Replacing the six common rear pillowballs gets discussed a lot, but it seems to be ignored that there are actually 14 pillowballs in total on the rear suspension. There is one at the font and back of the toe link, one at the front of the trailing arm, and one large one on the inside of the lower control arm. Right?

I was horrified when I realized this while pressing my old OEM ones out today. I have a full set of Powerflex bushing I bought a year ago ready to go in, but isn't replacing a pillowball with a polyurethane a bad idea? I mean, those pillowballs are there to allow a certain degree of movement, and it seems like throwing a poly bushing in there is a little sloppy...

So decided to bite the bullet and go with aftermarket toe links/trailing arms, and Mazda comp bushings -- until I saw the prices on the Mazda comp bushings -- even the price of stock for that matter. So, uhhh, probably nevermind?

What are your thoughts and/or experience using poly bushing in place of the "oddball" pillowballs mentioned above?

 

Wait... I'm going to correct myself here -- the toe links and training arms are not pillowballs (although they are ball joints on the aftermarket kits), but there is still a large one on the inside of the lower control arm.

 

This thread is a great source of good info regarding the FD rear suspension geometry.

https://www.rx7club.com/suspension-w...dence-1140933/

If you read my post #21 I scanned some pages directly out of Jack Yamaguchi’s Book, where it explains in detail the logic behind the rear suspension geometry and the multi axis bushings​​​​​​.

and yes, I agree that is very shady that Powerflex sells single axis poly bushing for locations where multi axis bushings should be used. I believe that SuperPro doesn’t include these in their FD set (could be wrong).

 

correct. there are only a few locations where a non-pillowball type bushing can be used.
this is one of the main reasons i usually recommend not switching to poly bushings.

When I re-bushed the suspension arms on my car, I stuck with stock or mazda comp - except for the toe links and trailing arms. I went with heim joints on those (rotary extreme, rx7.com, pettit). Pretty much all of the bushings were tired on my car due to high mileage.

 

How is the ride comfort with the heim joints for Toe Links and Trailing Arms? Did you notice much difference from stock? My car's bushings are tired also, so I'm debating stock vs Superpro vs (replacement arms with heim joints).

 

I didn't notice anything with the trailing arms or toe links. I did notice increased nvh when i used the poly bushings in the upper rear control arms and lower front control arms. Great for track. Not that great on street - for me (a picky older guy); ymmv.

 

IMHO the best bang for buck on poly mounts are poly diff mounts and the giant mount in the long rear trailing arm. Those are big, sloppy mounts from the factory. Tightens things up nicely and very little NVH, you do have some from the diff mount mainly but it's reasonable.

Dale

 

I'm debating whether to replace my worn spherical Banzai trailing arm & toe links with another set (they developed pay in only 10K miles) or to use Powerflex black poly in the OEM parts. Does anybody have first-hand experience between these options? I really liked that with the Banzai spherical mounts + purple Powerflex diff mounts + Banzai diff brace + Mazda comp motor mounts, there was ZERO wheel hop.

 

Poly bushings in the toe links will cause binding and squeeking as per others experience here.

Those are the bushings that never should have been made.

Stock rubber isolated spherical bearing toe links or aftermarket sperical bearing toe links.

The front of the trailing arm is OK for a bushing. Very minor multi-axis movement/binding because it moves through a long arc.

 

Thanks, that answers my question.

 

Good place to source replacements for all rubber / bushings today?

 

j-auto.net or banzai-racing.com

 

Ray Crowe of course