Does anyone have any experience with Energy Suspension rear control arm bushings to advise on the ride quality compared to oem (or equivalent)? I appreciate they will naturally stiffen things up a fair bit after old worn bushings, but the CZP website displays a bold warning that these ES bushes (only on the rear control arms, they're fine everywhere else) make the ride 'harsh' and to go for nismo or oem to maintain any sort of ride quality.

 

Any advice welcomed, cheerZ :)

My whole back end is done with es bushes and my ride isn't harsh at all. I suppose it depends also on your wheels and suspension but mine rides fine. Feels a lot nicer to drive though. Only thing I can say is that road noise may be a factor but to what degree I'm not sure as I removed all sound deadening at the same time!

from personal experience on my 200sx fitting polly bushes to the rear wrecked the ride comfort. The bushes were tight to fit and caused the rear travel to be very tight through its arc of movement. it made the back end very bouncy, this was also fitted with coilovers but it was the bushes that caused it.

 

those were not es bushes and the 200 is a lot lighter on the back.

 

for my rebuild i am using new arms with spherical joints but i have kept the original (new) bushes in the alloy upright. if you look at the movement the rear arms go through you will see that you need some sort of complience on the outer bushes, somthing that i personally dont think is suited to a poly bush and will cause stresses in ways that were not originally designed for.

 

personally i would stick to replacement oem, if you are doing the front tension rod bushes be very careful as the single piece ones will destroy things

I have energy suspension bushes but not put them in yet, but compared to any other bushes I've fitted,

Powerflex or super pro, they are a lot more rigid. But I bought them with the intention of a firm ride.

Thanks for the advice guys, some food for thought there. Dougal200 do you have any experience with super poly pro bushes? They stipulate in the sales spiel that they don't have the associated harshness caused by other tyres of poly bushes. They are quite expensive so I don't want to waste money on them for a load of sales lies lol!

from personal experience on my 200sx fitting polly bushes to the rear wrecked the ride comfort. The bushes were tight to fit and caused the rear travel to be very tight through its arc of movement. it made the back end very bouncy, this was also fitted with coilovers but it was the bushes that caused it.

 

those were not es bushes and the 200 is a lot lighter on the back.

 

for my rebuild i am using new arms with spherical joints but i have kept the original (new) bushes in the alloy upright. if you look at the movement the rear arms go through you will see that you need some sort of complience on the outer bushes, somthing that i personally dont think is suited to a poly bush and will cause stresses in ways that were not originally designed for.

 

personally i would stick to replacement oem, if you are doing the front tension rod bushes be very careful as the single piece ones will destroy things

 

These old girls: http://bit.ly/17qCnRh

Edited September 3, 201312 yr by Joely P

A quote from super poly pro website FAQ regarding harshness,

 

"Due to the unique properties of the raw material and the design techniques used to manufacture SuperPro Polyurethane bushes they will not cause any extra noise, vibration or harshness (NVH) over the standard rubber bushes. This makes them suitable for road cars and race cars a like."

Ive got power flex ones. With solid sub bushes it was fine from what I remember lol.

Fitted the bushes and the ride has gone harsher and road noise is up abit.

 

But it's far from uncomfortable. It's been 2 years since I drove with OEM thought and I've got use to the quality of the bm lol