[oneblueyedog]

I want to re-do my bushings. I'll probably never track my car, but I won't rule it out. I think I want the Elephant Racing Polybronze bushings but I talked to a very reputable mechanic that preps and maintains racers and he said they were great but said I might want to think about Neatrix instead. He said the PB were too rough for his tastes for a street car. I read from a pelican poster that did his car with Neatrix for $150 in parts.

What brand is Neatrix? Where do you get them? How can I tell if the part is Neatrix or squeaky polyeurethane?

Thanks for any help,

Lee78SC

[William Miller]

I'm in the same situation.
Netrix is a rubber replacement for the spring plate bushings It's a Weltmaster Product. Performance products sells them for 51.98 a set.
I ordered some from Pelican Yesterday (I forget the price.)

I'm not sure they make a bananna arm in rubber. Maybe porsche only.
The front A arm rubber bushings come on the A arm only and I haven't seen a rubber replacement.

Go to elephant racing site to look at their polybronze bushings.
Good stuff, but expensive probably over 1K for all. (A arms, Mono balls for the top of the strut, spring plate poly bronze, bananna arm monoballs.)
I noticed Performance sells a bannana arm monoball with or without a seal. Big difference in price It looks like they also have a kit to add the seals to previous sets.

Keep us posted. Can someone confirm what I wrote?

[Jazzbass]

Your choices really depend on which bushings you are talking about. You have four major bushing areas in your suspension:

- A-arm
- Front strut tower top
- Spring plate
- trailing arm

For the A-arm bushings, your choices are OEM rubber ($400), poly bronze ($250) or poly-carbonite ($40). OEM rubber will get you back to stock, but the busihings have to be vulcanized on the a-arms - a process that you can't do yourself and is not cheap. Smart Racing will do it for you, and I think they charge $400 for both sides. Poly bronze are expensive, but supposedly due to their much lower friction surface (steel on bronze), the actually ride smoother than the poly-carbonite. Do a search on Pelican, there have been lots of debates (even one with me & Chuck arguing with free-body diagrams). The theory is the poly-bronze have a lower coefficient of static friction, and its this friction that results a harsh ride. The polycarbonite are cheap, but have to be fit perfectly to not squeek - at least according to the guys I've talked to locally. Esitmates are about 4-5 hours worth of time just to fit them properly. I decided that I'd rather spend $200 more than deal with fitting the poly-carbonite bushings.

For the strut tower tops, I'm staying with whats in my car. You can get monoballs and other aftermaket units that will give you more neg camber, but this tends (IME) to be more of a racing type upgrade more than a "they just wore out" kind of thing.

For the spring plates, your choices are poly-bronze and Neatrix. I went with Neatrix since they don't have the fitment issues of the poly-carbonite and many local guys run them with no complaints. The poly-bronze are nice, but didn't seem worth the money like they did for the a-arms.

For the trailing arms, the only solution I've seen that seems like it really works for a street car is OEM rubber. From what I've read (I've decided not to do these on my car just now), the trailing arm bushings need to let the trailing arm move in two planes, not just one like the other bushings. Because of this, monoballs (which give only one plane of movement) tend to give a harsh ride. There are polybroze bushings here that will move in 2 planes, but they are open to the environment and there are questions as to how long the grease would last there. But thinking about it, the other poly bronze bushings are also open to the environment and no one complains about them, so it may not be a big deal.

This is all the stuff I've learned in my suspenion re-do project. There is ton of good (and some bad) info on Pelican - if your serious, you can spend a couple hours reading through archive posts.

[oneblueyedog]

Thanks for the Info guys. I'll go with Polybronze on the A-arms and Neatrix on the spring plates.

Lee78SC

[Marc A]

FWIW when I rebuild the suspension on my car 2 years ago, I did netrix on the rear and streat poly in the banana arms. If you go with the oe replacements a shop will be needed to press out the bushing sleeves and press in the new ones.

On the front, I considered the bronze bushings but decided that they would be too harsh for the road. I went with weltmeister street poly on the a-arms with plenty of lube in there.

