Front upper arm proper orentation

[LotusJoe]

I'm in the process of reassembling my front suspension and am a bit confused on the orientation of the upper arm. I'm using an after market arm I got from Dave Bean. I recall that the longer arm goes toward the front of the car 
Does that look correct?


 

[Mike Surber]

On a custom (after market) piece like that. The safest thing would be to call or email Dave Bean.

[BDA]

From the your picture, it looks like you have 0 caster. The workshop manual says the caster should be 2.5 degrees +.5 degrees. Positive caster implies a longer leading upper arm but it looks like that's what you have. I think you have it right (and it gives me another thing to check while I have my front suspension apart), but if you're not sure, you could check the caster.

[LotusJoe]

From the your picture, it looks like you have 0 caster. The workshop manual says the caster should be 2.5 degrees +.5 degrees. Positive caster implies a longer leading upper arm but it looks like that's what you have. I think you have it right (and it gives me another thing to check while I have my front suspension apart), but if you're not sure, you could check the caster.

It does have a bit of positive camber. The picture is deceiving. 

[jbcollier]

Looks good to me.

Pretty hard to check geometry with no body on it...

[BDA]

I agree that to get a real caster reading, you would need the body on the car, but in this case, you're only concerned with whether it is positive or negative. On my camber gauge, you determine if the caster is positive or negative by determining the "polarity" of the difference of the camber when the wheel is turned in 20 deg and turned out 20 deg. I would think that doing that with the suspension even close to where it will be when the car is on the ground would be close enough to tell you if it's positive or negative.