Best bushings for fd
 

I recently bought an fd that has been sitting for many years. I want to replace all the bushings and was wondering what brands are good. Better than oem but not super expensive either. Any recommendations would help since I'm new to the fd game. Thanks

OEM are the best in my experience for all around driving. Get them from Ray Crowe at Malloy Mazda. See the 3rd gen faq thread sticky for his number/email.

I Tried the polys. Got tired of the NVH.

^^Stockers are best IMO.

nvh?

Noise vibration and harshness

Yep. The polys were kinda cool on track but tired me out on the road once I moved and started using the car on the street more and more often.

Maybe I'm crazy (or my FD just was so damn extreme :lol: ) but the SuperPro poly bushings never bothered me at all on the street......

I need new bushings. I'm kind of on the fence for polys or stock. I don't drive the car everyday so even if it would be a little harsh what would it matter

I didn't mind them for a while. I'm starting to wonder if I just got old... In my 40s now....

FD's use two types of bushings: rubber and pillow balls (spherical bearing). Rubber bushings can be upgraded to polyurethane (SuperPro or Powerflex) while the pillow balls, are OEM Mazda items. Pillow balls are located at the rear upper and lower control arms. To completely refresh your FD's bushings, you need to replace the rubber bushings with polyurethane or new OEM rubber and get a set of pillow balls. You're looking at spending roughly $1,000 for a poly bushing kit plus a set of pillow balls. Stock rubber bushings and a set of pillow balls will run you roughly $1,900 without sway bar bushings or trailing arm bushings (these are only sold with new arms $480-500 a pair).

If you have the money and you absolutely want to keep everything original, go with OEM. Otherwise poly bushings are the way to go. I dont have OEM FD bushings listed on my website at this time (I'm currently updating it) but do carry them. Check my website out www.j-auto.net.

All of my customers (male and female FD owners) have been very happy with their SuperPro or Powerflex bushings. The only unhappy people I've ran into are the ones with delrin bushings.

Poly is a great upgrade over stock without breaking the bank. A lot of people have bad experiences with poly bushings but not all poly bushings are created equally. Energy Suspension and Prothane, for example, use rock hard polyurethane to make their bushings compared to SuperPro or Powerflex which use a softer material. The difference in ride quality between both materials is night and day. You can see the FD bushings I carry on my website www.j-auto.net :nod:

I ran SuperPro, and they weren't bad, but after a while the grease wore off and they sqwawked something awful, so plan to re-grease. I didn't really see a "performance" upgrade there ("feeling" stiffer isn't really definitive), but they are perfectly good replacements.

I ended up buying new stock arms with bushings OE bushings already in them. Perfectly happy with them as well.

I just spoke with the owner of my old bushings. I think I am getting old. He is liking them for autox and track days - which is where I enjoyed them most. Now that I use the car as a DD and given the roads I drive, I prefer to stock or Mazda Comp bushings. Running Mazda Comps now.

Hi Juan, so like you said, if I want to completely refresh FD's bushings, changing the polyurethane bushing set is not enough? Need to also change all the OEM Mazda pillow balls and dust seal?

Correct. If your pillow balls are still good, you can just go with a poly bushing kit. Pillow balls are a wear item and on average last about 4 years. Sometimes longer or less depending on how the car is driven.

Checking their condition is fairly easy. The easiest being the pillow ball where the trailing arm bolts to the lower control arm. Remove the bolt and swing the trailing arm down so it doesnt touch the pillow ball. Carefully pop off the dust seal on each side of the pillow ball. The pillow ball will be exposed and you can now test it by wiggling it around and back and forth. If you can easily move it around with your pinky finger, it's due for a replacement. New pillow balls are very hard to move and have no slack. Do this for all 6 pillow balls (2 on each rear lower control arm and 1 on each rear upper control arm). Getting all 6 at the same time is a good idea if you dont know when they were replaced. This will give you a good reference point for future service.

Bumping an old & Very useful thread. I am up to change Bushings on my FD. Have decided on OEM Pillowball bushing.
Keeping the cost near to lowest, I need ur opinion on which Polyurethane Bushing kit should i get?. Got a quote for OEM bushings which is more than 1700$, so thats pretty much a NO.

Price out OEM parts from Ray Crowe at Malloy Mazda if you can. Should be cheaper than that. His number and email is stickied in a link in the 3rd gen RX7 forum.

Does anyone know what is the stiffness (durometer) difference between superpro/powerflex and mazdacomp?

On some Japanese website I read that the mazdaspeed/mazdacomp are 65 durometer hardness, wouldn't that make them close to the hardness of the superpro/powerflex polyurethane? Or am I comparing apples to oranges here?

The only thing I know is that mazdacomp are 40% harder than stock, anyone knows how this would compare to poly? :scratch:

The Super Pros are stiffer than the Mazda Comp bushings. I ran the Super Pros and now run the Mazda Comps. I haven't taken any hardness measurements.

Dats actually quote from Ray :(

How many miles are on your car? You may want to evaluate each bush before deciding to change. I had 65k on mine and all the pillows were shot (no after market alt there), but not all the rubber bushes were bad (trailing arms and a couple others). If cost is the primary consideration, aftermarket may be your only choice.

You should probably jump on this deal right now.

You're not going to get the pillow ball kit at a lower price than that.
J-auto would be my next choice ~$450.

Also, you can find the Superpro bushing kit for less than what you're paying for the pillow ball kit.

Though it doesn't cover all the bushings, you can always buy the remaining separate.

Updating this thread.

Another option for the pillow balls is now available thanks to Juan.

J-auto (Juan) is currently running a sale on his pillow balls, I'm not sure when it will end or why he hasn't advertised it here.

Anyways the quality looks great and they are made in the USA.

Thanks! :icon_tup:

You can read more about these pillow balls in the vendor classifieds or by clicking here: J-AUTO pillow balls.

Sale pricing on these will be good until this batch of pillow balls runs out (got a few sets left). Orders can be placed through my website: www.j-auto.net

Thanks,
Juan

Damn those pillow balls look nice!

Aren't there some bushing that shouldn't be replaced by the poly's because of metal inserts? Not talking about pilo balls. Wish I could remember the thread I read it in.