After a series of misadventures, I finally received my GW front lower control arms this week. I needed them to continue and had bought a set of the knock off arms in the meantime for mock up. I was curious to compare the two since they look identical in pictures and figured others might be interested in exactly what you're getting for about three times the cost.
First off, the GW control arms are US made. I'm not particularly opposed to import products in general but I try to keep this car as American made as possible just as a matter of principle.
Initial impression out of the box, not so different. The GW arms are on the bottom here and do come with an alignment dowel, which is very helpful installing these.
After I got to turning them over and inspecting, they began to look different. Overall weld quality is much better on the GW control arms. Also, they have more welds in more places. Inside of the spring pockets, both the outer and inner diameters are not welded on the Chinese parts.
But wait, it gets yet more interesting. These two control arms are not the same shape. The GW arms look like they are curved to clear the frame. Not sure what's going on with the Chinese parts. They reach the same point without being the same shape. Also, out by the ball joint, I had to grind material off the Chinese arms to get them to clear my steering arms. I took off about an 1/8" of material just to get everything together and would have had to remove more were I to actually drive on them.
After that I got out the tape measure. I picked a relative point for comparison, not something to use as a suspension geometry reference. The Chinese spring pockets are approximately 3/16" further out and the ball joints by the same amount. Technically the functional length of the Chinese control arms are 3/16" longer.
First off, the GW control arms are US made. I'm not particularly opposed to import products in general but I try to keep this car as American made as possible just as a matter of principle.
Initial impression out of the box, not so different. The GW arms are on the bottom here and do come with an alignment dowel, which is very helpful installing these.
After I got to turning them over and inspecting, they began to look different. Overall weld quality is much better on the GW control arms. Also, they have more welds in more places. Inside of the spring pockets, both the outer and inner diameters are not welded on the Chinese parts.
But wait, it gets yet more interesting. These two control arms are not the same shape. The GW arms look like they are curved to clear the frame. Not sure what's going on with the Chinese parts. They reach the same point without being the same shape. Also, out by the ball joint, I had to grind material off the Chinese arms to get them to clear my steering arms. I took off about an 1/8" of material just to get everything together and would have had to remove more were I to actually drive on them.
After that I got out the tape measure. I picked a relative point for comparison, not something to use as a suspension geometry reference. The Chinese spring pockets are approximately 3/16" further out and the ball joints by the same amount. Technically the functional length of the Chinese control arms are 3/16" longer.
Attachments
-
67 KB Views: 238
-
43.8 KB Views: 202
-
59.6 KB Views: 220
-
46.1 KB Views: 205
-
56 KB Views: 64