Rear traling arm bushing selection Options

[Superhawk996]

Bottom line: pro driver on rubber bushings will still be faster than your average weekend warrior / track hound on needle bearings / Delrin / Poly-Bronze.

Don’t kid yourselves.

[technicalninja]

Thanks for all the replies.

I've decided to try Mikey's rubber bushings.

I got a bunch of other stuff to order from them anyway.

On my other car, a 76 916 clone, I'll used either the Elephant poly bronze or maybe the RSR ones. I wasn't aware of those, and I like the perfect reproduction shafts better.

Thanks for the heads up yeahmag.

That decision will happen far down the road...

[ClayPerrine]

I went back to a set of Elephant rubber bushings.
I tried the needle bearing conversion on my big six. For street use it was terrible. It beat me up so bad just going over regular bumps in the road that I didn't want to drive the car.
(with the new rubber bush's) The handling is not quite as good as with the needle bearings, but I can actually drive the car on the street now.
If you are racing, and looking for the last tenth of performance, then get the needle bearings. They will definitely improve your lap times over rubber bushings, and won't have the sticking (stiction?) issues of Delrin bushings. But for street use, stick with the rubber bushings. Your back and kidneys will thank you in the long run.

I dont understand this comment, the rubber in the arms is intended to twist while bound to the shafts. Needles should provide free'r motion rotating around the shaft allowing the shocks to do thier job w/o any countering force? In theory I would imagine you could run softer compression & faster rebound shox's. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/confused24.gif)

It has nothing to do with the compression or rebound of the shocks. It has to do with the transmitted impacts. The rubber bushings absorb some of the road impacts. The needle bearings transmit all of the impacts to the chassis. That results in a much harsher ride.

For me, that is an unacceptable situation for a car that is primarily driven on the street. I am not willing to sacrifice my kidneys on a day to day basis for a few tenths in the occasional autocross or track day.

[Matt Romanowski]

I run Tangerine Racing bushings in the race car. They have a tube welded in the arm, delrin bushings, and a custom shaft. They are great. I have replaced the bushings once as they wore, but I think that was after 5ish years of lots of track time.

We just used the rubber Elephant kit on an original six and it was great. The new bushings, shafts, and tools worked perfect.