Sway bars and control arms

Ok well I'll answer my own questions

Not required
Yes

klvn8r wrote: I've run boxed LCAs for years....is it required??  I doubt it....but for years, I autocrossed on 'stickies' and at one point I even 'wore out' the UCA mounts in the body, and had to rebuild/reinforce them.  Ive stumbled across a 1 1/16" front bar in my 'stockpile' and am trying to replace the stock AMX piece (15/16"?)  It appears to be about 1" narrower than the stock bar, so I may tweak my arms to make the bar fit. klvn8r

I created my own issue with narrowing the distance between ends with a 1-1/16" bar. Though it's not as bad as yours. I figure since I have room, I can straighten the bends for engine pan clearance just enough to widen for fitment.

Farna and a few others say it's best to cold bend, not to heat it up.

Ah,so you have not dropped in on my never ending thread of mega modding a suspension for 65" wide track.

I started it from open ideas once I got my mustang rack installed. Even though it is a fairly straight forward fit, once the steering arm setup is done, I found some mods were needed to make the pivot to the tie rod at the rack equal to the AMC lower arm pivot. So one thing led to another, until my direction made the most of making a mod.

My instruction was about using Mustang II spindles as it kills two birds with one stone. But I also tried to incorporate the stock AMC hardware for others who want to use existing setup.

Basically Donohue tested with longer LCA but tires and suspension components limited any noticeable gains back in the day.

To get the best out of cornering, you must lower not only the center of gravity, but to lower the angles of deflection under load. AMC suspensions ride high, so the swing of the lower arm has long travel, and never keeps up with demands of cornering. Also puts extra loads on the suspension in keeping things in alignment. In a perfect world cornering forces should be lateral in pivot areas. Puts less wear and tare, and keeps binding forces from acting on feel and response, especially with the strut rod assembly.

So anyway the concerns i had, we're put into play, but... The mods are a bit time consuming for the garage tinkerer. Basically i never put any time schedule into my thoughts, so i did things one at a time, as things became more clear.

IMO a control freak setup should do well enough, as it allows for more adjustment over stock and is more DYI than my options.

Once Once I complete my mods, it will be a one off, but very simple to recreate, if i had a shop. The only draw back is you need a car that is a ground up build or had the money to burn to cut and weld the shock tower humps for the change in UCA location.