I mention suspension work in the previous post, yet don't talk about it. Fantastic. Brian and Clint helped me change out my adjustable control arms and replace most of my front suspension bushings with poly equivalents. I think the only rubber bushings left up front are on the swaybar endlinks.
Control arms: the car definitely doesn't look as good without 3° of negative camber, but there's no way around that at the moment. Hopefully one of these days I'll get some control arms out to someone that can make offset bushings, and I could get a little of that back. My tires should thank me though, as I should get more than 10k miles out of a set. Of course, if I wasn't so lazy, I just would have had them flipped a few thousand miles back, and I'd be ok.
Poly bushings: these weren't so bad to install, once we got the process down. Fortunately the new bushings came with tons of lube, as (a) you definitely need it to get them in, and (b) it's supposed to prevent/lessen the squeaking. Right now I do notice them squeaking still, but mainly over larger bumps, and usually the radio drowns it out. One of us didn't get the "put grease on all poly surfaces that will touch metal" memo until halfway through, so maybe that has something to do with it, too. ;-) I've heard people complain about increased vibrations and noise from these bushings, but since I already have the motor mount inserts, I didn't notice anything above and beyond the vibration that was added from those. After driving on them a few days, I can say it was definitely a worthwhile change, even if it makes no difference for autox. The front end feels MUCH better going over bumps and such. Reactions to bumps are better/faster, and with less noise (other than the occasional squeak). With 132k on the stock rubber bushings, they were definitely overdue for a change.
Posted by Ben at February 23, 2005 06:34 AM
