s14kev

For those who have done spring plate bushings:

How many folks here are using delrin spring plate bushings?
How many of those using them are happy with them?
How much noise do they make on your car?
Did you grease them or install dry? If greased, what grease? Anyone install grease nipples?
How many wish they would have gone polybronze?

And for the 'tards who are going to tell me to search, yes. I have already searched. Some report noise, some say completely silent. Pretty sparse information and hard to make an informed decision. I know the elephant racing polybronze are probably ideal but $320 for those vs $150 for delrin is a big difference considering all the other bushings I'm doing also. This is a weekend/autocross/DE car and is not a daily driver. I can live with some increase in noise and harshness given that I have 400 front and 550 rear springs with bilstein coilovers. Just don't want constant creaking, screeching and groaning.

Van

Then, realistically, why do either?

Personally, if you're going 95%, why not go all the way? What's the extra $170... when you're spending thousands.

ritzblitz

To embellish on Van's point:

You will regret skimping out when you have the rest of your suspension riding on monoballs and you have delrin in the springplate.

I'd recommend the polybronze because I have them and they work well but I have no experience with delrin.

s14kev

Good question. Its the demographic. All 944 owners, even those who track regularly are on somewhat of a budget. Otherwise we would be all be driving GT3RS's. $170 is a new toyo R888, a new set of front pads etc etc.

Going back to the question at hand. The spring plate bushings really just act as a center of rotation after torsion bar removal. They don't take a huge amount of load. The polybronze are great and the bearing surface area is huge and will never wear out in this application but I've not read any reports of delrin wearing out either.

When there are reports like this:

https://rennlist.com/forums/7324329-post2.html

and this:

https://rennlist.com/forums/7325864-post9.html

vs this:

https://rennlist.com/forums/4334740-post6.html


I know you are a fan of the polybrone having run them on your car. You thread on your experiences with your install are fantastic BTW. My question is; are the noise/squeaking issues seen with those running delrin due to sloppy install. Seems there is a big point made about careful honing and sanding to prevent binding.

MAGK944

I have Delrin spring plate and solid billet tb housing top and bottom with monoballs at the banana arms and coilovers with monoballs top & bottom.

I fitted the delrin spring plate bushes after very carefully honing the housing so that they just barely pushed in then applied liberal amounts of Weltmeister Plastic Bushing Grease before final assembly. Didn't fit grease nipples, that grease is the gooiest stuff on earth and wouldn't go through a grease nipple.

I have minimal squeaking, it does squeak but it's not annoying and only noticeable at very slow speeds. Performance is solid, no complaints.

MAGK944

^^PS: here is the grease to use with those Delrin bushes. Sorry for th bad iPhone pic, the part# is P801400 in case you cannot make it out.

Dubai944

Lol... one race tyre costs me $435 and a set of front pads cost me $398 + shipping. The cost of polybronze is cheap for anyone seriously tracking or racing a 944.

And GT3RS's are slow and only good for passing practise

ritzblitz

Maybe you're blending 944 owners in with Nissan 240SX owners. Only some of us are cheap like you think.

Paulyy

follow this rule when buying something you'll be using regularly
" i cannot afford a cheap part"
or

"i cannot afford a cheap tool"

meaning you'll be replacing it sooner then a more expensive product because of failure, then you'll spend more money then planned to.

Darwantae951

No experience with the delrin, but I do have the polybronze bushings on my street car. I hear no noticable noise coming from the rear suspension.

s14kev

Well it looks like the consensus is polybronze as suspected. Any other delrin users please continue to comment and provide your own experiences.

Funnily enough my S14 was a much bigger dollar build. I was poorer back then but still poured every spare dollar into it. Now, despite being less poor, I'm marginally smarter, and a little more frugal....

StoogeMoe

Ok. I have Delrin. I am very disappointed in them. I went with Delrin to stay 944 Spec legal. Better handling than rubber, but....

One drive through a deluge rain storm, and all the grease got washed out. Now they squeak like saggy bed at a cheap motel. It annoys the hell out of me.

Maybe it's because I didn't use that fancy grease posted above. I'm not going to do them again. Sometimes I just want to drop the rear of my car in a giant vat of oil to get them to stop squeaking.

Sysgen

I've had Delrin's and they squeaked like crazy but this was probably due to a bad install on my part, I now have the Polybronze and I have to re-grease them very frequently. I avoid driving in the rain for that reason.

If I had to redo it I'd probably go with delrin's but be very carefull with the install so they do not bind.

67King

I went with Delrin because that's Racer's Edge sells. And Karl is the guy who started the company by developing the first of virtually all of the suspension bushings, etc. that are out there. He also has a boatload of track records and a few 944 Super Cup championships. Less a matter of "if it is good enough for him, it is for me" and more a matter of the fact that it was developed by a guy who knows what he is doing, and has proven it on the track. There are about three guys I inherently trust with these cars. Karl is one of them. However, in the interest of full disclosure, I am now a business partner of Karl's (two years after I got my suspension stuff from him, though).

From a "how does it theoretically respond" perspective, it may be slightly less rigid, but there isn't a concern that it would wear and change shapes. I'm not convinced teh added cost of polybronze is necessarily an indication that it is any better. I am stating this as an opinion, not a fact, as I don't have data one way or another.

I get a little squeaking, but on a track car, I don't really care.

s14kev

This is the first report of polybronze needing frequent regreasing. I can see why this is the case since it doesn't have any boots to prevent ingress of water/dirt. How frequent is very frequent and what do you see if they are not regreased?