I am posting to see if any of you who have the Exact Motorsports spacers (RCA's) have experienced bolt failure? This is VERY dangerous as it will cause you to loose your steering!!! I am lucky mine broke in the drive way. What happened is the bolt that connects the spindle and the lower control broke... allowing the whell to turn completely to the inside...(while the other one is completely straight) The bold simply snapped off and left the tip of it in the spindle!! I will post pics when I get my camera back...

Do yourselves a favor and at least do a visiual check on the condition of yours and check to make sure they are tightened to the exact torque specs!

 

Mine are still ok...for now. I drive my car a lot harder than most folks here and it's still ok. I usually go under my car every week or two to do a complete maintenance check though.

 

that's good... man if I was on the highway when that happened... I might not be typing this message right now... I am going to call them first thing Monday morning... This is dangerous... Now I am going to have to get a new spindle if I can't drill out the remainder of the bolt that is in it!!!! I'm not a happy camper!!

 

Damn. Glad it happened in your drive.

 

whoa! Please post pic! How long has the RCA been around? How long have you had the RCA installed?

Please post pic.

 

dang man. glad yer not hurt. post up some pics for us.

 

Hello,

I have a very serious problem. I installed your RCA kit on my 98 GS400 about six months ago... and everything was fine. Just yesterday I was pulling out of my driveway and my car wouldn't move... Upon getting out of the car to inspect what was going on... I noticed that the front passenger side wheel was turned all the way in... while my front drivers side wheel was straight!! I inspected the suspension and noticed that the rear bolt from your kit had broken and was missing... allowing the wheel to turn freely. This can is very dangerous and could be potentially fatal if traveling at highway speeds. I need a replacement bolt and I think you should contact your distributors to check on the quality of the bolts that you are selling with these kits. I will be contacting you Monday to discuss this further.

 

sorry to hear that. i wonder how exact will deal with this.

 

Ok...u talking about the front RCA. What grade of bolts were provided with the front kit? It should say on the top of the bolt head. Btw, what did u torque them to? 65lbs? 85lbs?

 

Jeff - How long have you had yours on?

I paid a premium about 7 bux per bolt for these 12.9 grade. Members should not use anything below that grade. Waiting to see pix and specs.

 

The bolt looks to have a 12.9 on the top of it and maybe a "G" on the opposite side or maybe an "A" I think the bolt is an no. 10 allen type...

 

12.9 and some other letter/symbol on the top of the bolt...

I torqued the bolts to the specs that Exact provided with the kit... i believe it was like 114ft-lbs or 120? Can't remember exactly but it was to what ever they said... I am very precise when it comes to torque specs... by the book always...

 

pics !!!! So what did john @ exact say ?

 

called them to day and the guy said he will overnight me two new bolts and he asked if I could get the piece of the one out to send back to him so that he could get it to the machine shop to test it... I told him I would try to but I am not sure if I can get it out of the spindle... I am going to have to try to drill it and then use a reverse thread kit to get it out but I have tried this exact process before with poor results... Put it this way... I am on my way to the salvage yard to buy a new spindle right now...

 

http://www.arp-bolts.com/Dealer/Dealer.html

might as well go with ARP bolts. Any expert here know if we can use larger bolts than 12x1.25? Maybe rethreading it? These kinds of failures scares me.

measure for fatigue: You can easily monitor the condition of the rod bolts through
use of a stretch gauge, or a micrometer for that matter. Prior to
installing the rod, measure the length of the bolt in a “relaxed”
(untorqued) state. Write this down. You can make up a chart
similar to the one shown on this page to properly keep track
of the data. When you tear the engine down for maintenance,
again measure the length of each rod bolt – being careful to keep
everything in the proper order. If any of the rod bolts have taken
a permanent set and have stretched by .001˝ or longer you should
replace the fastener IMMEDIATELY! The stretching is a sure
indicator that the bolt has been compromised and taken past its
yield point. source