Update 1/29/24

Installed Megan front and rear lower control arm spherical bushings and ebay sourced adjustable sway bar end links front and rear.
The bushings work fantastic and on the HPDE track days I can definitely feel a better steering response and the car feels much more planted.

The sway bar end links are a plus and minus. They definitely were not "needed" as I'm at stock height, but my stock setup was cracking so I figured I might as well.
The plus is that they're adjustable, booted, and well made. The minus is that the rears caused noticeable noise and clunking at normal road speeds up to 45 MPH anytime the rear end experiences lateral shifting (thing speed bumps, uneven road surface, etc). The fronts added a marginal amount of noise, but really only when going over speed bumps and you have to really try to listen for it. I'm assuming because the rear of the car tends to experience more lateral flex than the front, but totally guessing...At highway speeds I can't hear anything regardless of road conditions because the soft top is so loud lol. I did remove and reinstall the rear end links ensuring they were torqued down well and had no change in noise. It's just the nature of the beast I think.

End edit.

Hey all,

I’m going to be replacing my sway bar end links (2007 with 185k on all original rubber aside from new motor mounts) ahead of an upcoming HPDE in 2 weeks and figured I’d replace other bushings as well.

I’m a bit floored by how expensive all the aftermarket bushings are, and I’m not really sure that mine are in bad shape (attached a couple pics)? I’m wondering which bushings are the most critical to replace in terms of handling, in case I go a bit more piecemeal in replacing them? I would plan on doing hardened rubber for most bushings aside from perhaps the compliance bushings which I have read are better suited using booted pillowball bushings.

I was thinking that replacing the front lower control arm compliance bushings with a hard race pillow bushing would be a good place to start? If there are other bushings that would be more impactful or equally impactful I would certainly consider doing multiple bushings at once. And if the “right” answer is to do them all, so be it Although I have heard that the rear lower front bushing is often nearly impossible to get out?

I don’t have a press, so I’ll have to borrow something from autozone to press the bushings in and out.

Definitely appreciate the wisdom of the folks here on the best way to tackle this!


Front lower compliance bushing

Zoom in to see cracking?

Sway bar end links

 

At 185K, your stock bushings are probably hardened up, but settled into place and they won't quite "spring back" after loading them up.

I would push you to do booted sphericals for the whole car. Megan is the brand I went with. Excellent quality and the whole set can be had on eBay for like $1K. Easy decision.

If you really wanna stay with rubber...then go with Spoon/Mugen since they're semi-readily available and next-to-OEM quality. Hardrace is difficult to come by nowadays. !!!Clock them!!!! if you go this route, though. Or you'll have a bunch of torn bushings in a short term.

Also, welcome to the worst thing you've ever had to do on a car. Good luck. Set aside a long...long amount of working time. I wouldn't start this project on Friday, expecting the car to drive to work on Monday.

 

The hard race set is close to $800 for hardened rubber, so stretching to $1k isn’t impossible. But I’ve read that spherical booted can add a lot of NVH of you go all the way with them?

I made that mistake with poly bushings and spherical rod ends in my TransAm and don’t want to have a clanking rattling ride in the S2k.

For me, the stock ride is already at the edge of comfort for a routine driver car that gets on the track 4x per year , so I was hoping to do something close to stock without having to buy 4 new control arms from Honda

Having said all of that…if the Megan booted spherical bearings don’t have the NVH and harshness, I’m definitely up for the change!

Yeah I had to press out all the bushings in my TA a couple years ago and it took the better part of a weekend including welding up custom brackets to press things in and out. I had to call in the pros for two of them because I don’t have a hydraulic press…hoping I can avoid that this time lol

 

Polyurethane bushings are not for human use. My car had a full poly kit (previous owner) prior to sphericals. The poly made the car a total rattle trap.

My sphericals did not add any NVH. The car drives like a mf'ing lazer beam. Bumps are very precise and movement is extra smooth.

I'm using a semi-digressive shock (like your Ohlins), with 14K/12K springs.

The only time its "harsh" in any way is over very pronounced rumble strips.

Remember, this car is already loaded with sphericals from the factory. The arms all have ball jointed ends, right?

