feels before I change anything as I'm going from a staggered to a square setup.

I think the SPC's are fine, the shop should have positioned the forgings so they were parallel while adjusting for alignment. Once I made sure they were adjusted parallel, no more noises or issues.

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'13 Audi RS5 Misano w/mods-The Red Mist
'13 G37 IPL-SOLD

Ape Factory

After a few days, I can say the traction situation is much improved. I think a bit of it is down to alignment and a lot of it is due to switching to the Michelins.

I need to lower the car a whopping 2mm in the front and 6mm in the rear to be at the recommended height for the coilover setup and I'll probably get yet another alignment, getting closer to -.10 instead of -.04 where I'm at now.

On the rear, I'd like to subtract a bit of camber and come in at the -1.2 to -1.3 range assuming he didn't need to put them at -1.5 to get my toe in spec. I don't have toe bolts and I made the mistake of not talking to the alignment guy before leaving. I need to make sure the SPL arm length isn't an issue along with no toe bolts. SPL can provide a longer camber arm. If I have to do toe bolts, I'll get camber lockout bolts as well.

It never ends, does it?

And on a final note, over really nasty low-speed stuff, like entering a super steep driveway at an angle, I got a bit of noise from the SPC turnbuckle camber arms. If you purchase these, plan on bending the inboard sheetmetal on the leading arm back ever so slightly above the mounting bolt. Shouldn't have to do this but it is what it is at this point. And it's such a small section of the sheetmetal, literally smaller than the radius of a dime. It's happened only once but still...Then again I didn't have to cut any mounting bolts and there are no other interference issues. Adjustment is super easy and you can easily reach all of the nuts and turnbuckles with open end wrenches. Once the lock nuts are loose, you can rotate the turnbuckles by hand. Pretty quick to adjust things.

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'13 Audi RS5 Misano w/mods-The Red Mist
'13 G37 IPL-SOLD