Polaris XP1000 Aftermarket Long Travel Problems

[BRONCOBOY]

First off I'm new to these and have been a buggy dork most of my life racing class 5, 10 and most recently class 1. So I am scheduled to bring my car to Thad at Fabwerx this weekend for a BITD cage build.
I have been researching long travel kits and noticed a few cars had broken either the rear radius arm or the heims at the Baja 1000. This ended up with punctured tires and down time, I think one car had the issue a few times. Do we know why these issues are occurring and which manufacture has addressed this problem with success?

 

[Long Travel Ind.]

yea buy a product that doesn't use heims ....

 

[BiggJim]

We have been running BITD and SCORE for the past few years and have never broke those parts. Give me a call If you would like to discuss.

 

[facteryfmf]

That car had Chinese heims accidentally installed instead of good ones I believe.

 

[Simi Dude]

Armada Eng. did these a few years ago.

 

[BRONCOBOY]

REALLY? Someone used Chinese heims? thats frustrating especially when you figure it out on the race course. I like the idea of the uni balls but you loose adjustment, I not really sure if you need adjustment.

 

[BRONCOBOY]

That car had Chinese heims accidentally installed instead of good ones I believe.

Confirmed, you are correct. they made a major mistake in the prep and paid for it on race day.

 

[BBMOffroad]

Not to bash, but iv been selling heims for a few years now. 99% of the heims out there are made in china/india. What a couple a mfg. are doing is having the parts made in china importing and assembling them here and stamping made in the usa. Also 90% of the heims out there are made in 3 factories. Biggest thing is the grade of heim that's used. There are cheaper economy heims/Uniballs made of cheap carbon steel then there's nicer heims/Uniballs made of Chromoly or stainless. There's also a couple of different liners used in these heims as well.

 

[SimsMotorsports]

Confirmed, you are correct. they made a major mistake in the prep and paid for it on race day.

The good FK Chromoly rod ends have never failed on me..... The ones that failed while i was driving in the 1000 were not chromoly and that was the reason for the failure. The heims are nice to be able to adjust. I do a 4 wheel computerized alignment before every race. Less rolling resistence obviously equates to less worn parts and faster times....

 

[the stripping shop]

yea buy a product that doesn't use heims ....

What if I want to change my ride height how do I adjust rear arms if they are fixed. There is allot to learn in the rear of the car to make it loose or tighten it up with those radius rods.

 

[the stripping shop]

First off I'm new to these and have been a buggy dork most of my life racing class 5, 10 and most recently class 1. So I am scheduled to bring my car to Thad at Fabwerx this weekend for a BITD cage build.
I have been researching long travel kits and noticed a few cars had broken either the rear radius arm or the heims at the Baja 1000. This ended up with punctured tires and down time, I think one car had the issue a few times. Do we know why these issues are occurring and which manufacture has addressed this problem with success?

Some of the issue is rear suspension not set up correctly, to soft the rear bottoms out and you bend rear upper radius arm or tear out rear radius mounting plate something has to give. If you run long travel there is even more stress on the upper radius rod. Yes switching to 5/8 heims is a must spend the money on good ones.

 

[BRONCOBOY]

Not to bash, but iv been selling heims for a few years now. 99% of the heims out there are made in china/india. What a couple a mfg. are doing is having the parts made in china importing and assembling them here and stamping made in the usa. Also 90% of the heims out there are made in 3 factories. Biggest thing is the grade of heim that's used. There are cheaper economy heims/Uniballs made of cheap carbon steel then there's nicer heims/Uniballs made of Chromoly or stainless. There's also a couple of different liners used in these heims as well.

Made in the USA Aurora and FK ... cheap heims & uniballs are cheap for a reason. I belive both FK and Aurora also have Chinese heims to compete wuth the low end competitors.

 

[BBMOffroad]

Made in the USA Aurora and FK ... cheap heims & uniballs are cheap for a reason. I belive both FK and Aurora also have Chinese heims to compete wuth the low end competitors.

As far as I know from what mfgs have told me. I used to buy straight from china but no longer do and heard from another mfg/importer that Fk's parts are all made in china. The parts are shipped here then assembled and stamped made in the usa. Have i seen it first hand? No. But 2 mfg iv dealt with told me the same story. I'm not saying they make a bad part. I do have some mixed feelings about Fk. More along the lines of tolerances. Iv seen some very tight and others very loose that are brand new.

Aurora bearings are very nice but not cheap. There's also NHBB. Very nice but very expensive.

 

[BiggJim]

As far as I know from what mfgs have told me. I used to buy straight from china but no longer do and heard from another mfg/importer that Fk's parts are all made in china. The parts are shipped here then assembled and stamped made in the usa. Have i seen it first hand? No. But 2 mfg iv dealt with told me the same story. I'm not saying they make a bad part. I do have some mixed feelings about Fk. More along the lines of tolerances. Iv seen some very tight and others very loose that are brand new.

Aurora bearings are very nice but not cheap. There's also NHBB. Very nice but very expensive.

There are different call outs that FK will set your heim to. We call out an F1 fit on all of ours. Which will make them so tight they will be hard to move by hand.

 

[BBMOffroad]

There are different call outs that FK will set your heim to. We call out an F1 fit on all of ours. Which will make them so tight they will be hard to move by hand.

That makes sense. We have to buy FK through a middle man. Could be there not requesting a tighter fit. All of our heims come from India. There sold under our name but are equivalent to the FK kmx so jmx is still a step higher. But over the past 2yrs we have had great success with them. Hundreds of miles with them on a 1400 race truck and last year a sponsored driver took second at KOH with his jeep. Even he only swaps them out about once a year.
Haven't had a customer complaint about breaking one yet. It's possible there are some that have broke but I haven't hear about it.

If I could become an FK dealer I wouldn't hesitate.