I’m in need of a full refresh of my suspension, and want to redo my car’s bushings as part of that. It’s a daily driver I’ve had for the last 17 years.

I’ve been looking at the Spoon kit (20 pieces), and the Hard Race kit (26 pieces). The mechanic I spoke to about the job is recommending the Energy Suspension poly kit as he says it produce a tighter ride. He recommended the Mugen kit as second best, as if its equivalent to the Spoon kit.

Can you tell me which bushing kits you prefer, and most importantly, why? Why does the Hard Race kit have more pieces than the Spoon kit? Is there a difference between the Mugen and Spoon kits?

Please excuse my ignorance, but I’ve tried looking for info on the seller websites, and they have very little info.

Thanks!

 

A polyurethane kit will pretty much ruin the car, so stay away from that. Polyurethane isn't a great material to use for suspension bushings. If it were...OEM's would use it. The NVH is unacceptable (IMO), and the lifespan is very short. Plus there is constant maintenance required. They're an option for someone looking to build a track clapper on a budget, but not a solution for a car which you intend to use as an actual car.

Megan or Hardrace booted sphericals are my favorite option, but unfortunately, not all the bearings in those kits are fully booted, so they're not totally an "all weather" option. The whole kit can be had for $1200 or so. Excellent ride quality and responsiveness. No bushing bind. No need to clock anything. Super smooth, OE quality bearings.

If you go rubber, the Hardrace kit is hard to beat in terms of quality for value. Remember to have your guy clock the rubber bushings when he finishes the install, however! Otherwise you'll need new ones tomorrow.

FYI, most of your stock Honda bushings are probably still fine, as long as nobody has un-clocked them and stretched them out. The stock S2000 bushings are remarkably tough. The compliance bushing is problematic, but that's it. Spherical is a very clear choice for the compliance bushing, BTW.

 

The Mugen and Spoon kits are the same down to the unique identifier in the part numbers. Skip the us retailers and order them direct, save a boat load of money. For a street car the Mugen/Spoon bushing is the move. They are slightly stiffer than stock and feel great. They are the most OEM like and are a press out and press in install that replaces every bushing other than the big inner one on the rear lower control arm.

The only exceptions I would make to this as B Serious said is the compliance, the spherical makes sense there, and possibly the front UCAs. I'd run an offset bushing if you need extra clearance for aggressive wheels.

 

Do you remember which bearings in the hardrace kit are booted and which ones aren't?

 

Thank you! The car is about to hit 200k miles, so I am happy to go for a full hard race bushing kit.

On another note, the boots for the rear upper control arm ball joints are torn, with grease all over the place. Is that something that is possibly repairable, or are the ball joints guaranteed to be shot?

 

The rear LCA to shock bushings are not booted.

Also, I have their rear adjustable toe arm, and IIRC, the inner joints are not booted. The outer joints are, but I'm not sure I'd trust them if you're driving the car in snow.

For rain, it should all be totally fine.

At 200K, you'll probably notice a difference from replacing all your ball joints, tie rods, and toe arms. Hardrace or Megan is a good option there too, if you want to replace just the ball joints in the upper control arms.

If you want to replace the entire arm (comes with bushings and ball joints) its best to go with genuine Honda.

For front lower ball joints, go with Honda.

For toe arms...depends on whether you want rubber or spherical. New ones from Honda is the most simple solution.

 

Hardrace offers a bushing for the front of the rear lower arm now:

https://hardraceusa.com/products/hardrace-q0965

I'd absolutely stick with rubber everywhere I could; all of the talking has already been done for me - poly sucks.

Hardrace has been pretty good about continuing to support this chassis as well as offer new products. The guy who owns Hardrace, or the overarching company behind it, personally owns an S2000. Not trying to threadjack, but check out some of their latest offerings:

https://hardraceusa.com/products/har...race-for-s2000 - Lower tie bar with integrated brace points

https://hardraceusa.com/products/har...-s2000-ap1-ap2 - BMC brace finally (don't have to settle for LHT or some other shit like "DrAgOn EyE tUniNg"

 

Very interesting, do you think it will be an longevity issue if the car is fair weather driven only? I am always leery of ball bearings/bushings failing prematurely.

 

I've put a combined 20-30K miles on mine at this point. I have not seen any issues at all.

That's not a long term test in terms of miles, I realize.

However...how long do your ball joints and tie rods last? Those are sphericals too.

Properly made bearings can go 100's of K's. Lots of cars come with spherical control arm bushings from the factory. And almost all cars come with ball joints.

The quality of the Megan or HR sphericals is on par with OEM sphericals I've seen.

 

Like BMW m3 ect but the nvh can increase as did on my E82 ..