I am starting my install this weekend; The hardrace 26pc bushing set for a 2000 civic SI

I am removing the arms and having the bushings pressed out/in can't beat an hour turn per front/rear and only 65 bux an hour= 130 for both front and rear pressed out/in

I will post up pics of the starting product, install, and finished product/installed.

Also A review will be done and impressions of hardrace vs. 9year old stock stuff that has been beaten pretty bad- to say the least I am excited for a confident ride.

questions/queries I will try to keep up with as best as possible

I got the kit from buyhardrace.com aka dohcgarage on ebay for 200 shipped they are some great guys and easy to deal with.

 

I got the front bushings in and on the car look great and feel solid, pulled everything off last night and took the arms over to a bushing/suspension guy who pressed all the bushings out and the new ones in.

I also replaced my lower and Upper Ball joints, I had read a few different places that it was not possible to replace the uppers and you have to buy the entire arm... This was a myth and was actually really easy, they look great and it is important to remember to line up your notch on the upper A-arm with the Notch on the new Ball joint. (incase someone was wondering how to align the balljoint so the groove is proper).

-VALUABLE NOTE- if you have a morosso Oil pan on your B-series you will need to remove it to take off your driver side lower arm off. I found this out upon the removal process and was not overjoyed.

The drive home showed that the car felt noticeably more precise in its steering and response. I was wondering how much of a difference the hardness would change the general feel of the car. It helped with the weight transfer when entering turns, and the large speed humps you encounter when entering/leaving military installations is a bit quieter. Also I noticed the ride height is slightly higher maybe an 1/8th of an inch.

To make a long story short with just the front of the car finished i am very happy with the product/quality.

Check out pics at my photobucket.

http://s162.photobucket.com/albums/t...ngs%20install/

I will upload a few more pics later

 

Link doesnt work- put the pics on here in IMG format-

 

Did you make sure to tighten the control arm bolts with the suspension at ride height? If you tighten them with the suspension at full droop, the bushings will be preloaded when you put the car on the ground, and eventually will tear.

 

yeah I waited till it was on the ground, the rear LCA bushing was pretty rubbery, my guess it was sagging, also the Uballjoint was pretty wore out

 

Fix the link or post them up here!

We want to see how they came out.

 

http://s162.photobucket.com/albums/t...ngs%20install/

sorry bout the length of time it took to post these up

 

finished the rear suspension this weekend, It was relatively painless, all was done with a harbor freight hand press. the large torque arm type bushing on the rear trailing arm assembly was simple If you press it out from the rear to front it breaks looks with little effort and the overall assembly is strong enough to handle the reverse pressure, but when pressing it back in, the alignment is critical. I found that if you align the dots in the rubber on the bushing with the blue manufacturer dot and also draw the plane outwards similar to the torque arm within the bushing it is easy to eye it and press it back in from the front side. Don't forget when using the hand press grease is essential to getting a good smooth start and not having any kind of overheating/binding during pressing in the bushings.

overall on the rear I only had one seized bolt, luckily within the bushing and not in the threads, and whoever did the passenger rear camber arm had spun both bolts in the nut plate on the car- thus I enjoyed retapping the threads. Anti-seize is the friend that people really need to make- yeah its gross and you look like the tinman, but your life is a whole lot better when/if ever you take **** apart again.

First impressions are "SOLID", the car feels great now, almost all slop has been eliminated. I put as much of a load as I could on the suspension before tightening the bushing contact bolts, but I am still going to take it to and alignment rack, loosen it all up and really shake the car out to help settle the bolts/bushings so there is no binding. I have just noticed a few settling pops in the front where the car was too low for me to get to the LC front bolts and the rear bolts, this will be solved on tuesday.

An alignment will definitely be needed after this though, although the car drives straight I can physically see how the camber is slightly up all the way around: this may also settle some after I finish the loosening/settling of the suspension mounting points.

any questions hit me up: I know it is a daunting task to mess with bushings/presses, but if you have confidence and use the proper techniques it is a cinch it took me about 7/8 hours for the front and rear but totally worth it.

also pictures are up on photobucket from previous post

 

dead on, that is how the manual tells you how to do it.
i swear if you never-seize every nut and bolt you remove on your car it makes life so much nicer! especially when doing suspension work

 

Impact also makes life easier I've never had a seized bolt ever on my suspension.

 

You are clearly a lucky person, I used an impact and have used impacts most any time I have done suspesion work, but it seems to never fail when I get to something after someone else their bad habits are my biggest frustrations

 

Sorry to interrupt a bit, but could you further explain this a lil bit? I'm a bit of a newb and didn't quit understand that. Thanks, just trying to learn from others.

 

when you torque down a arm, shock, anything that has to do with bushings and the car is on a lift there is no weight on suspension like the car is when it is on the ground- thus you will have a slow popping process of your suspension settling out unless something finally just rips loose. You have to take the car, put it on an alignment rack or oil pull on lift and loosen all the bushing mount points that could possibly be binding (nearly every suspension point to include sway bars) then shake/settle the suspesion on the car (it sounds scary like the car will fall to the ground, but it won't the bolts must be removed for something to go bad; tension is on the bolts still that is why the shaking/settling needs to occur.) Once you feel that the car has sufficiently settled torque the bushing mounting points/swaybar enlinks back down and voila you have a similar to stock settled car without the awful popping that people sometimes experience when doing bushing/armed/suspension work

 

What is the quality of ride, I mean the comfort.
Does the car became more stiffer-harder with hardrace bushings than oem bushings?

 

I did not notice any difference in ride quality with worn OEM vs. new HardRace rubber bushings. I've had the full set installed for about a year now.

 

where do you get your magic wrenches/sockets from? the kind that don't just shear the head off the bolt right?

 

eh? I've never seen a normal-sized 1/2" impact wrench shear a bolt head off. I use my impact on all suspension bolts for this reason. High, sustained torque loading (like with a huge breaker bar) is what shears heads off. Repeated short bursts of high torque (impact) does not.

 

You mean the HardRace bushings in your experience are nót 'harder'/stiffer than OE ones?

 

I'm sure they're harder than OEM (the RTA bushings in particular have MUCH more rubber in them than OEM), but from what I can tell they did not make a difference in ride quality. I'm on OEM GS-R front springs and OEM ITR rear springs, so that stiffer rear spring makes the ride quality a little more harsh than all stock suspension. Because of that, any harshness added from the hard rubber bushings is imperceptible, by me anyway.

 

I see - didn't think of that one.

Being harder they should keep the suspension geometry (alignment) better in check, did you notice any of this?

 

Nice pics and write up
I had my hardrace bushings installed on my ek hatch using
Ctr / SI front lower control arms and what a diffrence it made.
Im also using the buddy club p1 ball joints, racing spec dampers and i cant
Be more happier with the suspension set up

 

I've never had trouble removing any suspension bolts.

 

Lol Werd. Seized bolts flat out suck. It's Alot quicker to just torch the sucker then get it off.

 

I'll let you know in the fall after I rotate my new tires for the first time.

 

I meant whilest driving