Can anyone point me in the right direction to get upper control arms and the the right ball joints for this swap? Does anyone have experience with this swap to share? Parts are from a 78 trans am.
That is an old swap from back in the day. HO Enterprises used to sell a kit with special ball joints and tie rod ends to swap the taller F body spindles into the A body suspension. That generated negative camber gain and vastly improved handling by reducing understeer. The downside of it was the upper ball joint ended up at an extreme angle and a big shim pack was required to properly align it all. Today, there are better options out there. Taller ball joints accomplish the same thing with the stock spindle. Tubular control arms are engineered with more caster to make it even better. Try Global West, https://www.globalwest.net/kit423-negative-roll-systems-gwlas-1-spindle.html
I have this setup on my car. It's a huge improvement over the stock setup. This is known as the tall spindle conversion. What Larry says is mostly correct. However easily available tubular upper control arms solve the shim and balljoint angle and further improve the handling. There were several companies making tubular arms specifically for this swap. The only specialty item is the lower balljoint. You'll have to buy the trans am lower balljoint and then have them turned down in a lathe to fit in the stock lower control arm. It's pretty easy to have done. The outer tie rods are stock 73-77 A-body tie rods ends. I did this swap 15 years ago and have been happy. Its a huge handling improvement with out spending big bucks on hotchkiss type stuff. It's also nice to use stock type parts that can be bought anywhere. The lower balljoint mod is easy to have done and still a parts store balljoint.
I got the parts off the f-body years ago when my brother parted the car out. Don't have to use them, but of course trying to do this on a budget. Car is a 68 Skylark convertible.
I went with the UMI set up with .9” upper and .5” lower longer ball joints. Will say it worked well on a friends GTO. I just have to get the alignment done.
