Full Disclosure: Kelly Aiken at BMR sent me a PM asking me to contact him should the SCCA decide to allow LCA's and Relocation brackets in Street Touring and Street Prepared. Considering it hit FasTrack with a lot of support from the Pony Car crowd and not much dissent from the rest of the SCCA, I have every bit of confidence that it will get rubber stamped into the rule book for 2015. I called up Kelly at BMR and we chatted about the various control arms and I eventually decided on the TCA022 with the Poly/Spherical combination due to the more durable spherical bearing and that it was cheaper to replace in the long run. Kelly gave me a deal that I couldn't refuse so I took him up on the offer. I'm not sure what transpired from there other than my brackets arrived a day before my lower control arms did so I installed the brackets as soon as I got them.
I was so giddy that I didn't bother taking a picture of the packaging but it was sufficient to prevent damage in the harsh shipping conditions in the back of the UPS truck!

I opted for both my parts in Black Hammertone because "sleeper" so both the LCA's and relocation brackets would be a little easier to hide. Here is what they look like:
Welding looks top notch but looks can be deceiving. These welds appear to be plenty deep which judging by the force these brackets have taken on other cars without welding, I think these are plenty strong for what I'll need them for!
The TCA022's also have some beautiful welds but are otherwise unremarkable to look at. That isn't a slight at the design or construction of these arms, it is just that there isn't a lot to look at that is "oooo and ahhh" worthy.
Zerk fittings for the poly side:
None for the spherical side though. Doesn't need it since it's teflon lined and the ball is jammed in there! This is really the "key" part of the control arm though as it is designed to allow the axle to articulate without binding as much as a poly/poly setup does.
The install of the relocation brackets came first as I said. The reality is that these are a bit of a PITA to install. Basically you had to get two bolts in and then pry the remaining part into the correct position. This is a bit of a pain and it requires ruining the finish on the new parts to really get them into place. I'm not one for looks and the damage to the black hammertone is very minor so it is what it is. Once the bolts are started the key is to just tighten things up. On my car there was no "slop" in the factory holes due to the prying of the brackets into place. This "fixed" their location so I was stuck with whatever resulted for a wheel base unless I wanted to grind holes to allow for some tolerance. THANKFULLY the wheelbase change, somewhere around a third of an inch, was consistent side to side and lengthened the wheel base some.
Because the LCA's hadn't arrived when I installed the brackets I was forced to install the stock LCA's in the second to bottom hole (middle hole). This amounts to about 80% anti-squat. A number for the drag race crowd that'd be "ok" but for us corner carvers is really on the "too high" side. That is a number that I can't change without either raising the ride height or using the lower control arms in the upper position which would require waiting until the TCA022's show up. That position corresponds to about 63-65% antisquat which is more reasonable. The lowest position would make some drag racers cream themselves as it corresponds to 98%ish antisquat. IE: Basically no squat as the control arms assume the majority of the load.
At any rate, the initial test drive indicated that a goose of the throttle would light up the tires with extreme ease. The car was EXTREMELY sensitive to throttle position when cornering as well. One thing I noticed right away was that the rear of the car was very willing to rotate... actually one thing I didn't like about this position was the fact that the rear of the car felt like it wanted to follow it's own track around a corner. It would push the car around the corner provided you didn't apply too much throttle.
When the TCA022's arrived I waited until today to install them due to work. I installed them in the top position on the relocation brackets and this calmed a lot of what I experienced above down. In fact it made for quite the experience as the car would not only put power down, it would force the car around the corner better. Not in the sense that it was drifting but that it was commanding a lot more of the front tires which is good!

One of the biggest things I noticed was that these control arms had a lot less head toss than my modified stock lower control arms. I attribute this to the spherical bearing allowing for a greater deal of articulation without the binding from the poly/poly setup. NVH didn't increase from this which is no surprise because a torque arm is a giant tuning fork and is already transmitting all of that into the base of the seats. Overall, I look forward to REALLY pushing these arms and brackets in autocross... sadly that wont be till the end of the month.
NOW for the REAL Porn. Marc, eat your eyes out!
Aaaand the money shot: BECAUSE RACECAR!
She's dirty as hell under there and could use some cleaning but it's functional, not supposed to be super pretty!
