Rubber vs Poly Suspension Parts

[303 Mopar]

I found this as a good comparison when considering rebuilding your suspension.

[anlauto]

Yea I  like that, I often times have people ask me my thoughts....that's a good way to explain it. I always install rubber in my customer cars unless asked otherwise...

[HP_Cuda]

I remember putting poly in my first ride after doing the entire suspension.

Man did that sucker squeak like mad for awhile.

[GoodysGotaCuda]

It's pretty spot-on. Unless you're really chasing handling performance, I suggest rubber.

[GY3R/T]

   Polygraphite!!

[HP2]

I've always had good results with the polygraphite pieces. Solid performance, zero to minimal squeaking. I once used plain poly sway bar bushings and was so put off by their noise, I've never used straight poly ever since.

When you really want to get serious about performance, then the oilite bronze comes out. Want to talk about minimal deflection and maximum road noise....

[72bluNblu]

Totally oversimplified and biased toward rubber bushings.

Where does it talk about all the slop and wander you get with the rubber bushings? That's just all under "road feel"? And the rubber bushings being made now will NOT last the same amount of time as the OE stuff did. The production quality of the reproduced OE parts has fallen off a cliff lately. They won't last that long, and they don't always fit properly anymore either.

The installation bit is totally general too. There are now poly LCA bushings being made with the outer shells included, meaning install is almost the same as OE. It also solves a problem that came up with the previous LCA bushings not always fitting tightly in the old bushing shells. Not everyone realized there was a tolerance there that had to be checked.

As for the squeaking, poly bushings only squeak if they're not properly lubricated. Bottom line is, if they squeak they need more grease. I try to make sure all of the poly bushings I install have a way to grease them after installation, like using greaseable LCA pins and sway bar mounts with zerk fittings. It's very easy to add a zerk to a sway bar mount. They're not rubber, you can't treat them like rubber. If you do it right the poly will outperform the rubber in every category, you just have to take some additional steps to account for some of the differences in the material.

I've gone to Delrin bushings for the LCA's, they install without any inner or outer shells. Very nice and no real deflection at all, although again you do have to make sure you have good tolerances on the LCA's and the pivot pins. Same for the UCA bushings, Bergman Autocraft has some nice Delrin stuff for their SPC UCA's.