Thanks for the post guys. Off to a good start.

nomaak-same here.

Kinkpins. These consist of the upper ballstud rotating in the little flanged steel bushing and the lower button head screw that rotates in the same type of steel bushing. No problem with these friction wise. These are universally used on lots of cars now. Durability wise I found it helped to put the smallest amount of blue loctite on the threads of the ball stud and the screw and then assemble it. Then the screw bushing and C-hub (caster block) solidify into a solid part. The bushing rotates in the C-hub plastic (no loctite must seep in there). Constant unscrewing and breakage is much reduced. You may need to heat the screw 20 seconds with a soldering iron to remove it (or until the first smoke). No harm is done by the loctite or the heat.

Now as far as removing the angle of the arm, the benefit is from removing rearward angle of the drive axles. Changing the arm angle does change this. I have seen several ways to do this. I made custom rear hinge pin mounts that moved the rear of the hinge pin out for stock. This is some trouble but not that hard. Some of the team drivers after this were sawing the nubs off the front hinge pin mount, drilling the hinge pin hole deeper and using longer inner hinge pins and spacers to move the arms forward. Using a narrow front mount would be equally effective if you get no bind on the drive axles. Again for mod don't mess with this, it is good stuff.

I will have to defer to you guys on belts. I think we had one belt (yellow)and it was soft. Maybe too soft for stock. Great for mod.

One vote for the black belt noted. That is what I am using outdoors. It seems too stiff for stock to me.