Superior Engineering Super Flex Radius Arms Review

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.

Yeap, I sure do want a set for myself, that would eliminate a lot of welding.

No it wouldn't. You would run them for six months to a year and decide you want something else. You need to focus on taking the advice you put directly under your screen name.
 
That thing is bad ass! I love the orange. My 71 FJ40 is orange n black. I've been watching the skull & bones aussie guys alot on YouTube. There all running 6 inch dobinsons with the superlex arms & flex amazing on the trail. How are the on road characteristics? I'm either keeping it stock height & 285s or going 6 inch dobinsons with the superlex arms. No in between. If they handle nice on the road then im going plan b. Mind you my FJ40 is a 4 inch sprung under lift so anything has to be better with coils. I've got the itch so bad to do up my 80 thoughts of selling my 40 to fund the 80 build keep dancing thru my head. That would be a tough pill to swallow after 16 years with her. The addiction is real. Happy friday
 
Has anybody changed bushes on these?After 5 years of hard wheeling and straight tracking on road bushes are looking worn
so shakey steering and wandering on road is happening
Ordered Toyota genuine bush kit with 4x arm to diif and 2x arm to chassis
The top front bush on the superflex arm is smaller than the other 3.
They do advertise these as using standard bushes?
Does anybody know a matching bush I can use,otherwise have to wait for one to come from superior which will take (2 weeks+)and they want price of bush for shipping.
I did ask superior what bush this used but havnt heard back.
 
Has anybody changed bushes on these?After 5 years of hard wheeling and straight tracking on road bushes are looking worn
so shakey steering and wandering on road is happening
Ordered Toyota genuine bush kit with 4x arm to diif and 2x arm to chassis
The top front bush on the superflex arm is smaller than the other 3.
They do advertise these as using standard bushes?
Does anybody know a matching bush I can use,otherwise have to wait for one to come from superior which will take (2 weeks+)and they want price of bush for shipping.
I did ask superior what bush this used but havnt heard back.
I think it's from a control arm of a Nissan patrol
 
It's from a rear upper arm on an 80.

I replaced the bushings recently and I will say it's a slight pain in the ass with the shape of that arm, but it isn't the end of the world.

I find it interesting that you are having steering wobble from it, because I had none when I pulled the arms. Make sure none of your tires are out of balance or other steering components are to blame.

EDIT: This is when I pulled them off.

IMG_1096.JPG
 
Last edited:
I started by doing tyre rotation and checking steering etc
Then noticed heaps of play in radius arm when leavering on them.
Took radius arms out and all bushes pretty worn
On the superflex arm there nearly gone!
Superior site does mention a nissan bush but not the sepific one
Ill buy the 80 upper arm bush
Cheers!
 
Last edited:
nice pics grant, happen to have ant before/after photos on the spot?
 
I have been wanting to pull the trigger on the Superior Engineering super flex arms for quite some time now. Ive had 3 80 series and although i love them, my main complain has always been lack of flex. Before owning the Cruisers i had a 2006 Rubicon with a 6" long arm lift kit which gave me infinite amount of flex. Living in Florida where its mostly mud, flex inst that important but i travel a lot with my rigs and things get real sketchy quick with the 80s with one tire almost always in the air. Ive never gotten used to the feeling and Ive tried many different set ups to remedy it. Ive looked into linking the front like some others have done and although the results are fantastic, i am scared i would end up hating the road matters since one of the biggest reasons i sold the jeep was because it always wandered down the road.

So i called the guys at Superior Engineering in Australia and they answered all my questions and promised results. I pulled the trigger and bought them and put them on my cruiser. They arrived to Miami in about a week well packaged and protected (i was too excited opening to take pictures). The install was fairly easy, i ordered the performance series which are meant to keep the sway bar, instead of the Offroad series which get rid of the sway bar so i could maintain perfect OE road manners. I had to cut the sway bar brackets on the driver side so i could fit the radius arms and also move out of the way some brake lines which interfered with it on the axle.

Ive had them on for a couple of days now and i am happy to report that she drives perfect and just like she did with the factory arms and a combo of caster bushings and drop brackets. Before i move on to the flex pictures, i must say that no i did not do a before an after test, and that in some pictures the truck has all sway bars connected, and in others the sway bars disconnected and the height looks the same because with the sway bars the rear tire started to pick up so we stopped, then i brought her down disconnected them and started to lift her up again and we brought her to about the same level and at this time my boss didnt allow me to go any higher because he was afraid she would tip over. I have now say in this other than she was perfectly planted. I will post more pictures and measurements with comparisons between sway bars attached and sway bars disconnected but i need to find a nice ramp or someone to lend me a forklift. I havent wheeled her yet with the arms but i am extremely happy with the results.

Truck suspension set up running 37" BFG:
Dobinsons custom 7" coils
Superior engineering super flex performance series radius arms 6"
TJM Front and rear HD sway bars (built by Whiteline)
Metaltech lower control arms
Old Man Emu upper control arms
Fox 2.0 reservoir shocks measuring 31" or so with the front running a 2" eye to stem adapter
Dobinsons rear panhard
Old Man Emu Front pan hard
Extended brake lines, sway bar brackets, and bumpstops.
View attachment 1315439
View attachment 1315441
View attachment 1315442
View attachment 1315443
View attachment 1315444
I run S.E full 6" high flex set up. Bought every thing from them including the Amada remote resivour shocks. Flex up front is unreal. On road my truck handles like a truck with 6" lift and none speed rated 37" tyres. I ran the OME 4" lift with the long travel shocks and 35" tyres. Superior out does my old set up in every way.
View attachment 1340775
I will post some flex pictures. This is the only one I have on my phone.
shes a beauty I love it.
 
