J Berk

As an inexpensive start... I added Kong yellow adjustable all around and a shock tower brace

Combined with good tires and set on medium... That alone made a huge difference!

Player0

I did the ER polybronze bearings. It was a JOB let me tell you. But they work great. I left all the other rubber bushings on the car as I had heard they're a little friendlier on the track. I went for a T-bar delete with 350/550 springs and escort cup shocks. I wanted a DE/streetable car. This thing is very capable on the track.

Currently, I'm in to my elbows replacing the front lower control arms with something that is less likely to fracture at the track now that I'm making 95% use of my car's potential. But I'm giving some spherical bushings a shot up in the front.

I think the rubber bushings on the A-Arm cause a little instability under hard breaking.

I regret not getting firmer springs. I think 350/550 is just a bit soft. But plan out your big suspension upgrade.

Maybe start with some M030 or better sway bars? I imagine roll is your biggest problem and those should help and be an easy upgrade.

If you're going to do polybronze, that's such a bear of a project you probably want to wait until you're sure about what the rear suspension is going to be.

divil

yeah the Lindsey 5 way adjustable looks cool...for about the same price, no reason not to have the extra adjustability.

I would really like to start with sway bars, or even just a rear sway bar, but I know thosee bushings are bad. I also need to get the rear aligned, and I'm concerned that the bad bushings make it difficult/impossible to align correctly. Such is the domino effect of cutting corners...Still, maybe I will get the sways and get another track day in before I make up my mind.

What makes the Polybronze job so much harder? I didn't think it looked too bad from the posts I've seen, but there's probably a lot of little things that are harder than they look...I have a set of spring plates and covers on the way from Lart so I plan to get those cleaned up and the new bushings installed before I tear into the car.

Player0

Just removing the old rubber from the spring plates was a ton of work. Dropping the torsion tube wasn't a lot of fun either.

divil

I got my spring plates and covers, but there are some scratches/gouges on the covers - here's the edge where I think the lip of the polybronze bearing would go - it's the slightly out of focus part along the edge nearest the camera (camera wouldn't focus on it):



The actual bore seems ok. Would this be ok to use? Both covers are like this.

harveyf

When I had trouble getting my delrin bushings to fit, I had some discussions with Carl Potel. He advised me that he had looked at a large number of spring plates and there was a significant variation in the size of the bore, when you get down to a precision measurement level. The rubber bushing really doesn't care so if you are going back with rubber bushings, what I see in the picture looks fine. If you intend to go back with delrin, poly, polybronze, etc. I think it is a crap shoot as to whether your new bushings will fit, without some fettling. As discussed in my article, I had to remove material from my bushings to get them to fit. Even worse, it's a tapered opening. Again, great for the rubber bushings but not something that you could clean up with a simple lathe or circular cutting operation.

theedge

That wear on the outside rim looks odd to me. Is there matching wear on the spring plates? It looks like there should be going by that.

There is a lip on the poly bronze bearings that will go there but it doesnt rotate against that part, so I dont think that wear will impact the bearings at all. But something still caused that wear. My 216k mile car did not have that wear.

The Polybronze bearings from Elephant Racing are quite awesome. Outer part is stiff polyurethane to account for the difference in bore sizes and surface quality. Inner race is bronze on stainless with grooves for grease. Very well designed product and a must for any 944 IMHO.

divil

Hard to say about the spring plates...here's a pic. There is a part of the rubber bushing formed into a lip, I presume that's what the edge of the cover rides on? The metal outside that is dirty and corroded but has no marks like the ones on the covers.

mikey_audiogeek

Yep OK to use. Square up the lip with a file if you can. The urethane will accomodate some wear and the polybronze bush will hold the assembly square to the spring plate.

Cheers,
Mike

mikey_audiogeek

Could make a terrible pun about "Kong" shocks and "a huge difference"...

...must...

...resist...

...

V2Rocket

dampers are fine still, short wheelbase + completely nuked torsion-bar bushings do not make for a quiet/soft ride on the concrete slabs we call roads.

Aivar88

any other bushing you guys recommend ? how about powerflex purple ones for street use ?? any squeaking or stuff like that with those ? ER polybronze does seem to get some good words here but they dont offer full kits as far as im concerned. i own 944 S2. looking to get good handling but also some comfort on street.

SpeedyC2

I have been extremely happy with the Powerflex street bushings I had installed. I attend the occasional DE, and the suspension is just about perfect to me.

Elephant Chuck

Glad hear the PolyBronze is getting high marks.

We also have both rubber replacement and performance uprated products for every position on the 944 and S2. Is there something you are looking for but not finding on our website?