revolt_allmotor

I bought this bushing set for my street/track car, a 94 DX hatch with an LSVTEC motor. My current suspension setup consists of Omnipower coilovers omnipower camber kit front and rear, and front and rear strut tower bars. Working on getting some sway bars.

I bought the package deal from Orijin Motorsports web site (http://www.orijinmotorsports.com/) which includes the front LCA spherical bearing conversion as well as the front UCA bushings in a hard polymer. Orijin's customer service was excellent, and I received my package in about three days, which is amazing considering they are in Canada and I am in California. I am guessing they must have shipped it out as soon as they received my order. They also sent me an email confirmation of my order almost immediately after I made it, and followed quickly with a tracking number for my package.

Installing the bushings wasn't difficult - I just followed the typical procedure to remove the front upper and lower control arms (supporting the spindle with a strap, since it has nothing to hold it up once you remove all the control arms). Then I delivered the pair of front lower LCAs plus the pivots for the front UCAs to a local automotive machine shop, along with the orijin kit. They charged me $40 to press out the old bushings and press in the Orijin bushings. As they always say, installation is the reverse of removal.

The only thing that surprised me about this kit was that it didn't come with a replacement for the rearmost bushing of the front LCA (the one circled in red on the pic below). It only replaced the bushing which is labeled as #7 in the below pic. I replaced the rearmost bushing with an Energy Suspension polyurethane set I had laying around. I don't know how much difference that rearmost bushing made, but I felt better replacing it while I had everything off.


Since I installed Omnipower front and rear camber kits at the same time as I put these bushings on, I took the car to get aligned the next morning. Driving the car after the alignment, I was very happy with the performance improvement from the bushings. The front end felt much more "solid" and planted, especially under hard braking. Cornering feedback is also much improved. Since I don't have a rear sway bar the car is prone to understeer, and with the new bushings installed I could feel the front tires as they broke and regained traction.

Launching the car at the drag strip, the wheel hop I had previously experienced is eliminated entirely. This is on street tires, I haven't run on slicks with these bushings. As far as the launch, I felt like the car hooked up cleaner, as it made the transition from spinning to gripping more smoothly.

I've had the bushings on the car for about two months now, and I haven't experienced any squeaks or other unusual noises. The spherical bearing is protected from contamination by a polymer piece on each side, and the instructions tell you to pack the space with grease. I did, and like I said, it's as quiet as stock.

Overall I was happy with my purchase, especially with Orijin's excellent customer service

ErMaK

Sounds like a great supplier to me.

94eg!

iTrader: (2)

Finally, somebody produced bearings that are closed off from the elements. Could you scan & post the installation instructions please?

I'm not sure why they left out the larger LCA bushing, but I know that bushing controls the toe of your front wheels based on load, so mabey it's designed to defflect in ways that promote handeling. Just from thinking about it, I can tell it will alow an increase in caster upon mashing the throttle(provided your UCA's stay put), causing the vehicle to stay moving in a straight line. It will also cause a slight increase in toe out (whatever the purpose for this is I don't know).

revolt_allmotor

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 94eg! &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Finally, somebody produced bearings that are closed off from the elements. Could you scan & post the installation instructions please?</TD></TR></TABLE>

Yeah I will try to find them, it's been a couple months since I installed the bushings I'm not sure where I put them.

BTW I drive this car on the street approximately 500 miles/week in case anyone was wondering.

94eg!

iTrader: (2)

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 909edge &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
BTW I drive this car on the street approximately 500 miles/week in case anyone was wondering.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Yikes!
What a test mule.

fastwanabe

did it improve your 60' times @ all? for what those bushings provide I'd rather use a set of traction bars.


Modified by fastwanabe at 2:14 AM 12/15/2004

revolt_allmotor

The 60' times are hard to compare because I was on different tires before installing these bushings. Subjectively, though, I have launched the car with the same tires with and without the bushings, and with the bushings it felt noticeably better.

Traction bars are a great mod for a drag car - to me, I wouldn't see them as that great of an idea for a car like mine that sees hundreds of miles of street duty every week. The bushings were not a drag-specific modification - they improved handling, steering feel, and stability under braking as well as helping with the launch.

That said, if I run the car on slicks and have any wheel hop problems, I will be buying a traction bar setup.

JinMTVT

909edge: nice review of our product!!

the product wasn't designed with drag racing in mind at all, but if it helps it out well, can't really complain about that can't we ???

I always try to do my best for customer service, and i think that this is 50% of product ( service it is ) .

Then, we didn't do any Radius Rod bushing for 2 reasons :

- the cost of the bushing VS performance wouldn't be acceptable for my standards
- there is just no point in doing so for racing, a poly insert is more than enough,
but i'd recommend to leave this one stock, as it is already stiff enough!

Our bushings have 2 goals :

- eliminate the unwanted bushing deflection resulting in camber loss
( you have to set more static negative up to 0.6degree to compensate for this bushing loss )
- give back the control and feeling to the driver ( and for that it succeeds good! )

I've been running on our protytypes for 2 years + now on my personal teg,
and never had a squeak or any problem even with winter time up here!


all in all, i am very very happy that you are enjoying our product!
keep it fast!