MA61 – GH Sigma LCA Upgrade - Negative Camber + Extra Track - GUIDE

[Negative Boost]

G’day, first off no responsibility is taken by me if you hurt yourself or crash or die when using these LCA’s in your car and you’ve followed this guide.

Lighter side of things now…

This is the same conversion based on the GH Sigma LCA’s the AE86 Boys use in their cars to gain extra negative camber and track.

Parts:
GH Sigma LCA’s
New GH ball joints
A pair of MA61 PS Arms or RA60/5 PS Arms (explained later on)
RA40 Tie rod ends
RA40 Middle rods

Firstly lets take a look at the differences between the GH and MA61 LCA’s



As you can see the GH arms are 30mm longer than the MA61 arms which will give us an overall track increase of 60mm. Also by pushing the struts outward and extra 30mm will give us a few degrees of extra camber because the strut is on more of an angle and therefore the kingpin is on more of an angle. Sorry I don’t have any angle measurements.



When you get your parts from the local Pull it Yard, strip them down completely. Take ball joints out and take off any toe rods or sway bar mounts still hanging off them. You can either leave the old bushes in the LCA’s or take them out. I left them in because you have to cut the bushes down later to fit them in the crossmember mounts as they are wider than the bushes in the MA61 LCA. And I didn’t feel like cutting new bushes down without the guarantee that this modification would work. Now that I know it does indeed work, buying new bushes and cutting them would probably be best.



You need to cut down the bush to 59.4mm wide. This measurement was taken from my new Noltec bushes that are currently in my MA61 LCA’s. The GH bushes are from memory about 67mm wide. The best way to cut these down is with a grinder. Try to cut the same amount off from each side of the bush.



Its best to test fit this into the crossmember mount to make sure it fits fine and will work when you go to install everything into your car. This saves any incurring hassles when installing. If it doesn’t fit, grind a little bit more off! Also is very handy if you have a spare crossmember too.



Next thing to do is to cut out some small pieces of metal out of 3mm thick steel, as shown in the picture, to weld onto the underside of the LCA’s to give some extra support as this is where you will be drilling the new holes for the Toe Rod to bolt into. So you have a good surface to weld with, clean the underside of the LCA up with a wire brush bit in a drill. Its also a good idea to clean up the pieces of metal you have cut out to fit in (easy with an angle grinder)



This is how the pieces of metal sit in the LCA’s. You can see that it covers up the Sway Bar mount hole. That’s okay as you need to drill a new one further up the LCA later on.



Weld those pieces in there. One weld down each side will do perfectly. The best way to weld these in is to weld down one side, then with a hammer, hit the piece of metal so it bends into the slight curve of the LCA and then weld down the other side. Then flip it over and weld in the Sway Bar mount hole. Then you’ll have something that looks like above.



Now you will need to drill in some new Toe Rod holts into the LCA. The way to do this is to draw a straight line down the centre of the LCA to measure off. Then what I did was put the MA61 LCA next to the GH LCA and measure across from one arm to the other where the holes were to go. Then took some further measurements off the centre line on the GH LCA to make sure the holes were centre.
Also done in this picture was some new GH ball joints pressed in and some RA65 PS arms installed onto the ball joints.
You need to ream out the RA65 PS arms to the same taper of the GH ball joint. I took the GH ball joint, a GH steering arm and the 2 RA65 PS arms to an engineer and asked them to ream them out for me. $30 and a week later they were done.
Please note, to use the shorter RA60/5 PS arms, you need to be using RA60/5 struts in your car. MA61 struts will not work with the RA60/5 PS arms as far as I know.
And remove the bump stops on the PS arms to give you some more lock!



You will need to grind out some of the weld so there’s enough space for the nuts on the bottom of the Toe Rod studs. Or otherwise you could end up with some bent studs and that’s not good.



This is the only shot of the sway bar mount hole drilled into the LCA sorry. Done the same way as the Toe Rod holes were lined up. MA61 and GH LCA side by side and measure across from one to the other. The hole is about 18mm wide. I took this to my engineer to drill it out as I didn’t have a drill bit that big. Did it for free too!
And this is the final outcome. Ready to be installed. GH on the left and MA61 on the right.

[Negative Boost]

Just going to quickly go over the installation process.



Take out the old LCA



Install the GH LCA into the crossmember



Guide the sway bar linkage into the hole on the LCA and pop the Jack under the very end of the LCA. You can see in this picture the ball joint does not have enough movement so the PS arm and the base of the strut cant sit flush with each other.



So all you need to do is, while holding the strut and PS arm in place jack up the jack slowly until the base of the strut and PS arm do sit flush.



And there you have it, they sit flush! If you do not do this and try and ‘pull’ them together using the bolts, you will strip threads. Install the Toe Rod into the LCA, which may require some elongating of the holes, depending on how good you are at marking and drilling. Then tighten everything up, the sway bar linkage, Toe Rod studs, strut to PS arm bolts, crossmember mount bolt. Please note it is recommended to do up suspension components, which have a bush, tightly while the car is sitting level on the ground. If you do not have a car hoist, hire a local midget like Yian to get under there or by some car ramps.



Next problem is the stock tie rod ends are not long enough. The wheels in the picture are straight and the steering wheel centred. This shows exactly just how much they are short by. By my measurements I am short by 30mm. I have heard that you can use bluebird inner rack ends on AE86’s to rectify this but I did not investigate this route. The route I decided to take was to use RA40 Tie rod ends and Middle rods. Stock tie rod ends are 170mm long. So I needed the RA40 ones to be 200mm long.



