Kawasaki KRX and KRX4 1000 Upgraded A-Arm Support Kit

You know the sound. You come off a lip a little hot, land nose-heavy, and something up front makes a noise that doesn't sound good. You get out, look under the wheel well and the A-arm support egged out around the bolt hole. Not broken yet. But the hole isn't round anymore, and round is the whole point.

That's the failure mode on the Kawasaki KRX and KRX4 1000 that we've been hollering about since day one. The A-arm tab support kit was one of the very first products we ever built, because we kept seeing the same photos come across our desk: wallowed-out tabs, and in the bad cases, the A-Arms ripped clean out of the frame.

Now there's a Stage 2. Here's what changed and why.

In this article:

Why the Stock A-Arm Tabs Give Up

The A-arms on your KRX bolt to tabs welded to the frame. Those tabs are a single point of contact carrying every bit of load your front suspension generates — and the factory sized them for a machine on stock tires, doing what Kawasaki assumed most people would do with it.

Most people are not doing that and end up like this:

Don't end up like this guy. Get the A-Arm Support Brackets. The load that kills them is pull-out. Every time the suspension cycles hard, the A-arm tugs outward against that tab. Do it enough times and the bolt hole stops being a hole and starts being an oval. Once it's oval, the bolt moves. Once the bolt moves, it hammers. And hammering is how a wallowed tab turns into a torn-out tab.

When one lets go, you don't just lose a part. You lose steering. We've seen these failures take out suspension components, body panels, and in the ugly cases, the whole machine.

Here's the part that should settle any argument about whether this is a real problem: Kawasaki figured it out too. When they built the H2, they added factory support brackets to those same tabs. Kawasaki doesn't add parts for fun. They added them because the vulnerability is real.

What Kawasaki's H2 Brackets Taught Us

We looked hard at those H2 brackets, and one detail jumped out — they put bends in them.

Our original kit, what we now call Stage 1 is straight bar bracket tying the tabs together. It works, and it works well. It stops the outward pull that causes wallowing, which is the failure everybody was having. Thousands of these are on machines right now doing exactly that job.

But a straight bar is strongest in extension. Put a bend in it and you pick up compression strength and resistance to the load coming the other direction. And that's the load that's grown, because of how people ride these now.

Big tires. Portals. Long-travel setups. Jumping harder and landing heavier than anybody planned for in the early days. On the way up you're pulling outward. On the way down, on the landing, you're compressing. The bends handle the landing.

So we went back to the drawing board and built Stage 2.

Stage 1 vs. Stage 2: Which One Do You Need?

We still sell both, and we're not going to tell you Stage 1 is suddenly obsolete — it isn't. If you're on stock or near-stock tires riding trail and dunes, Stage 1 does the job it's always done.

Go Stage 2 if you're running bigger tires, portals, or you're the kind of rider who measures a good weekend in air time. 

One nice side effect of the bends: on the upper front, the two Stage 1 brackets ended up basically touching once we bent them. So we connected them into a single piece. Fewer parts, more rigidity.

The three brackets in the kit:

• A — Lower Front. The easy one. Two nuts and you're done.
• B — Upper Front. Now one connected piece instead of two.
• C — Upper Rear. Lives above the differential. The one that takes patience.

 

Installing It: Watch the Full Walkthrough

Cameron walks through all three brackets start to finish:

• 0:20 — Stage 1 vs. Stage 2, side by side
• 2:36 — Tools and install tips before you start
• 3:45 — Bracket A (Lower Front)
• 4:45 — Bracket B (Upper Front)
• 8:10 — Bracket C (Upper Rear)

Tools You'll Need

• 17mm socket and wrench — factory hardware
• 16mm and 18mm socket and wrench — the upgraded hardware in the kit
• Floor jack
• Thread locker (Loctite) — not optional, see below

Nice to have: impact wrench or electric ratchet, socket extensions and a wobble for the C bracket, and a pry bar or a 2x4 to get the a-arm back in place if they move.

Three Things That'll Save You a Headache

Jack the front end up first. Get it as high as you can and take the weight off the tires before you start on the C bracket. Everything lines up easier.

The A-arm will sag on you. When the rear bolt comes out on the upper rear, the back of the A-arm drops a little. Your pry bar or 2x4 levers it right back into place. Doing this solo? The driver's side likes to fight, a ratchet strap holds it while you get the bolt started. With a buddy, they just push down on the top of the tire.

Unclip the sensor clips before you fight them. Above the diff, push down on the tab closest to where the wires meet the clip. You'll hear a click and it pops right out — barely any force. If it's not moving, it isn't unclipped yet. And watch the breather tube on your way in; you'll brush it getting the C bracket seated.

Non-Negotiable: Loctite and Torque

Every nut on this kit needs thread locker and gets torqued to factory specs. This is a high-vibration, high-load area on your machine. A support bracket that backs itself loose isn't supporting anything.

Fits Your Machine?

• Kawasaki KRX 1000 — 2020 and up
• Kawasaki KRX4 1000 — 2023 and up

Clears most winches and winch mounting plates — we kept the same low-profile height as the original. Made in the USA.

Available as the Ultimate Kit (A-B-C) or individually if you're only replacing one.

Don't Wait For the Photo

Nobody buys A-arm supports because they're exciting. They buy them because they saw somebody's torn-out tab on a Facebook group and did the math on what that ride home would've cost.

A hundred bucks now, or a trailer ride and a repair bill later.

Not sure which stage fits how you ride? Reach out — we ride these machines every weekend and we'll tell you straight.

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