VAC Motorsports upper and lower control arms: ✅
Been busy with work these past months and have been neglecting my ride. Thankfully had some time today, during what was probably the last warm day of the year, to switch out the OEM control arms for VAC Motorsports monoball versions.
The upgrade was supposed to take only 3 hours, but 4 hours in and I had not even finished the passenger side. The initial issue is that the main cable for the battery literally covers up the lower control arm bolt. This was not in any of the videos on Youtube. To move the wire and uncover the bolt requires delicately prying out two very brittle plastic fasteners. This allows the wires can be moved about an inch, leaving you with just a few millimeters (!) of space to extract the bolt head. But thankfully, it worked in the end.
Yet... I couldn't finish the job on my own. The main issue is achieving 175nm of torque as required on the wheel side of the control arm. This is a large amount of torque, and using very simple jacks and jackstands like my setup, the wheel keeps swinging to stop the torque from happening. I think I could have possibly completed the job by using the jackstand (upon which the car was braced) as leverage for my legs. But man, that didn't feel safe.
In the end I drove my partially torqued control armed wheels down to a local shop, had them put my car on the lift, and had them crank the wheel side to 175nm each.
In the end, the VACs are installed to spec and I'm happy
. I will say that this upgrade seems to have given the car a relatively small improvement over stock. Certainly the slight mushy vagueness of the rubber bushing OEM control arms is gone, which is welcome. The VACs definitely feel more precise. But I will say that this is the first upgrade where I wasn't "wowed" at the result. Vibration and comfort (NVH) is basically the same, though. So that's cool.