hey guys, need some help. i pulled my rack & pinion off for depowering and upon removing the rack i found a pair of worn out and torn bushings. been searching for some polyurethane rack & pinion bushings for almost a week now with no luck finding any. i them for fd's and miata's but not for the fc. and already found threads while searching that the fd and miata ones do not match the fc.

so does anyone have any idea on where to find some polyurethane rack & pinion bushings for an fc? i am using a short steering rack, the 15.2:1 steering rack (before anyone comments about the rack not being recommended for non power steering use, i have been driving on it for 3 years with no power steering pump so depowering should feel better). i found a thread somewhere where a guy mentioned using universal energy suspension rack & pinon bushings. he says just measure your stock ones and find the energy suspension ones that match your size but when i search i cannot find any energy suspension rack & pinon bushings that actually have measurements. has anyone ever tried this? do you happen to have part numbers or a link?


let me know where you guys get your poly rack & pinion bushings from. thanks a lot guys

 

I know (because I've done it twice) that you can use an Energy Suspension sway bar bushing on the passenger side of a manual rack.
The power rack is a bit bigger diameter on that side, so I'm not sure about that.
Never even looked for a driver side.

 

the drivers side is much larger, and yea my rack is a power rack. thanks for the quick reply though clokker. (by the way, did you ever get that combo switch finished?, it was in the journey into madness thread. i used to get updates on it but then the updates stopped. haven't tried searching for the thread, but was dissapointed when the updates stopped and it wasn't finished.)

anyone else have any ideas on where i can find some poly rack & pinion bushings r a energy suspension part number for some universal ones that match?

 

Just buy a set of stock ones the difference between new and 25yrs is day and night

 

im really not wanting to do that, the rest of the car has full polyurethane bushings. hmm....has anyone else tried navigating energy suspensions web site, that page is retarded. everything keeps looping you back around to the first page and doesn't get you anywhere.

 

This

 

If anyone would have them, it would be Whiteline.

Iirc the bushings were really nothing more than a thin piece of rubber. More of an isolator than a bushing. I remember not thinking there would be much use replacing it, since they are also compressed when installed, unlike other bolt-mounted styles that use a lot of free rubber.

Did you look for miatas? They have a similar mounting style to the FC, and if no one makes some for them, sure as hell won't find them for the FC.

 

they make them for the miata, but different diameter (found a thread where it was tried) also found them for an fb (but also wrong size) and the fd ones also don't work. it seems like the fc is the only model that they are not made for

i'll keep searching, if i find the info on the energy suspension universal ones, i will be sure to share it with you guys

 

The subaru crowd loves them... I was also surprised when they weren't available for FCs.

super pro is another huge supplier for them (besides whiteline), but they don't make them for FCs either. They even make them for my '89 (FWD) corolla!

I emailed MMR to make some delrin bushings (they make them for a few other cars) but never received a response... (not really surprised). Maybe if you pressure him he'll make some.

 

Tag this thread, because i am wanting to replace mine as well when I pull the engine out.

 

i still haven't found anything. but i'll continue searching. with polyurethane under the rest of the car, i don't want rubber steering bushings lol. i'll continue to you guys posted

 

alright guys, i think i give up. still haven't found anything and finally found the thread i had read previously about using universal bushings from energy suspension and realized that was for a manual rack, which uses smaller bushings.

anyone have a link for some oem ones?

 

J-AUTO - Bushings, Suspension, Performance Upgrades for Mazda RX-7s

he has them

or you could just go to your local mazda dealer.