Extended Lower Control Arms

These control arms are profile cut by our extended professional team in Brisbane, Australia and then CNC bent, fabricated, assembled and coated in house!

The control arms are supplied pre-fitted with high quality Meyel balljoints (solid E30 type) and can be fitted into E30, E36 & E46 cars! These balljoints are an upgrade over the E36 and E46 equivalents which use a floating design. If neccesary, these balljoints can be replaced with readily available OEM parts on our shop page.

In regards to the control arms; they are all designed with +2 degrees of added castor. This helps with straight line stability and significantly improves self steer characteristics! This design feature replaces the need to use offset castor LCA bushings (we recommend using centred LCA bushings with these control arms). If you do however decide to use these control arms with offset bushings than you can expect extreme castor in your setup. This may be very advantageous but is at the expense of your front wheel being positioned an inch further forward in your wheel arch (front bumper may need to be trimmed if you use big wheels).

The main purpose of these control arms is the extension between the two balljoints. Increasing this distance will increase the car’s track width, camber, and clearance between wheel and chassis rail. The extra clearance gained from these control arms is very neccesary for anyone with steering angle modifications. When turning to full lock these cars will rub on the chassis rails with wider tyres and standard steering angle.

We offer the option for a sway bar prevision. This is simply a threaded hole that is plotted in the standard position and will replace the nut that you’d usually use to fasten the E30/E36 sway bar mount link. It is evident that M cars and E46’s use a longer sway bar link to their strut  rather than the LCA. This results in more levarage and effectively stiffens your sway bar but may result in interferance and binding issues if your setup has large steering angle. For this reason, some customers may choose the option for a sway bar prevision on these control arms which allows them the screw their mounting bracket directly into the control arm.

Our control arms have a rear pin like the standard control arms. This is machined to a diameter of 20mm to suit E30 and E36 LCA bushings. We recommend using our centred polyurethane bushings with this product for easy install. For your convieniance; these pins are designed with a stepped diameter which allow you to easily fit the bushings on the first 20% before pressing into a tight fit.

If you are installing into an E46 than you will need our E46 conversion bushings. Because the standard E46 bushings are designed with a hex bore (rather than circular) and are fitted in a larger 66m housing (rather than 60mm) we offer a 66mm  bushing with a 20mm bore to suit these arms in an E46 housing.

This product is coated in atlantis blue 2K paint. This has proven to be a very durable alternative to our previous method of powder coating. The issue with powdercoating this product is primarily due to the balljoints heat exposure during the process which may lead to premature wear. We found painting this product removes all heat induced risks and the finished product looks amazing for years!

We offer these control arms in two different length options; +40mm and +60mm. We recommend the +40mm option for E30 and E36 applications. We recommend the +60mm option for E36’s with wide wheels needing more clearance from chassis rail and E46 customers. Please note that the standard E46 control arms are already 25mm longer than the E30/E36 equivalent so the extension options are only +15mm and +35mm relative to the standard E46 control arms.

We have improved the design between v1 and v2 options. The newer design is lighter, stronger, and also features a 20 degree bend to orientate the inner balljoint to a more neautral position – ultimately increasing the reliability of the product. The new orientation of the balljoint allows your suspension to droop further (ideal for those setup with alot of suspension travel or higher ride height). Without this bend; your inner balljoint may be working towards its movement limit. Both options have proven very succesful in a growing abundance of Australian drift cars since 2019!