Funco GEN 4 rear suspension tips, tricks, mods, and upgrades.

[onanysunday]

The stock uniballs for the rear suspension are exposed and go away quickly if you put a lot of miles on your car. This was maybe 3 seasons. Outfront John sells a set of 8 seals that pop in there. I put a little grease in there and it appears it should work just like a wheel bearing seal. With much less movement. I believe they will last MUCH longer without getting exposed.

 

[onanysunday]

If you want to weld and beef up your trailing arms John at Outfront sells a kit with IIRC two plates. This pic shows the bottom plate you weld in. This pic also shows a partial view of a second side plate that gets added.

 

[onanysunday]

Another shot showing the additional side plate

 

[onanysunday]

Better view here is that second side plate. Also at that time I added the circled triangular gusset. Both my arms were cracked at the tube from hard use. 

 

[onanysunday]

The crack on both sides was here shown in red. 

 

[onanysunday]

I had seen Outfront John do it so when I did my S4 I added an additional gusset on each side of the trailing arm perch and then installed a larger bolt. IIRC it was a 9/16 super high strength bolt. This job is tough for two reasons. Number one the stock perch is very hard material and hard to drill or get a reamer through. Access is hard to get in there with a drill. Number two it is hard to get in there to weld those tabs in. But doable. Beefy! Also notice I took some 1/8 plate, wrapped and welded to the tube where the uniball presses in. I have heard of at least on failure there and did not want to take any chances. On those tabs I did machine thick spacers to move each gusset away from the tab slightly. Needed for clearance and to get it welded in.

 

[AlpineFunco]

I'll have to give John a call after I get the uniballs put into my arms.

 

[onanysunday]

At some point Funco upgraded the airbag mount link front mounts on the frame. This is a must to change them over. 

 

[onanysunday]

I have no less than 3 sets of old worn out airbag perch link arms. It has a 3/8 bolt that is metal to metal.

 

[onanysunday]

BTW Always be sure your bolt has the shoulder and not threads at an area with high load. Ask me how I know. This was a lot of work and destroyed an airbag and a trip.

 

[onanysunday]

So I had seen this setup on another car. Gets rid of the stock link arm and has good rod ends on both ends.

 

[onanysunday]

I then went a step further and wanted the air bag perch to have full support instead of the factory bushing which wears out over time. This was my fix and I put 840 miles on the car in March and April alone. So far bulletproof. In the old thread that got lost John had posted up some ideas for an easy fix and my guess is even a kit he could sell. Chizzle had mentioned maybe putting in two uniballs in place of the factory bushing and sleeve. Great idea and IIRC I had looked at some uniball/spherical bearing sizes on RKs website. It looked like there was a size of uniball that would go right in with maybe a 1.3" long spacer in between the uniballs. My set up gives tremendous support and was simple to do. Very simple design with cut off bolts, some small pieces of tubing welded on, and rod ends. I kept the factory bushing in the middle. Notice my rod ends were larger than the ones shown above. I wanted a lot of surface area.

 

[onanysunday]

One other note. If you have an older Gen 4 the airbag perches may not have this gusset. I had welded this gusset on mine early on and did not even know Funco had upgraded it. I had to replace one side when I broke the lower bolt and to this day I have one of theirs and one of mine. lol

 

[onanysunday]

Left side I had welded in the gussets. Notice it is straight.

 

[onanysunday]

Right side and the one I had to replace. Nice fancy curve to it.

 

[onanysunday]

Couple more pics of Johns gusset plates. It is the back larger one. 

 

[onanysunday]

Bottom big plate.

 

[onanysunday]

Lol. Found this in my pics. Airbag that got bent real bad. Made a fixture and welded on bolts to pull it back somewhat straight. I bought a new one but this bag is sitting in my moho as a spare. ha

 

[Fullthrottleguy]

Smart Mods - we sometimes forget how much stress we put on these cars ...