Joe, the Precision Series ball joints were engineered from the start to take the taller studs and to tolerate forces far in excess of stock ball joints. For a little extra overkill our Severe Duty X Tall upper ball joints use a stud larger in dia. than many lower ball joints and a shoulder that registers on the top of the spindle for extra support. The high strength steel alloys,CNC machined and fully heat treated construction make them all many times stronger than OE ball joints. That was one reason they were designed in the first place,many types of racing up to an including NASCAR require "stock type ball joints". Stock joints would sometimes fail in a racing environment (which is almost always bad at 200mph!) and the teams all wanted something more precise and a lot more durable. NASCAR teams are the biggest users,we`re second. They hold up really well on the street too. The caps are O ring sealed against dirt and moisture and we provide nice snug fitting poly boots for them. We have some with over 50,000 hard street miles on them (rough Pa. roads, rain,snow etc.) that still show no measurable wear. Even the low friction coating on the pivot balls is still intact! I don`t know how many miles it`ll take to wear as set of them out but I`m betting it`s something over 200,000. At that point you can take advantage of their built in lash adjustment and adjust them for some more miles. If you wear them to the point where that`s not enough (NY taxi?) the pivot balls are heat treated to a more ductile state than the housings so you can simply remove the studs (without removing the whole balljoint) and replace it with a new one and start all over again. :thumbsup:
On most GM muscle cars tall upper and lower ball joints of specific heights ARE a huge help and can correct most of the factory bumpsteer. 1st Gens are the exception to the rule with their rear steer setup. Taller lower ball joints would help the suspension geometry but they would increase the bumpsteer by almost double. They needs to move in the opposite direction. For that we offer tall tie rod ends in our Stage 2 package. Mark SC&C