I have been running superior eng superflex arms on my 80 for about 4 yrs now. They are *not* a simple no-mod install as the left side original sway bar mount on the axle housing has to be cut off. Also the bushes supplied by superior were (at the time I got mine) not genuine and I've just last week replaced the bushes a second time. The first time I fitted toyota ones, this time I used Nissan ones since I had some new genuine's around.

My 80 is a pre-8/92 so it does not have the std +3 deg caster setting of later 8/92+ 80's, so I've been running 4" lift compensated arms with 3" suspension lift and that gives me a caster setting of about +4.5 deg. I am close to deciding to get rid of the superflex arms and go back to both standard type aftermarket lift-compensated.

Why? I do very little off-road driving now, and the on-road performance behaviour of the superflex arm pair is not very nice. The RHS one (a std type arm) flogs out the axle housing mount bushes and the back of the arm kicks around a lot in the mounting to the chassis. There is no explanation possible except that the super-flex style arm on the LHS + the non-superflex style arm on the RHS are not behaving the same for on-road use.

I've had other people tell me that superflex arm sets are really no good for mostly on-road use.

So YMMV, but be wary that while you may get brilliant off-road flex, etc. you are losing on-road handling.
 
Thats Strange because n my 97 80 these things have been perfect, 75mph on highway with 6in p
DJI_0019_Moment(2).jpg
DJI_0019_Moment(4).jpg
DJI_0019_Moment.jpg
intro rollover_Moment.jpg
lus 1 in body lift shes fine and off road crawling climbing thru moab or thru forest trails scattered with large boulder of granite and ledge shelves shes perfect. strange. didnt have to cut anything to install moved the dumb ABS line thats all. my only complaint would be the powdercoating isnt holding up great, good not great.
 
Maybe the LHD axle housings are different, but to fit the 'superflex' arm (with the plates) that changes the articulation line from 'under' the LHS of the axle housing to 'behind and vertically' behind the axle housing requires the factory swaybar mount to be removed on a RHD 80 series. It cannot be left in place.

These pics show a close-up of where the factory swaybar mount was, and what the superflex arm has to replace it (the RHS requires a spacer block to 'lift' the front swaybar mount up to match ).

46306828781_22a91f9209_b.jpg


pic page

31368013837_7832b27c45_b.jpg


pic page

Maybe there is potential benefit to what Superior now called 'hyperflex' arms which is basically two 'superflex' arms instead of one std type and one superflex type, but who knows.

The key change with the original 'superflex' kit is that the articulation line stays underneath the axle for the RHS but is changed to 'behind and vertical' for the LHS. That's how the extra flex is achieved.

Note also that the odd-one-out top bush for the 'superflex' arm is *not* a Toyota bush - the only one that fits is a Nissan bush and it's design is important to achieve the claimed level of flex.

The mis-matched flex angles are I think what makes the on-road behaviour so markedly un-nice.
 
I put a single, stock caster, superflex on my rig (along side my LandTank caster plates). I've had it on the road for a month or so. On road, my rig drives pretty much exactly like it did before with 2 stock arms. When flexing, the arm makes a very big difference, that I has already allowed me to take lines on trails that were previously too tippy for me to feel comfortable on. Here are some quick comparison pictures.

The "before" pictures on taken on a roughly 30" rock. With the stock arms, my rig felt like it was near the end of its ability to flex, despite the fact that my Slinky setup had more travel available. The "after" pictures are taken on a 35" rock. With the Superflex arm, I felt I could have easily climbed higher, if I had a taller rock. I'd love to get my rig on a ramp and test it more. Here are some comparisons:

Note the up travel on the front axle.

before:
pPizUIhh.jpg


q7OhL0lh.jpg



After on taller rock showed that I can climb higher than before:
elNaQAxh.jpg


rGx5hIDh.jpg


Note the down travel on the front axle. In this case, 5 additional inches of height seem to make the suspension flex similarly in both instances.

Uxg9sQEh.jpg


6wy2fozh.jpg


After:

U7hNrqyh.jpg


OsmD1WBh.jpg


A closer look at the front spring reveals that I am indeed getting more down travel:

Before:

wsX73Yvh.jpg


After:
RFwqvdIh.jpg


Overall, the pictures don't do justice as to how different the user experience is. Uphill and flexed situations have a much flatter body position resulting in much less anxiety on my part. I'd love to find a nice ditch to get the setup into full flex but I haven't found one that was deep enough to demonstrate that yet. My favorite part about this setup is that I can unbolt the superflex arm and put my other stock arm back on, if I want to. I'm pretty happy all around.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for your contribution Lumpskie.
In all the pictures that Ive seen of these arms show very little room for the arm to actually move, meaning side to side creating arm to bracket bind. They do seem to work better then stock fore sure. The Hyper arm set up is interesting to say the least. I wonder if they have any options to move the axle forward?
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top Bottom