VikingTrad3r

ok circling back one more time, spoke with Lyle. He is trying to get a full kit lined up but isnt sure yet if the sway bar bushings on that super pro site are the same material as the ones he co-developed with superpro for the c4. he said he would let me know when he finds out.

im ordering a kit, and will swap over to the new sway bar bushings if they become available.

sorry for spamming this thread.

drcook

NOT spamming the thread, every bit of information, discussion is going to help someone !!

C4Newb

FWIW: I just bought a "full" suspension kit from Energy Suspension, and it did not come with the swaybar bushings, they had to be ordered separately by bar diameter. The swaybar bushing kits did also however come with the parts to rebuild the end links. The "full" kit did include the batwing bushings so that must be what they mean by "differential pinion bushings".
So the kit included:
1) Front control arm bushings
2) Rack mounts
3) Rear trailing arm bushings
4) Rear camber arm bushings, both early and late style
5) Rear spring bolt "cushions"
6) Batwing bushings
7) Front ball joint boots, both upper and lower
8) Two tie rod boots (additional two required for the rear toe tie rods)
I was very tempted by the Super Pro bushings but going a different way for other reasons, they look like a good solution.

vette196

so here's a question, I have brand new set poly bushings for my build ('96). After reading some of these suspension threads (especially the poly bushings need to be re-greased), I just want to install and be done with it. I'm wondering if I should sell the poly set and buy these superpros?

Thoughts?

C4Newb

If your '96 has composite trailing arms like mine does (fiberglass tubes bonded to cast aluminum ends) and your Poly bushings are energy suspension brand, they wont work for the training arms anyway. So for those four bushings you will need to figure out a different solution..

MatthewMiller

I haven't had to re-grease my poly bushings in the front control arms, and neither did the previous owner. They've been there for years. I wouldn't worry too much about that issue. I would, however, recommend the Super Pro bushings for the rear due to bind, even if the ES poly bushings you have now will fit in the trailing arms.

drcook

Think of the front control arms like a door hinge, moves in one place, so as Mr MM (token of respect :-) says above, they should be fine for the front end. I bought Del-Alum ones to go in my car and they only go in one way.

I do wonder (and I would have to look) if grease fittings could be installed in the front A-arms themselves. Then if a good silicone based grease could be found (in a tube, or a gun that could be packed from a can), you could regrease them without disassembly. It would be as easy as greasing the ball joints are.

This is EXACTLY how the bogey wheels on my tractor are set up. In the case of my wheels, the bushings are steel. I keep them greased so the steel on steel doesn't cause abnormal wear. The prior mower deck I had suffered from this. Even greasing from the middle (2 piece poly bushings pushed in from both sides) will force grease through. It does on my tractor wheels.


As a point of interest, the Global West products have grease fittings installed in them already.

(if the following link goes away, it could be a temporary webpage, if so I will do it another way)

https://s.yimg.com/aah/yhst-20865666...rt-1059-21.jpg

the above link is an enlarged view from here:

http://www.globalwest.net/1059.html

Think of the parts of the rear suspension like your wrist. Even though the primary motion is like a hinge (and like my right hand due to the injury to it) there is still radial motion. That is why harder urethane bushings bind. They don't allow that little bit of radial motion that occurs as the suspension articulates.

Sinister Corvette

I've run poly bushings in control arms on other vehicles and they DO indeed need to be regreased from time to time. I recently disassembled a customer's car that had poly control arm bushings only to find a bunch of "red fuzz" where a poly pushing had gone dry and started wearing out inside of the shell. Needless to say the wear allowed for some abnormal control arm movement. So if you are installing a set of poly control arm bushings, it would be a good idea to install a set of grease fittings so you can periodically regrease them - as needed.

Now for my 86 Corvette, I don't want poly bushings. I'm looking at what SuperPro Suspension Parts and Dino's Corvette Salvage sells for bushings, but I have a question...

What's the difference between the SuperPro bushings and the Synthetic Elastomer bushings sold by Dino's Corvette Salvage?

MatthewMiller

They are the same parts from SuperPro.

drcook

Same price, same shipping offer. Dino is a friend of the other folks. As of this time, they are the only 2 businesses in the country that are carrying them. Both are probably decent places to do business with. Dino's has treated me good on all the parts that I have bought from them (ie" x-brace, Dana44/driveshaft/c-beam, coils for possible future COP conversion) so I just tend to recommend people I have done business with and done good by me.

81c3

So not to go too far off topic, I have question. I've already installed the standard ES bushings in the rear in the dog bones. I have the LCA's ready to go with the ES bushings installed in them... just need to swap out the entire arms... haven't done it yet because I didn't want to have any alignment issues and I was planning on doing the fronts at the same time..... So the question I have.... What effects will I see from having a standard set of ES polys in the rear? Surely there are alot of C4's out there with standard poly bushings in the rear ends.... do those owners even notice a difference in these and the rubber?

MatthewMiller

The result will be a somewhat rising wheel rate in roll. That is, your total wheel rate (rates from spring + swaybar + bind) will rise in the rear suspension as body roll increases due to the lack of compliance for the non-axial movement in the rear links. I don't know how much it rises - never measured it. I have some trailing arms with poly in them, but I've never installed them. They came with the car from when the previous owner (MSR on this forum) tried them. Both he and another forum member, Chris Ramey (aka theseal) advised me they've tried them on their C4s and it made the car tend toward oversteer in autocross and track use. You may never notice it on the street if you never really push the car. Unfortunately, the time it would rear its head is when you least want it: some emergency transient maneuver like a fast lane change to avoid an obstacle. If you just casually and gently drive your car, I wouldn't sweat it too much. But if someone is asking what bushings to buy for the rear links, I would steer him away from regular poly.

jseremba

I am so gladwas really thrown. I clarified that. I had narrowed it down to SuperPro and I thought that Dino supplied SP bushings and then someone said whats is the difference between the two. I was really thown.