Hey guy first of all I wanted to say I'm not completely clueless about suspension set-ups, but I do have a specific question about rear trailing arm bushings - I'll call them "RTA" bushings from here in this topic.

The car:

1990 Civic Wagon 2WD
Eibach Pro Street Coil-overs
One finger gap between fender wells and 195/50/15 tires (not "slammed, but not stock at all)

Long story short:

I work at a Honda/Acura repair shop and I've replaced tons of suspension set-ups, alignled lowered vehicles, etc. etc. but my own car needs RTA bushings and I'm just not sure if I want to go with the OEM bonded/fixed shaft type RTA bushing, or the aftermarket poly ones where the bushing is actually separate from the shaft/mounting ears and can slide.

First of all I do know all about the age old debate about poly vs. rubber RTA bushings. If this were my 1992 Civic that is more likely to see hard driving and even auto-X stuff I'd not even consider the poly ones due to bump steer.

This is a true DD with not too much hard cornering done.

So here are pics for reference:

Aftermarket type bushing in question:



OEM style bonded bushing fixed to shaft/mounting ears:



My thoughts are that the bonded OEM style should offer more stability. I'm wondering if the trailing arms would move too much with the two piece style, and cause faster/uneven tire wear.

I've got a set of the two piece style on the way to my shop today, and a set of OEM type ones are due in Tuesday. The price is the same, so it literally comes down to if the OEM style ones are that much better I'll just wait it out until Tuesday, but if the aftermarket ones are fine I can finish the car today.

Thanks in advance.

 

One reason to not want to run stiffer than stock RTA bushings on a street car is that under braking, the bushing deflection allows the TA to move rearward, causing toe in.

The passive rear steering is a safety item that can be mucked with by changing bushing hardness.

Just my initial thought anyway.

 

So, your suspension is lowered and stiffer, will it move too much for the bushing, even if the bushing were poly? I have not seen that factored into the prior arguments. Seems that if your suspension and bushing somewhat match, then not much of a problem

 

A couple of my friends are runing the pic hard rubber and one on mugen. They both have no problems. They are also daily drivers

 

the ones you have posted up i have seen in a few crv's for some reason, well they were torn when i saw them, due to not having any metal sleeve on the outside to press into the arm the trailing arm was warped and a horrid pain in the *** to get in when i replaced them with the OEM units, i would go with the oem units all day everyday

 

Well the poly ones arrived at the shop on the same day I posted this topic, but I went with my gut and decided to wait to finish the car until tomorrow when the OEM style ones come in.

 

259 views.

4 replies aside from my own.

This forum is disappointing.

Well I went with my gut and got the OEM style RTA bushings, and after fighting the old ones out, and the new ones in (using the nifty MAC Honda Bushing Xtractor special tool and a a hand wrench as my driving force for its pressing action) I made a wonderful discovery:

Stock style RTA bushings will not even come close to having the bolt holes for the mounting ears line up since I'm in need of a wider ranger of toe adjustment now.

So I pressed the brand new RTA busings back out, and installed the poly versions I posted initially. No they are not ideal IMO, but I literally have no choice but to go with a sliding mount style RTA bushing. The polys are cheap, and hopefully they won't affect ride quality, and they won't have to be replaced annually.

I'll be sure to post my findings with these poly units so that the four people actually interested can learn what happens...

 

I used Poly bushings this year, the last set of poly bushings were RTA. I was happy with the change for HPDE and track. It seemed make the bumps on regular road more harsh, possible because they are firmer. For all of the "problems" with wear, I wonder how much that will be if they are part of a suspension that is firm and does not need to have OEM full motion. Replacing OEM with poly RTA's and leaving the rest of the suspension to move normally may be the problem. Also, ES softened theirs some since the original problems. I guess I will see also.

 

i put the toe kit on my car can't even remember which one it is, i'm OE honda RTA's with the toe kit it all lined back up and you do have to kind of fight to get the toe adjuster back in there even on a stock car it dosn't just go right back in. also my daily driver is quite low tucking all 4 tires and i got toe and all to come back in with the adjuster for the piece of mind i'd just spend the couple of bucks to get the adjusters.

also that xtracter tool very very nice i have almost worn mine out!

 

Yeah I've got two topics that are starting to overlap with some of the info, but basically because the wagon's camber gets that much more insanely negative when lowered as much as mine is the amount of camber correction in the rear exceeds anything I've ever had to do on other models such as EGs, DCs, EKs, etc.

With as much camber correction as I have in the rear if I used OEM style RTA bushings they'd be pulled really hard to the inside, and could even possibly bind. They would definitely be stressed like that.

 

That sucks you had problems with the stock RTA bushings. I replaced mine last year with stock ones and had zero issues. However, if I had to do it all over again I would get the following.

http://passwordjdm.com/PasswordJDM-R...1854C1540.aspx

BTW, I had the poly version you are using and they kept popping out. They were a total pain in the butt.

 

That sucks man. When we installed my poly ones a while ago i noticed a tiny difference. But didnt effect it in a negative way.

These forums move really slowly, it's quite anyoying at times.