77 replies to this topic

[Nev]

Yea, I'm sure it's just time consuming rather than technically difficult, with a quick check of the front and rear toe out/in settings at the end of the job.

 

The key thing is that I want to understand why/what bushes would be best to stick in the car for my type of driving.

Edited by Nev, 05 May 2016 - 07:43 AM.

[slindborg]

I might be mistaken here, it does happen on rare occasions; but...

 

Isnt the purpose of a bush to provide a method of pivoting the wishbone (or anything else that is meant to move).

Therefore, the material used shouldnt impact on "confort" unless it physically stops the wishbone from moving, thus impeding the damper form doing its job.

I get that crapper ones might not permit the movement as required, but they shouldnt make uch of a difference in terms of crashyness etc.

 

Ofcourse, if you put some Robinsons Jam as the bush then it would be a. messy, b.a attract beeeeeees, and more importantly c. be rubbish

[ChrisS1]

Ofcourse, if you put some Robinsons Jam as the bush then it would be a. messy, b.a attract beeeeeees, and more importantly c. be rubbish

 

Surely that depends on the flavour of jam and the temperatures which it is operating within?

[myles]

Seedless?

[fezzasus]

I might be mistaken here, it does happen on rare occasions; but...

 

Isnt the purpose of a bush to provide a method of pivoting the wishbone (or anything else that is meant to move).

Therefore, the material used shouldnt impact on "confort" unless it physically stops the wishbone from moving, thus impeding the damper form doing its job.

I get that crapper ones might not permit the movement as required, but they shouldnt make uch of a difference in terms of crashyness etc.

 

Ofcourse, if you put some Robinsons Jam as the bush then it would be a. messy, b.a attract beeeeeees, and more importantly c. be rubbish

 

I feel it's more complex than that.

 

In theory an ideal suspension setup would be full rose jointed to direct all movement towards the damper and spring assembly. This would maintain ideal suspension geometry relative to allowing rubber bushes to distort with movement.

 

In practice, the damper and spring are really only tuned to one frequency and are pretty useless at ironing out frequencies significantly different to their primary function. By using soft bushes, these bushes remove frequencies significantly different to that of the damper.

[Stevie Dubyah]

Nev - I think this is going to be one of those threads where nobody will give you a recommendation of someone to do the work, or any prices.

 

Watching the various bush recommendations with interest, though.

[NOSBandit]

I think it comes down to personal preference. As I drove less than 100ft on oem bushes, I feel I am not qualified to compare the two.

 

The way it drives now on bearings is livable on the road,  but I'm sure will be brilliant on a track.

[Mani]

I personally think lotus were probably right with there choice of set up or wouldn't they have chosen better bushing, how do you know that the superpro are better or worse? I think we all look at aftermarket or uprated parts as improving our cars and many times we're not

I agree.

yeah that Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk

[gaffer1986]

I personally think lotus were probably right with there choice of set up or wouldn't they have chosen better bushing, how do you know that the superpro are better or worse? I think we all look at aftermarket or uprated parts as improving our cars and many times we're not

I agree.

yeah that Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk

I tend to agree with this, I have no experience of different bushes though so can't comment. But I would say car manufacturers are limited by cost so aftermarket products can be an improvement at times. Fezzasus heater is probably a good example.

[Arno]

Why exactly do people say that polyurethane will grind the inside of the wishbone eyes, where as OEM rubber ones will not? Surely they are almost exactly the same shape, just differing materials. i.e. if the dirt can penetrate poly bushes, why wont it penetrate the OEM ones?

 

 

No.. Very different method of operation.

 

The OEM bushes are 'metalastic' type that do not rotate/pivot as such, but are based on the fact that the rubber will flex/torque as the wishbone moves up and down and provide the actuation.

 

Basically in the OEM bushes the steel inner pivot is bonded to the rubber and stationary and also provide a fore-aft localisation of the wishbone and the central tube 'sticks out' of the bush. There is no contact between the bush and the car apart from the central steel tube.

 

 

Where things get iffy with the polyurethane bushes is that now the inner steel pivot tube is just a slide-fit inside the bush and exactly as long as the bush and the wishbones/bush will rotate around this (stationary) tube. However, to locate the wishbones for-aft in the holes the poly bushes need to also fit tightly between the chassis/mount walls.

 

As you can imagine, this now gives a nice contact-surface where the polyurethane slides/rotates over the walls of the mounts and in the chassis mounts.

 

This is fine as long as the urethane is clean, but once road grime gets into the mix.. You get the idea..

 

Edit: second problem is that the bushes can start to move so stiff inside the chassis mounts that the firction is enough to make the bushings start to slide/move inside the wishbone eyes themselves and no longer pivoting on the central tube. Combined with dirt this rapidlly 'sands down' the insides of the wishbone 'eyes' themselves and tends to give very bad squeeking and heavy/difficult movement in the suspension.

 

You'd really need poly bushes in this case that have recesses and inner tubes with locating surfaces like the ertacetal ones:

 

 

But I haven't seen any poly ones that have this..

 

The rose-joint setups fix this by using the ali center mounts that clamp onto the rose joints in the middle and remain stationary while ony the outside of the wishbone eye moves, but is kept away from the chassis and wishbone mounts so there is no contact between moving parts and the mounts apart than through the bearing.

 

Bye, Arno.

Edited by Arno, 06 May 2016 - 11:34 AM.

[oblomov]

I might be mistaken here, it does happen on rare occasions; but...

 

Isnt the purpose of a bush to provide a method of pivoting the wishbone (or anything else that is meant to move).

Therefore, the material used shouldnt impact on "confort" unless it physically stops the wishbone from moving, thus impeding the damper form doing its job.

I get that crapper ones might not permit the movement as required, but they shouldnt make uch of a difference in terms of crashyness etc.

 

That's what I've been pondering while reading this thread.

 

Also I'm sure Scuffers said that a very high percentage of non OEM aftermarket bushes he'd seen were fitted incorreclty.

 

Edited by oblomov, 06 May 2016 - 07:11 PM.

[hairy]

Nev, I have a bush removal tool if you need to borrow (and I don't mean ladyshave).

[Nev]

Thanks Arno for the good explanation, makes me want to dis-regard the poly bushes now. I guess I will have to chose OEM or rose joints.

 

 

[Nev]

Nev, I have a bush removal tool if you need to borrow (and I don't mean ladyshave).

 

Thanks J, I will likely be taking you up on that

[chris_uk]

Like i said on facebook. Get the oem exige bushes from dave at seriously lotus. I had them put on a 5 years ago and they are still a-ok.

[Nev]

Like i said on facebook. Get the oem exige bushes from dave at seriously lotus. I had them put on a 5 years ago and they are still a-ok.

 

Sorry, didn't see that on Facebook, thanks will take a look.

 

Edit: Do you mean these ones (though they don't mention anything about Exiges): http://www.seriously...shbone-bush-kit

Edited by Nev, 07 May 2016 - 08:35 AM.

[hairy]

 

Like i said on facebook. Get the oem exige bushes from dave at seriously lotus. I had them put on a 5 years ago and they are still a-ok.

 

Sorry, didn't see that on Facebook, thanks will take a look.

 

Edit: Do you mean these ones (though they don't mention anything about Exiges): http://www.seriously...shbone-bush-kit

 

I got those about 4 years ago, they've been fine

[hairy]

On checking, I bought the full refresh kit from them http://www.seriously...ion-refresh-kit