I am in the process of fabricating spherical bushings for my FD and I am curious if any out there would be interested in a set as well.

The bushings I am making are for the Front and Rear upper A-arms. a kit would consist of 4 for the front,4 for the rear or 8 for the F/R A-arms. They will be constructed of stainless steel using the very high quality and well respected in the motorsports world spherical bearings from NHBB/NMB. They will also include seals to insure the longest life possible.

As for the pricing nothing is set in stone yet but my estimates are $290-325 for a set of 4 and $550-$620 for a set of 8, again nothing is set in stone they are still in R&D.

If you are interested toss me an email at sikokillr@aol.com or pm.

 

Anyone else interested?

 

Throw 'em on the car, drive 1000 miles, take pics, get at least one other person to ride with you who will also comment. Then you should get some interest. Kind of a "Show me" crowd in here, justified after snake oil sales of the past.

Interestingly, I think this is what Jimlab is currently doing with his suspension...

 

I am not comitting anyone to buy them, just trying to gauge some interest.

 

Based off of Max Cooper's experience, he has claimed that the OE pillowballs can not be improved upon, well sorta. The only way you can get your product to sell over the factory pillowballs (which can be had for ~$240/6pieces) is to lower the price while also maintaining equal or better quality.

 

I don't believe he's talking about replacing the stock pillow bushings in the rear suspension. He's talking about replacing the stock rubber bushings in the front and rear upper control arms with spherical bearings/bushings.

 

Why dont you ask JIMLAB how well his bushings (spherical) sold before you go galavanting your way into already charted territory. He would probably have better info than the rest of us.

 

Yes you are correct those are what I will be replacing.

Other than buying a whole kit from: RE, FEED etc the only company that makes the rear upper bushings is Knightsports which the yeild a $500 price for 4 of them. I am making them for my car and a few of my friends no matter if there is any interest from others or not.

 

I am interested in the bushings. Let us know how it goes.

A few clarifications:

- some of the stock bushings are pillow *****, some are rubber, and some are even pillow ***** suspended in rubber
- there is no sense in replacing the stock Mazda pillow ball bushings with aftermarket replacements
- it does make sense to replace stock bushings that contain rubber with aftermarket pillow *****

- Jimlab's bushings were replacements for most of the rubber bushings in the suspension, and they were nylon rather than pillow ***** (a.k.a. spherical bearings)

-Max

 

Oh, I see. I guess I did not read it correctly -- thanks for the correction. IIRC, wasn't there a company in Japan that made these for the FD? I really recall someone that tried to start a group buy for a "solid" front suspension.

 

I think FEED makes a spherical bearing kit, and I know Jim has posted about the FEED set that he got. Search for more info.

-Max

 

since the upper a arms carry virtually no vehicle verticle load and generally are not a wear item i assume you are doing this so as to get additional camber adjustment which is lacking for lowered ride height vehicles? both Jim and I have considered replacing the upper a arms w tubular adj items to gain adjustment...

i might be int'd based on your product offering adjustability. i would have no interest if it is just a bushing replacement item as the upper a arms don't generally need upgrading as the lowers surely do..

howard coleman

 

Jimlab made a few spherical sets for the FD. In any case, I still advise eyecandy to check into it seriously before he gets in over his head.

 

One small correction. I had a full set of pillow bushings made for me by FEED, and it took 8 months and about $1,500. BicuspiD says that "Original Box" (where do they come up with these names??) also makes a set, and his turned out to be identical to mine. Go figure.



He was gauging interest awhile back, but no one seemed to want to pay $1,200+ for bushings, so I think there are only two sets in the U.S. In fact, many whine about the cost of my 18-piece Nylon bushing set for $675, so you'll probably have trouble selling people an 8-piece bushing set for $550-620.

I'm basically out of the bushing business at this time, so I don't have any conflict of interest. Just wanted to let you know what you were up against.

 

The rear upper arms carry load, right? It seems like they must since the coilover attaches to the upper arm.

-Max

 

Yep.

 

nope.

though with great respect for max and jim and a qualification.....

the upper control arms ( a arms) do not carry vertical vehicle weight. vehicle cornerweight sits upon the upper face of the spring and is carried by the lower control arm. the spring supports the corner weight of the vehicle thru the spring tower...

the spring passes thru the upper a arm without touching it. the upper a arm defines a significant part of the dynamic suspension geometry an as such is of course an important component of the front and rear suspension. the upper a arm does share braking and accelerating forces with the lower control arm.

jim those are nice units but i would have spent my money on a tubular upper a arm w an adj length using rod ends so as to gain additional camber adj.

howard coleman

 

Agreed for the front, but in the rear it is the upper a-arms that carry the vehicle weight since the bottom of the coil-over connects there.

-Max

 

I know the front carries almost no load, but I think the rear is decent splitlike 60/40 (upper/lower).

Like I said before they are really just for my car and my couple friends, so I really do not care if anyone wants them or not, just thought I would see if any one was. I know its hard to beat JIMLABS nylon bushing set, which really is a steal at $675 if you are looking for a more solid feel, I would get them but I feel the bushings should an almost infinite movement (sphercial bushings). What I do not liks about the Kits from FEED, RE, Orgianl box etc is that you get toe link and trailing arms bushings, most already have aftermarket links.

 

Well, you should keep in mind that spherical bearings and pillow bushings behave like fixed-axis bushings when tied together in the control arms. You cannot have free range of movement in one bushing without the other being free of its mount, so there's really no benefit to their being spherical in design, except the rigidity of the metal-on-metal construction.

Spherical bearings and pillow bushings only allow a wider range of motion in a single pivot point arrangement, like the rear trailing arms, rear toe links, or rear lower control arms.

 

I had the shocks removed from my rear suspension once while the car was on a lift, and the rear suspension was easy to move through its range of motion (no binding) with Jim's nylon bushings installed. I was particularly interested in testing this since the trailing link bushing (at the body) does not simply rotate about the pin (since the other end swings in a slight arc). I was pleased to find that the suspension moved so freely.

-Max

 

Do I recall reading in the Yamaguchi book that the wheel (or wheel carriage) is actually designed to move across a sherical section, as opposed to simply up and down? That the bushings were designed to allow a certain amount of fore and aft deflection of the wheel mount point under different conditions... would not fixed sherical bushings disallow this motion in two-point mounted hardware, such as the upper A arms or lower front arm? Just curious as to how these spherical bushings will "feel" under dynamic load.. if anyone had reported how the car feels with them (there only being two sets in the US, one not yet on the road...).

I guess it seems to me that under dynamic loads (braking into a corner with attendant toe changes, for example), the sphericals could bind if the upper has two fixed points but the lower not.. seems it would create a "twist" to the axis of the mount points (i.e. caster change) for the wheel carrier that wasn't in the original design, which may or may not have any effect on the actual handlling.

Just curious...

 

It seems like using spherical bearing for the rear upper a-arm at the body would not lead to bind. The outer end of the arm should swing in a simple 2D arc, in a plane perpendicular to the axis of the upper a-arm bushings, with no fore/aft movement. The top of the upright also has a spherical bearing, as does the lower upright attachment and the toe link, so I think that will keep things moving freely through it's motion. Also, I got no binding with Jim's bushings in my test, which would bind (though perhaps less dramatically since they allow more deflection than spherical bearings) if the upper a-arm had to follow a 3D or mis-aligned 2D arc.

-Max