Feral Racing approached me with the goal of developing a stronger, higher-clearance lower control arm for a Can-Am side-by-side. The existing control arm was prone to bending during off-road use, so the challenge was to improve its strength and rigidity while increasing ground clearance and keeping the design practical to manufacture.
I started by 3D scanning the existing control arm to accurately capture its geometry, mounting points and relationship with the vehicle. This provided a reliable digital reference to work from rather than relying on measurements taken from the physical component.
Using the scan data, I developed a new control arm around the existing vehicle geometry, focusing on increasing ground clearance while creating a stronger and more rigid structure.
The design uses a combination of 5mm and 3mm mild steel sheet metal, with internal bracing incorporated throughout the arm for additional rigidity and strength. The individual sheet metal components feature tab-and-slot construction to make assembly easier and help accurately locate the parts before welding.
I also designed the tube and receiver arrangement for the ball joint. These components are intended to be CNC machined and integrated into the fabricated control arm, providing a precise interface between the machined components and the welded sheet metal assembly.
With a large welded sheet metal assembly like this, controlling heat distortion is an important part of the manufacturing process.
To help address this, I designed a dedicated sheet metal fabrication jig to accurately locate and support the individual components during welding. The jig is designed to minimise warping and dimensional changes, giving Feral Racing a repeatable process for producing the control arms.
The control arm was developed with the fabrication process in mind from the beginning.
The combination of laser-cut sheet metal, tab-and-slot assembly, CNC-machined ball joint components and a dedicated welding jig allows the complete design to be assembled accurately and reproduced consistently.
The result is a high-clearance lower control arm designed specifically around the Can-Am platform, with a stronger fabricated structure, additional internal bracing and improved ground clearance over the original design.
The project also provided Feral Racing with the supporting manufacturing components needed to produce the arms, including the CNC-machined
ball joint components and dedicated welding jig.
This project combined 3D scanning, reverse engineering, CAD design, sheet metal development, CNC component design and fabrication tooling to turn a known off-road weakness into a new component designed for strength, clearance and repeatable manufacture.