New nylon/stainless bushing offering
 

Seems someone is sorta maybe ripping off SadFab;

Seems like a good option. Its been really hard getting stuff from sadfab.

Yeah, I mean I guess there are really only so many ways a bushing can be designed. My post was really a little more tongue in cheek than it reads.

probably due partly, to offering help in the way of drawings. Another miata parts shop informed me, more or less, that they are going to have MY coil bracket, my design made in China. Pulled the drawing straight from the Sadfab site. but dont worry, they arent going to pass the savings on to you. im sure.

Thats exactly what came to mind when I saw them, all of those free technical drawings on their site.

What starts with great intentions, can be quickly toppled by the less ethical..

Sorry it sounds like I have bad feelings but yeah, the lack of customer service and The lack of having what you make in stock puts a damper on things.

Iv sent in a request, waited a while, got nothing back, sent a pm, got a response back 2 days later said maybe I’ll make them this weekend, said great no particular rush and well, thats 5 months ago.

Think I should ask again?

absolutly not. Ended up making it myself.

You're sounding like a real prick. It's not like you paid money for parts you didn't receive.


this thread is retarded and should be deleted for the shit talk direction it has taken towards people who positively participate in this forum.

Can't speak for others, but I am very happy with my dealings with Sean & Co.

Thrust washers are an interesting difference.

I measured the stiction of my superpro bushes when I was removing them to regrease and add grease nipples and I found the stiction from the thrust loading to be more significant than the stiction from resistance to rotation of the sleeve inside the bush.

Note that this was with just the OEM bolt torque, it would be worse with the higher torques that are needed on the front lower. Also, the Superpros have a reduced thrust contact in some areas to reduce this stiction, so I would guess stiction from axial loading would be even more significant with the energy suspension bushes.

Seems to be one big difference between these and the SadFab bushings, which is critical to how the miata suspension works, which is addressed in the SadFab kit but not these. I am very happy w/ the SadFab bushings I have (LCAs plus spherical sleeves for rear uprights). Yes, you have to wait and get in the queue, but suspension upgrades aren't something most people do in the spur of the moment, so having to wait a little bit to get them really shouldn't be an issue.

I'm curious how you measured the components independently, since this is more or less the exact opposite of the anecdotal observations of nearly everyone else who's looked at friction on the sleeve vs. the thrust face.

Either way, this kit is more in line with a Delrin setup. Delrin bushings already have the Delrin acting as a very low-friction thrust bearing where applicable.

Eh, only so many ways to make a bushing. I've released a lot of these design with the idea that if you have the ability to make them yourself, then you probably have the ability to measure a control arm bore, etc. My data just saves you from having to pull a car apart or buy spare arms to measure and do the R&D. If they used my data to make their kit, shame on them(Not implying they did this at all), but they would have made the kit anyway, because they have the means and skill.


Lets not forgot delrin bushings were being made by others, before sadfab was a thing.

Yup. Having said the above, cheap 3d printer kits and job shops have kind of ruined my utopia. Because of this I have pulled down a few of my designs and will never release another. Bushing dimensions remain, but things that are easy to farm out or 3d print are no longer being shared.

I totally dropped the ball on you Tarek, and I apologize. You have an email.

He has every right. He is one of the few people I can count on 2 fingers that I have totally spaced out.

On your 2nd point: I used to be very good at setting accurate ETAs and sticking to them, but I am so overwhelmed now, I am having a very difficult time even forecasting out my backorders, let alone following up on them, for certain products (bushing kits especially).



This kit competes with delrin kits, and to compare them to poly isn't fair. With delrin, the flange is the thrust face and functionally is no different than countersinking it with a stepped washer like A1 has done. The washer is nice, but I see it as an unnecessary expense. There's really no way to incorporate a thrust element with the poly kits with the spacial constraints we have to work with, unfortunately.

First I've hard of this, and probably due to the crush sleeve being shorter than the bushing assembly, if I had to guess and based off what I've heard from other customers who have owned superpro bushes. This would also explain why you think what you've written below is accurate.

That's not how this works. If the bushing is made correctly, bolt torque has absolutely 0 to do with thrust loading on the bushing face as the steel sleeve is supposed to take the "crush" force from the suspension hardware, not the bushing itself. Hence the term "crush sleeve". If you get increased binding with increased bolt torque, then the steel sleeve is too short for the bushing assy.

Perhaps the superpro bushes are oversized relative to the crush tube, but this is what I found.

I measured the stiction with 2 measurements.

• The first was measuring the torque (with a torque wrench) that it would take to spin the crush tube in the bush. (I used a bolt and nut torqued up, so if I turned the head of the bolt, the crush tube would rotate).
• I measured the thrust stiction by setting the wishbone level, torquing one bolt, eg front lower front, while loosening front lower rear, and measuring the force required to break the stiction by lifting at the hole which the ball joint attaches and compared with the bolt loosened. With a basic force distance calculation, I converted this into a torque.

The main objective was to make sure I'd sufficiently greased everything and to have some known OK stiction measurements that I could compare to later if I didn't want to take the wishbones off the car.

One other point to add, my car, being in the UK, is likely a lot rustier than the ones people have on here. After taking these measurements, I cleaned up the thrust faces on the subframe and painted them to reduce stiction.

Good points, but I would have thought it's a trade off between stiction and compliance, ie if the crush sleeve is a little shorter than the bush, there will be a compressive preload on the bush which while creating stiction, would also reduce compliance around load reversal.

It may be minor, but my thought was the extra crush of the crush tube and extra distortion of the subframe ears with a higher torque, would lead to more compression of the bush, ie more preload (and so stiction), though likely minor, I only meant to point out how it acted directionally.