This is a picture of the RA40 Tie rod end and middle rod. Sourcing those middle rods are hard though… AW11’s use the same middle rod on the rear tie rods and I reckon some other Toyota’s have them too. They are 170mm long.



This is the RA40 Tie rod end and middle rod together. Problem, they are 220mm in length, not the required 200mm. Solution? Take 10mm off each end of the middle rods.



Saw off 10mm off each side of the middle rod and file a notch out of the middle arm the same distance in as the stock notch is located for the locking bolt.

[Negative Boost]

This is how they will look after you have finished cutting 10mm off each side and filing a new notched in. So they were 170mm long and you have taken 10mm off each side, so that makes them 150mm long now.



This is the new result. The tie rod ends and middle rods together measure 200mm in length. Perfect! This will give us the extra 30mm length required over the stock 170mm tie rod ends.



And this is a picture of them installed. A close eye may notice, these middle rods in this picture pre-date modification but still shows exactly how they are mounted.



I will admit this crazy camber, that I know have, is also due to the caster/camber tops being pushed all the way in. But a lot of us have them anyways, if you don’t, spend some measly money





This is the new found camber. I’ve had a wheel alignment and was told camber is somewhere around 4 degrees. Really sorry I can’t remember exactly what it is but its crazy camber, lol. When you get a wheel alignment make sure you tell them not to dial out the camber, or otherwise they will.

Driving Impressions: Initial driving feel is a little bit different. It feels slightly harder to turn the wheel which I think is due to the ball joints and you have to steer a lot more. It doesn’t self centre as much as it does stock either . It tramlines more and you’ve got to be more weary of pot holes. Driving around town the front end feels a lot flatter through even slow corners. Once you find a familiar corner (on a track) throw the car in at the maximum speed you would with your old setup and it feels slower and the front end a lot more flatter. This just encourages you to take corners at a lot more speed. My car feels a lot faster and stable now around corners with this added camber and is more predictable.
The wheels I am using are 17*7 +10 offset with 235/45/17 tyres. On my left hand side (which is straight unlike the other side) the tyres rub the flare through right hand corners and over bumps. I’m also managed to crack my flare by reversing and turning, the tyre’s caught the flare, then bent it and cracked it! Ah well, it was worth it.
Don’t expect tyres to last long either. I’m using a 30mm spacer which gives me the +10 offset on the wheels, otherwise its +40 offset. I will be trying some 26mm spacers soon to see if that helps with the flare rubbing.
Lock is really good and the turning circle is now tiny compared to stock. Really awesome and should be heaps good with drifters like Hazkell. At full lock I have a fingers gap between the tyre and inside wheel wall.
Overall, heaps worth it! But I think I will be changing it back to stock so my tyres last longer I recommend this as much as upgrading to RA60/5 Struts and PS arms.



Any questions, fire away

Cheers
Sam

[RObErT_RaTh]

Ya crazy bastard! That's all I have to say

[Norbie]

Great work, +rep.

[ZZT231]

Great write up, not only we can now have negative rear camber, but now we can add to the front...

Cheers.

[ViPeR_NiPPleX]

Great guide Sam! Before ya know it you will be modding the LCAs for adjustability

Btw, you should be a hand model, the red from the strut and brake caliper really accent your skin tones

[Vios-GT_07]

that's a very interstering and detailed read.. and that disclaimer is something awesome..

2 questions though

1. is it any roadworthy issue to have that insane camber up the front?

2. that camber and handling characteristic is a combination of your suspension system and strut tops eh? K-mac items i see there... is that right?

+ rep for you..

p.s. is Yian really that short?? i've seen his ride and it doesn't look like his chair is pulled right up to the wheel so i'd think he's not as short as the impression i get from here.. (MA61s have pretty good cabin space for the front i might say)

[ViPeR_NiPPleX]

1. Depends on how far braking is compromised since the patch of grip will be reduced.

Yian aint short, he just likes to think so.

[[email protected]]

good to see an easy to read installation guide.....crazy stuff... +rep

[ma61turbo]

Awesome write up! +rep

EDIT: Hrmm, I need to give some more round first, I'll +rep as soon as I can

[RONA]

Awesome write up! +rep

EDIT: Hrmm, I need to give some more round first, I'll +rep as soon as I can

Same here can't pos rep Negative boost again yet .

Awesome writeup, man it looks hot.

[Negative Boost]

Btw, you should be a hand model, the red from the strut and brake calliper really accent your skin tones

Lol, umm thanks James! Can i be the Toymods hand model That was a very hard picture to take aswell, almost got hand cramp!

2 questions though

1. is it any roadworthy issue to have that insane camber up the front?

2. that camber and handling characteristic is a combination of your suspension system and strut tops eh? K-mac items i see there... is that right?

+ rep for you..

p.s. is Yian really that short?? i've seen his ride and it doesn't look like his chair is pulled right up to the wheel so i'd think he's not as short as the impression i get from here.. (MA61s have pretty good cabin space for the front i might say)

1. I honestly don’t know but i somehow think any responsible mechanics who signs off on a car wouldn't like it. But there are plenty of dodgy ones too... I haven’t looked into this though, the legality that is, not the dodgy mechanics

2. Yes my camber tops have been dialled all the way in to help with camber. It’s actually funny because if they are not dialled all the way in get really really bad scrubbing issues. Yes K-Mac Caster/Camber tops. I do not recommend them though. Try Noltec for caster/camber tops.

And naa Yian aint that short, I just like teasing him

And thanks for the comments guys! Really appreciate it.

[Norbie]

Dude did your rep just double since posting this thread?

Well deserved though.

[RObErT_RaTh]

Dude did your rep just double since posting this thread?

Well deserved though.

He might've got 100 out of it