Boostmaniac

After searching and coming up with wildly varying opinions I finally just need to ask straight up. What is the better bushing choice for STR? I've read that everyone is divided on OEM, hardened rubber and Poly. My chassis has 112k on it with original bushings so I'm certain anything would be amazing but I am converting to the Ohlins DFV over the winter and I will be redoing all the attachment points to "tighten up" suspension response times.

Not sure if it matters but current setup is basically a Karcepts front bar with squared 255's.

As always any help would be appreciated.

-Maniac

warmmilk

the best would be solid monoball bushings. Poly is better than hardened rubber because it allows easier movement for the pivoting control arms. However, not all poly is made the same, SuperPro and Whiteline are the only 2 brands worth buying in my opinion.

Boostmaniac

I believe solid bushings are illegal in STR, I've never heard of superpro before. I'll check them out.

darcyw

I really liked my Hard Race bushings when I replaced them on my 2000 SiR Civic. Hard race makes higher durometer rubber bushes that are STR ok. I replaced them when I had about 110K kms on the chassis. I had to keep the car off the road all winter as i replaced all the bushings. Incredibly the solid OEM bushings were still actually in really decent shape. The rear trailing arm bushes were rough and wrecked.

its a labour intensive job.
darcy
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gptoyz

dunno if it's legal but definitely get the power flex monorail for the compliance bushing. For all the other ones that see only 1 axis of movement, hard rubber or poly probably doesn't make a whole hell of a lot of difference - poly is kind of annoying to take care of even if you use a zerk fitting

No.Division

I would say powerflex everywhere that you can. As for Compliance you might be out of luck as the rule says the bushing cant have anymore metal in it than the stock one and all aftermarket solutions defiantly do.

slowd16

Mugen doesnt

Fokker

True. Anything that adds additional metal to the joint is illegal.

Poly and hardened rubber options do not add metal. Most poly options use less metal if anything (outside of Energy Suspension which reuses shells).

I currently have the Prothane kit installed with a few Hardrace pieces. No complaints about it other than the upper arm bushing design; the upper arms are 2 piece (one-piece poly and a steel sleeve) and they deform too much and allow for too much of the grease to escape. I need to quit being lazy and redo the uppers with Powerflex since they use a 3 piece design that is much better. I will be installing grease zerks on the uppers this time around to avoid any more squeaking, though I wouldn't expect it with the better design. I have Hardrace for the compliance bushings and shock bushings due to some tearing I ran into installing the Prothane ones and the Prothane kit not including shock bushings. The differential bushings included in the kit are my favorite part of the kit; they are easy to install and really improve the driving experience.

I would avoid going full Powerflex unless you have money to burn; their prices are astronomical compared to other poly solutions.

warmmilk

powerflex are really a 3rd rate choice, their designs aren't that great

here's an example:

Fokker

Neither SuperPro or Whiteline make anything other than stabilizer bar bushings for S2000s, but feel free to point me towards the part numbers and who sells them if that is in error. Powerflex's design for the upper arms is superior to Prothane's.