SPC Control Arms Caution

[ChobeG]

Hi All,

Just thought i should share an incident that happened as a result of fitting the SPC control arms. This may not be a design fault, but perhaps something that people need to be careful of when lowering a B8 and using the aftermarket Control Arms to adjust camber.

So here's what happened. I was experiencing excessive wear on the inner part of my tires after lowering it. So i purchased the SPC control arms to rectify the negative camber. My car was sitting on a negative camber reading of -01.50' and the suspension guys that adjusted the car brought down to -1.00'. The car now drives awesomely well i should say, Toe is now +0.7mm on both sides and Caster is +3.20'. It handles very well now like it's on rails!.. finally after all the suspension work!.

However in the process of a spirited run through the hills i went over a very hard bump mid corner and my front right suspension made a thumping noise... immediately my dash lit up like a Christmas tree with all sorts of flashing warnings; TPMS failure, ABS Failure, Ebrake failure, Electronic Diff failure, Traction control along with Auto stop/start and my parking sensors all gone!... just about every system in the car with a failure... HOLY F#@k i thought!... Having heard the thump, i drove the car back home with a bit of care, raised the car once in the garage and removed both of my front wheels to inspect. It didn't take long before i noticed what had happened. One of the control arms had hit the tower, leaving clear scuff marks on the edge of the control arm and cut clean a cable that runs right above it.. Strange place to run cables Audi, but i managed to fix it with a soldering iron and some heat shrink. I have now moved and tucked the wire under the wheel arch trim. So if any of you are running these arms or any aftermarket adjustable arms, please be sure to re-route that visible cable under the tower away from suspension movement, specially if you have made the arms longer through adjustments..see picture below which shows the cable after i removed the clips holding it in place.



After a driving the car for a day and a few key cycles all warnings have gone away by themselves. Thankfully.

[TheLetterJay]

Damn, that sucks! But definitely good to know that you were able to get things patched up.

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[Slick_B8]

They sell a cable relocation piece when you buy these arms lol

[StealthBlackA4]

They sell a cable relocation piece when you buy these arms lol

That's exactly what I was thinking as I read this...

[AKPS4]

Old news. This happened to someone a while back when these arms first came out. Glad you were able to do a quick fix rather than a dealer trip.

[Powderhound]

They sell a cable relocation piece when you buy these arms lol

Yes, it's a billet hook with a screw hole for mounting. If no concern about cosmetics, could likely achieve the same with one or two zip ties.

[ptper]

http://www.awe-tuning.com/news/awe-t...8.5-audis-with

[AudiTFSI3o3]

They sell a cable relocation piece when you buy these arms lol

x100

[zcspec]

Yes, bit of history here. At -1.0* I'm surprised you haven't had to notch your fender seams. It's another issue when trying to negate some of the negative camber. Keep an ear out for the arms making contact with the seams.

[SteveYem]

I'm glad you got the problem sorted out.
For people saying that he should have bought the wire relocation bracket with the control arms, if I remember correctly that reloc. bracket is made by AWE and sold by them along with the SPC arms as a package, so if he bought the control arms from a different vendor he would not have received the bracket, nor would he have known that the bracket was necessary.

[Jroyalty7]

Yep the kit is sold by AWE, this just reconfirm to me why it was a good idea to install it! Sorry for your trouble OP. Glad you could figure it out quickly and rectify the situation though!

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[will13k7]

I just run -1.7 in the front to avoid this and other denting, tire wear is even for me.

[colby7]

AWE wants $70 for the relo kit. Lol, pass me three zip ties for a dime please. No one can see in there.

[Joker S4]

AWE wants $70 for the relo kit. Lol, pass me three zip ties for a dime please. No one can see in there.

I've had these arms on for about 3 months now without any issues with that wire/cable. I didn't move it or anything either. My SA and I both agreed that it's not in the at all. I'm going to get it up in the air again to take a closer look though. I'm on OE Sports, Bilstien Shocks for reference.

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[ChobeG]

Thanks for the replies, i actually didn't know that there was a relocation kit. I bought the arms from a UK re-seller and got them delivered to Australia. Didn't do any searches on here thinking that there wasn't much to it or anything i needed to be careful of, but obviously some of you have had similar issues.

And what's more, at -1.00" the arm was rubbing and bumping the seams on both sides, but that has also been resolved now. :)... I'm just on my way to buy some primer and paint so that i don't leave the metal exposed to rust. It's wasn't hard with a dremel tool to cut a notch out of the seams, and now i'm happy i don't have to raise my coilovers and play with the alignment again. I'm on Bilstein PSS10s and my wheel arches are just in line with the top of the tires

Before



After :) Plenty of room after taking a small notch off the seams

[littleredwagen]

I'm at -2.0 degrees negative camber with almost neutral toe and the tire wear isn't bad

[ChobeG]

I'm at -2.0 degrees negative camber with almost neutral toe and the tire wear isn't bad

Really?... I was running -1.70 and my tire wear on the inner was horrible!...It left my continental making a wah wah wah noise, i then went down to -1.50, still getting bad tire wear. I'll see how i go with -1.0 but so far the wah wah wah noise has been muted and i'm loving the handling feel. My tires are already gone, so I'll need new tires soon. I've done 19,500 kilometers on them

[littleredwagen]

Really?... I was running -1.70 and my tire wear on the inner was horrible!...It left my continental making a wah wah wah noise, i then went down to -1.50, still getting bad tire wear. I'll see how i go with -1.0 but so far the wah wah wah noise has been muted and i'm loving the handling feel. My tires are already gone, so I'll need new tires soon. I've done 19,500 kilometers on them

What is your Toe set at? Could be the tires as well they might not like the camber the Pirelli street tires seem ok so far

[ChobeG]

My toe is now set to +0.7mm on either side. Can't remember what it was before, but one side definitely had way more than the other. I think it was +1.8mm and +0.2 on the other side. What i haven't done and im not sure if it needs it is a subframe alignment. I noticed AWE has a tool for it that they sell with the spc arms. I wish i had known about it.

[littleredwagen]

My toe is now set to +0.7mm on either side. Can't remember what it was before, but one side definitely had way more than the other. I think it was +1.8mm and +0.2 on the other side. What i haven't done and im not sure if it needs it is a subframe alignment. I noticed AWE has a tool for it that they sell with the spc arms. I wish i had known about it.

when my alignment was done they had to adjust the subframe as it was off

[infinkc]

AWE wants $70 for the relo kit. Lol, pass me three zip ties for a dime please. No one can see in there.

This was my diy zip tie mod to relocate the harness.
http://www.audizine.com/forum/showth...arm!-(lowered)