Anyway, no denying a Sadfab sleeve'd kit with Energy Suspension bushings would be better than a set of Superpros, I was just pointing out that I'd found thrust stiction to be significant on the superpros and that if the sleeve'd Energy Suspension bushings had super low crush tube to bush stiction, then the thrust stiction may play a bigger percentage role.

Tran, in my measurements I found the same relationship between bolt torque and stiction. This was on a car in similar rust conditions to yours (also in Europe, but across the pond) and with a brand new set of Energy suspension bushes . The ES bushes are worse in this regard compared to SuperPros that have some superior design features. I think for any solution to work in our cars you will need to provide a new and smooth bearing surface to the bushing through either a subframe refurb or some kind of thrust bearing solution.

Considering the smaller but significant amount of surface area making contact at the subframe ears I'm surprised no one has made similar observations in this thread yet.

Until the car see major braking and acceleration forces, the thrust issue is insignificant. Again, if the bushing is made and installed properly, there shouldn't even be contact, and it definitely shouldn't change with bolt torque. I design my bushing so that the sleeve is 0.010" longer than the bushing stack up when everything is installed. Bushing flanges should never be preloaded. No one else has made similar observations because they have good, properly installed bushings, and this doesn't occur. Also, testing it while the car is on jack stands the way you guys are doing in no way represents the real world for the specific data you are taking from this. You are loading the thrust faces like they should never be loaded, while not loading the arm laterally at all. While in use, in a 1G turn, the bushings will see over 1000lbs radially. There is no doubt the radial friction is far greater than any axial thrust loads while in use.

This is definitely an issue with poly bushings on the LCA rear facing bushing halves while under hard braking, as evidenced by the thrust face tearing I have documented in the mega thread. Short of custom machining the bushings, there is no way to fit a thrust element in there, as I have mentioned.

The sales pitch on the Nylatron bushings sounds good, but the primary benefit of moly impregnated Nylatron GSM over standard Delrin seems to be that it has less friction and more wear resistance (and therefore implied that it should not require any lubrication maintenance). From some layman's googling, it looks like standard Delrin actually has superior properties over standard Nylatron in most of the ways that concern us for this application (compression/rebound, friction/wear, and possibly water absorption/expansion?). The moly impregnated version of Nylatron used in these bushings should have slightly less friction/wear and be lighter (although I can't imagine the weight difference being substantial enough to affect 99% of builds) than standard Delrin, but is it substantially better than a properly greased/lubed Delrin bushing? I assume it would still be as susceptible dust and moisture intrusion as Delrin is, which is most of the reason for adding the grease fittings to Delrin bushings anyway, right? The idea of a set-it-and-forget-it "nearly perfect" bushing appeals to me, but can the Nylatron really deliver any better than Delrin--and without adding grease fittings?

Sean this might be a dumbass question but at what point is a bushing set worthwhile for a car that has had very little attention to it's suspension over the years. My 99 Miata has near new BC BR coilovers but everything else is worn out, stock standard stuff. I want to get the lot up to par but don't know if this kit is overkill or not for a hillclimb/autocross car...

There are a lot of variables, what are you doing with the car, preferences, current condition, etc. And you're asking me about a competitors kit....

Good point.

Here's the situation: Standard car, suspension has been serviced but never overhauled since factory. Kid chucks brand new BC BRs on it, then sells to me 1000km after losing interest.

My plan is for the car to be a weekend hills car, that can drive to the track, put in a half day worth of laps then drive home. I can handle a hard car to drive on the street but don't see the point in a ridiculously stiff setup as it doesn't make me any faster on the track (the opposite actually).

Assuming all of this, would one of your bushing kits be worthwhile?

The Sadfab kit is a substantial improvement over stock blown out bushings in any environment and makes a huge difference on track in my opinion even when compared to poly.

You can see my review here:
https://www.miataturbo.net/suspensio...ing-kit-88399/

Awesome, thanks mate. This is exactly what I was looking for. I don't want to just replace stock for stock then find out I want to upgrade later anyway.

FWIW the bushing material doesn't add to the stiffness of the car, springs do. Bushing will increase NVH, but not as bad as most think. Going from stock to say 500/300 springs will increase the stiffness and NVH of the car wayyyy more than going to solid type bushings.

If I had to make up some bullshit to put into perspective, Id say going from rubber to delrin/nylon is like adding 100lbs of spring. A dual purpose car usually gets 2-300lbs of spring rate added, real race cars can be almost 1000lbs.

I run delrin on the street with no issues.

For what it sounds like you do, probably not worth it.

Ehhh, debatable. To be fair I didn't see that "weekend hills car" translated to "hillclimb" car. I read "weekend hills" to be the ubiquitous "canyons, bro".

He stated canyons and track use, and also doesn't mind a small increase in NVH. So yes it's a worthwhile modification. End of debate.

Replacing 25 year old dried-out bushings is worth doing for any car that isn't just a plain beater, IMHO. The SadFab kit is the least expensive way of doing that that doesn't have all kinds of nasty drawbacks (like the need to constantly relube polys, or delrin binding in the alignment slots).

--Ian

I don't think there's ANY nvh increase from this. It just makes everything work better.

I have a kit for my dedicated street-only car.

See this is why I'm on this forum and not those other hairdresser forums.

When I say streetable car, I've done the whole AE71 Toyota with chopped Falcon springs for a laugh, or a 5 puck clutch in my Evo 5, all 100% fine for the street. I'm happy with trade offs, I just don't want a spastically jarring ride for no reason. Delrin sounds fine for what I'll do in this car.

damn i clicked into the thread hoping to find good info on the A1 ground control bushing option haha.

anyway, has anyone here used this set? curious how it can use all nylatron bushings rather than the usual poly in the "misaligned" areas. is nylatron a little more pliable than delrin?