So you're saying I should get off my *** and finish up my indestructible arms that use standard miata sized bushings and have an option for sphericals? I'm really just a couple finishing touches on the jigs and double checking that the roll center doesnt get fucked up with the chevy lbj away from starting to make things.

 

Gun drilling the camber bolts won’t work on a Miata to get grease to the bushing if that is what you are showing. Plus I already torque those things well beyond spec to the point of yield in an attempt to get them to slip on a car that has huge amounts of grip running 275 A6 tires. Don't want to compromise strength of them.

I may take you up on the bushings. I will measure tonight.

 

that was kind of my thoughts too on the strength. on an s10, its not a big deal as they are quite over sized to begin with, and when would an s10 ever see the same kind of loads on track; when does an s10 ever even go to the track lol. the UCA bolt wouldnt be very doable just because it so long anyway.

ignoring the issue of strength, why wouldn't gun drilling get grease to the bushing? did you see how i did the sleeves to facilitate the gun drilling?

just let me know on the bushings, im sure we can work something out.

 

I'm curious about the significance of the binding in the lower control arms using delrin. Is it enough that I should run delrin everywhere but the LCA's? Maybe poly instead

What problems will I run into using all Delrin? No control over caster/toe?

 

just caster on the front. toe in the rear

the issue is that the front and rear bushing in the lower arm are in line with each other. if the adjusters are indexed the same there is no issue (camber), but as soon as they are indexed differently from one another(caster, rear toe), you are trying to make the pivot run through the bushing at an angle. with rubber, it just deflects. no such luck with something as hard as delrin. so you get both binding and much more difficult (if not impossible at a certain point) catser adjustment.

my game plan was delrin uppers and outer rear lowers and upper knuckle, and poly everything else

 

Miata Suspension

 

Why have noone made bronze sleeve bushings between the clamped sleeve and the plastic?

Needle bearings inside sphericals would be stiffer and more maintenance, but I assume there are low friction bronze that would go longer between lubes than the plastic.

 

Why have noone made bronze sleeve bushings between the clamped sleeve and the plastic?

Needle bearings inside sphericals would be stiffer and more maintenance, but I assume there are low friction bronze that would go longer between lubes than the plastic.

 

Huh?

1. thats too complex and doenst do anything

2. theres no needle bearings in sphericals.

 

the plastic(delrin) is the bearing, no need for bronze.

and what about needle bearings.....?

 

The grease would end up between the bolt and the inner sleeve not in the bushing and the holes on the chassis side are slotted for adjustability so the inner sleeve is not sealed on the ends when installed. Path of least resistance grease would just come out the ID of the sleeve between the bolt and the sleeve.

 

sounds kind of British. I use to have a 68 Jag XKE it had needle bearing pivots on all the A-arm bushings.

when one part would do why not use 50?

 

yup, forgot about the slots


by dirtbikes have needle bearings in every pivot. most wear out annually, some last a few years at best.

my wifes 95 kawasaki has 1 rubber bushing- the top shock mount... its original

 

1. Introduce a proper bearing surface instead of plastic scrapers continuously transporting grease elsewhere.
The complexity of a 1mm layer in-between is not huge, if you do delrins yourself it's just different diameters to make the gap (larger demands on surface finish of the inner sleeve though)

2. adding needles inside the sphericals to reduce the friction was common in ancient F1, similar thinking as in 1, separate rotation from deflection.
But needles are not perfect for small angles.

15 year old OEM rubber is not that bad, no greasing needed and stable enough to keep alignment (which is not always true for generic poly). But the torsion spring function are often confused with friction...

 

I think the torsion spring effect is a much less problamatic problem than the friction level of Poly in terms of suspension performance. I think just straight mazdaspeed rubber bushings are probably better than poly for performance. fancy $4,700 set of shocks are kind of usless if it takes 40-90 lbs of bump force before thay start to move and do their magic.

 

Oh jesus bob, I'm rolling over here. Thank you for that

 

I will say the only lube I have ever gotten to partially work ok for longer than a short drive around the block with poly bushings is Permatex Copper anti seize. Poly seems to repel any and all forms of grease and any movement or force squishes it away from where it needs to be. If you re-lube enough times with Copper anti seize the copper particles eventually begins to impregnate into the surface of the Poly and the friction level goes down a bit even with the absence of any grease.

 

I have poly on the lower arms of my Subaru. Whitelines I believe. 45k with no issues, greased once when installed. They came with a black graphite(iirc, it's in their sales literature) impregnated grease and they had relatively larger retention pockets cast into them. The rear isn't comparable to anything on a miata but the front is of the same design. Maybe it's the graphite? Maybe we should all start mixing tubes of graphite with our pivot grease lol.

Edit- I assume no issues as they havn't made a squeak. I havn't actually taken a strut off and checked for binding. Maybe I should.

 

<<<@!1!@>>>

I was actually thinking the same thing. But why mix when you can buy? Any lithium based grease with graphite added should work, like this

* for some reason it put that **** at the top of my post rather than quoting your post, no idea why.

 

Sarcasm.

That's the exact stuff I'm going to buy to lube my s10.