There are also quite a few manufacturers that use sphericals on control arms on stock cars. As long as you're using a precision bearing, it will last and operate smoothly and quietly.

I have a 2nd S2000, with all factory rubber and Ohlins. So I do have a good gauge of rubber vs spherical, literally back to back. 100%. Go with the sphericals.

Rubber bushings have to twist...so they add spring rate. Sphericals do not.

You also get more suspension droop, as a bonus, since the bushings are not restricting movement. And the added grip from not deflecting under load. Probs my favorite mod to the car.

 

You’ve got me convinced lol. It doesn’t take much to make me spend money on this car hahahah!!!!

In terms of improving handling, would the front and rear compliance bushings be the first place to start?

I see the Megan kit on eBay for front and rear lower arms, and thought maybe I’d start there? And with spherical there’s no need to clock them right, since they’re free rotating?

The upper arm bushings are just rotational so I can’t imagine there’s a whole lot to be gained by swapping them out unless they were just completely destroyed, which they don’t appear to be.

I am wondering if I need to get new boots and circlips for the ball joints…is there any way to tell of the ball joints are bad?

 

If the ball joints clunk or make noise, they're bad.

A new set of ball joints is obviously gonna make the car feel fresh compared with 180K mile ones (even if they're still good).

I would recommend doing all the sphericals you can.

I did the front upper and lower (think of the wheel laterally loading the bushings under cornering load, and its easy to see the benefit of uppers).

rear lower

rear toe arms with bump steer correction.

Unfortunately, megan doesn't make AP2 rear uppers. So I just stuck a set of low mile OEM arms in. But their rear upper UCA's are on my list.

no need to clock sphericals. makes suspension work easier.

One note..
the shock to LCA bearings aren't booted...not sure why. So...don't plan on driving thru the snow and salt. Rain shouldn't be an issue.

Lmk how it works out for you

 

That does make sense about the uppers benefitting during hard cornering vs rubber. I imagine it’s probably a minor impact though, given the minimal compression of the rubber in that joint.

No noise or clunking from any of the ball joints. The only thing I see is cracking of some of the boots.

I’ll have to read up on the bump steer correction…

Yeah I noticed that the shock bushings aren’t booted which is unfortunate. I don’t have to deal with salt and snow here in Houston so it shouldn’t be a problem, but it’s just a bummer. The hard race are the same way. For some reason those bushings aren’t booted…

Thanks for confirmation on not having to clock them, I thought that was the case!

I think I’ll order the front and rear lowers kit and start there. Hopefully I’ll be able to get the rear lower arms out lol.

 

I did the full Hardrace kit on my EM1 civic many, many years ago. They were excellent.

For the S, I have yet to put in the upper A arm, front shock lower, front compliance from Hardrace that are sitting in boxes.

But given that my car is primarily autocross and dragon so really, I'd go full spherical.

darcy

 

Then how come Honda didn't install sphericals from the factory? NVH, longevity, cost, something else?

I'm not being argumentative, just trying to figure out the best option for replacing my bushings this summer (due to age and incompetent moron mechanics not clocking them when installing shocks.) 100% street car, looking for the best ride quality on dumpy Wisconsin roads.

 

Likely cost and maybe longevity.
Rubber is cheap and indestructible.

NVH is arguable. Maybe there's "too much" NVH under certain conditions with the way-agressively overdamped stock shocks?

Honda designed the suspension for passive steering...which relies on bushing bind to some extent.

Maybe some other more obscure issues too. The subframes have a ton of slop in the mounting locations to allow for manufacturability. A spherical won't absorb shock if you hit something sideways. It may be more likely to shift the subframes. A hand-in-hand mod might be subframe collars (which I also love).

As always...no mod comes without compromise. This is no exception. I haven't seen a big enough downside to stay away from sphericals. Most people who have gone that route also say they haven't seen any tangible issues.

I would stick with the leading cause of Honda using rubber to be cost. longevity as a secondary. and all the other stuff as tertiary concerns.

Also...the car does have a large amount of sphericals. Ball joints are sphericals and every control arm has one instead of a rubber bushing.