I thought I would pass this along -

I was replacing the old stock brake lines with braided and thats when I noticed the car's rear upper laterial links had the bushings removed and rollbar foam installed in its place. WTF!! The links were banging around inside their mounts.

With no time to order new links before drivers school this week, I located some 3M window adhesive with the same durameter as factory mounts. So, I made my own mounts -

Looks pretty good - has anyone used this method before?

 

NOT GOOD!! I see your car has a center link at the top of the diff. THAT link has taken over the function of the foamed ones. The foam is there to keep the links for rules but not have them do anything.

You've just undone your suspension upgrade. If you're just going to do a school just remove the control arms for now, or clean you "fix" out and put new foam in.

 

+1, thats for a trilink set up, check out G-force engineering, someone paid good money for that foam.

 

Get out?! The upper links should be bored out? What the heck. Is this really the preferred method on a 3 link?

The foam in there was cheapo rollbar stuff. I suppose I could quickly pull out the 3m goop as its still tacky (4hrs old).

When I noticed the bored links, I was thinking that when the suspension compresses the links would bind and cause the suspension to lock. I added the softer 3M stuff to prevent the binding.

 

G Force includes ultra soft bushings in their 3link kit - maybe the 3M stuff is soft enough?

 

Unless you plan on racing in a class that requires you keep the stock upper links its best to just remove them completely with that tri link in there.

 

This is the funniest thing I've ever read... You have a trilink. a.k.a. the center link does the job of the other two links . take them out unless you run in a class that requires them to be in. That's why they had foam in so they would stay in place but have no effect on the suspension. LOL! this is just halarious.

 

Classic.

 

I suppose I made a bonehead move! I think we've all done something like that one time or another.

I've read up a lot on the 3link and any amount of durometer stiffness, other than foam, is going to stiffen the rear end somewhat and change the handling. The whole idea of the 3-link is to remove the upper arms and bushing AND also improve the upper control arm geometry particularly for better corner exit speeds. Reintroducing the upper arms with any amount of bushing durometer stiffness will compete with the third link and eliminate some or all of the improvement in suspension geometry provided by the Tri-link kit, as well as introduce additional stiffness to the rear suspension. Maybe the 3M silicone won't bind, something the Tri-link is designed to eliminate by allowing stiffness to be controlled by the shocks and springs alone, not the bushing material, too.

Either way, I'm going to remove it

 

From what I can see its not a GForce tri-link on the car but its the same idea. Any bushing material that gives resistance will affect the handling. When Jim(at Gforce) and I first did this mod to our cars I used some foam from a couch coushin and painted it black. If you are running in "IT" you need to keep the links in place.

 

Very nice.

Honestly though, I would have done the same move. I would have said "Look at what the tard who owned this thing before me did to the rear suspension!" I probably would have taken pictures and posted it ot the internet making fun of them as well.



Shows how much I know.