UCA's: Camburg v. Icon

I am looking at replacing the stock upper control arms. Read a lot here and have narrowed it down to either Camburg or Icon billet. Please let me know your experience with either of these.

 

They are strong and look cool. They give you 2* additional caster but at the cost of losing firewall to tire clearance. They make noises after wheeling because they always need cleaned and maintained. Non adjustable. My experience is with ICON.

I believe SPC's are a better choice. Same clearance, strength and added flexibilty. Fully adjustable for +/- 4* caster. Enclosed ball joint that is completely quiet and just needs greased at the zurk each oil change. Ohh and cost a lot cheaper. Negative. They dont look as cool.

 

Thanks Jay!
Did you handle the maintenance yourself and how was it?
Also what year Taco were they on!
Thanks again.

 

2007 4runner. Yes you can maintain them yourself. Power wash and spray with silicone lube.

 

why do you want billet ones? they are super neat and you cant go wrong with either of those two. I would pick any uniball setup over a balljoint lol.
the only thing i dont like about the billet arms is that they use rod ends for the pivot. i would just pick up the normal tube ones

 

I like billet for the strength attribute.

 

I've never seen a bent tubular UCA.

 

I'll never touch another icon product again.

As far as the uca, icon uses a spring clip to hold the uniballs in. When it is time to change them you will find them rusted and unable to remove them.

Why they chose that stupid clip? No idea. They are freaking idiots

 

Camburgs are less expensive and completely adequate imo, and I've been really happy with mine. Total chaos and Icon make very nice products, but in the long run I fail to see a difference for tubular steel uca's with a uniball that warrants the added cost, other than perhaps icons have the dust cap. Can't comment on the billet aluminum ones other than seems like a lot to spend.

Uniballs are 10x easier to change than stock ball joints, just keep them lubrcated (tri flow ptfe dry lubricant works good) and they should give you decent service life.

I don't like the added adjustability of the nut on the ball joint and the use of a stock type ball joint on SPC Light Racing uca's, but to each his own.

The nice thing about the uniball is the ease to source the part (

$61 wssx16t spherical bearing with teflon, 1" (1-3/8 wide), 1 pack

wssx16t fk rod end, available at a ton of online retailers), and from what I can tell, and I may be wrong so forgive me if I am, every time you want to swap the upper ball joint on the Light Racing ones you have to get it realigned because of the adjustment nut. Maybe you can get it close enough by marking its position, but just seems like another thing to go wrong

 

so i guess ford, chevy and dodge are freaking idiots too? that stupid clip is everywhere and yet i have never had a issue with them lol. keep your shit lubed/cleaned and you will be fine.

and funny, i worked on a buddys truck that had TC upper arms and the circle clip was also rusted into place. he also didnt lube/clean his truck.

 

Can I throw in our UCA into the mix??

 

Yeah they are. Anyone who puts that retarded clip in instead of a circlip is legally mentally retarded.

As of course you never had an issue with the clips you live in socal. A rusted circlip is way easier to remove than the spiral clip

 

I don't want to derail this thread, but yea man check out the genius top hat design that Icon uses for their coilovers. We have threads about this dumb ass design, because they want to be "different" yet are the only guys to have top hats shearing. Furthermore, they are now unique about being the only guys where you have to notch the upper rear shock mount to get the resi line to clear for an OEM stock application. They will void your warranty if you don't do this as of NOV 16 when installing. From an engineer's standpoint, I find them respectfully retarded. But Icon has to have "their" way with things. Check the race teams that race the Baja...few run their shit, if you can call it that.

Sorry, I couldn't refrain myself after all.

I don't know why Im being so descriptive, hell paranoid56 was involved in these threads so he knows!

 

Hey man that's my wheeling buddy in pic 4!

 

@90yota, you run the Baja kits UCAs...

 

Then dont derail it lol
I would have no problem running any Icon items. they both make an awesome product. so you have to notch a shock mount, BFD lol. its a truck, so its going to be modified.

 

Issue running stock style ball joint is with a good 3" lift they start to max out and causes them to loosen up.

 

Couldn't you buy circlips and replace the spring clips? Likely not hard to find online

I know my old Sway-A-Ways had spring clips instead of circlips in the upper and lower heim joints, I just swapped them for circlips

If you have extended travel coilovers, which is my case, or put a top out spacer on factory coilovers you have to run aftermarket uca's to not over extend a factory ball joint and in effect destroy it. A lot of people don't know that about spacer lifts that are added to the top of the coilover between the top hat and the mounting bucket and the results can be catastrophic

I chose Camburgs because many people said the others weren't worth the added cost and I've been completely happy.

 

Yes you can swap them but it is indicative of the fools at icon that call themselves engineers and puts into question everything else they touch

 

Sorry to revive this but I agree haha
People cut CHUNKS off of fucking car FRAMES to fit bigger tires, but they complain over a notching a shock bucket? Tf? Which by the way when I did it, I had a blast doing angler grinders are fun as hell