My torsion bars are 21/28. Koni adj shocks all the way around

After two seasons of tracking my daily driver, I have been extremley happy with the set up. No squeeking from the any of the bushings, and the car handles it's track duties very well.

My two cents

[Jazzbass]

The biggest problem I've seen with the bronze bushing argument is no empirical evidence of their harshness vs. plastic bushings on the same suspension. Every post I read in PPBBS everyone loved the bronze bushings and said they weren't harsh - then went on to describe how they upgraded their tbars to 22mm, put on some big-a$$ sways and Bilstien sports. With all those changes, the car is going to be more harsh than it was, and you can't point to the bushings as the cause one way or the others.

Hopefully when I get time to put my car back together I'll have some better feedback. I went with the bronze and am crossing my fingers that they aren't too bad for the street. The only other change to my suspension are the Bilstiens, but since my old Boges were trashed, some say that the suspension should actually be smoother comparatively. Otherwise, I'm staying with stock t-bars and stock sways - so we'll see.

[Jim Richards]

I followed Marc's lead when I refurbished my suspension, except I have 26mm rear t-bars. No too rough for street/track duty and no squeeking. No regrets. Also, a complete suspension refresh (shocks, strut inserts, all new bushings & bearings, and upgraded t-bars) was under $1k. DiY.

I probably will increase my rear t-bars and maybe even my sway bars, but only after I get a little more seat time.

[Jase007]

Lee:

I'd do what Jim and Marc did ... especially if you aren't sure you'll be tracking your car seriously.

For the strut tower tops, I'm staying with whats in my car. You can get monoballs and other aftermaket units that will give you more neg camber, but this tends (IME) to be more of a racing type upgrade more than a "they just wore out" kind of thing.

I agree with Chris, in part ... You can "adjust" for a monoball strut tower bearing / mounts by setting up your torsion bars and strut insert combo to do all the "heavy lifting." (I think the OEM gives up a little in deflection in order to prevent vibration / road noise transmission throughout the front-end). I've been in street cars with monoballs they are still an OK ride. If anything ... their harsh ride usually comes from over aggressive TBs /track revalved inserts or either of the two mismatched with the other. If you need it ... you can get more camber by widening the slots / mounting holes in the strut tower for the OEM strut tower mounts.


Forged versus cast mounts:

IF you do get the strut tower monoballs / mounts get the more expensive forged pieces as I have seen and experinced off track excursions (as have others) with the cast pieces which break (shatter) when the suspension travel runs out (very suddenly) such as encountering an off track object ... like say an armadillo (seriously ... hole, rock, apex curb, alligator bump, etc....). Ask Dave McMahon (I think that is his last name) who runs a yellow crinkle coated IROC look-alike locally.

I'd also add that besides the ER poly-bronze and/or P-Products neatrix rear bushings there is a third option for the street: The Weltmeister sway-away rear spring plates with red poly bushings. Your '78 SC has adjustable spring plates from the factory so ... you probably wouldn't want to spend the $ on these.

However: IF you have a pre-77 car and / or you want MORE adjustment on the spring plate for corner weighting and ride height adjustment than the '77-89 OEM spring plates, THEN this is a good option. I have them on my '76 street Targa and they don't squeak, groan a little but can only hear when the car isn't running. My '76 had NO adjustment from the factory on the spring plate. Caveat: the red poly bushings for the sway-aways are unique in size and NOT interchangeable (without some work) with the neatrix or OEM.

FWIW I plan on using the ER poly / bronze when I redo the front end on my '76.

Jase

[oneblueyedog]

These new responses are of great help too. Thanks.

Street poly- interesting.

Lee
78SC

[OldTee]

This is a timely discussion. I asked Mat DeMaria to do a alignment and he told me it was a waste of my money until the worn out bushings are replaced. I can imagine there are a few mechanics in the area that would just do it because the customer can pay. I appreciate Matts honesty.

I haven't committed to a course of action yet, but bushings and shocks look like my next project. Maybe a rebushed Arf won't bite.