I am going to be replacing suspension parts in my car and wanted to replace all the bushings with oem instead of ES as i dont want a stiff ride, i have not been able to find a kit though

Would i have to go to honda parts and select each bushing manually in the suspension section?

 

You would, and then for some of them like the rear trailing arm bushings you have to dig through old TSBs to find the part numbers since they're not listed in the catalog.

 

It's not that hard,

This list is one side of the vehicle so multiply everything by two:
- 2 front UCA
- 3 front LCA
- 5 front sway bar EG-version (if you have one)
- 2 rear UCA
- 3 Rear LCA
- 2 Rear Compensator arm
- 1 Trailing arm
- 3 rear Sway Bar EG/DC-version (if you have one)

It used to be cheaper buying complete arms, though OEM are much harder to find these days. Also consider a HardRace rubber bushing kit. It will be a lot cheaper than OEM, but also stiffer (not what YOU are looking for). Still not as bad a urethane.

 

I would recommend taking a look at PIC or Hardrace. I have the PIC kit in my civic, I'm not really sure I could comment too much on the affect on the ride quality simply due to my coilovers. What I will say is they are worlds better than the ES bushings I had in before, I hated those damn things.

I know you said you don't want the harder bushings, but you mind be surprised when you see what a full OEM bushing replacement is going to cost. Several the bushings are only available when you buy the entire arm which will very costly.

 

I went to NAPA auto parts to get a couple of bushings. I ended up with Moog parts, and the price was reasonable.

 

I just replaced all of the bushings/arms on my 99' Si with oem parts and the front lower arms alone were $300.

 

I didn't know the EK front LCA bushings weren't available separately from the arms. That's lame!

 

Yeah, not sure on the 2-piece arms on the EK's, but, the 1 piece on my EM1 they don't. IIRC, that was the only one that you couldn't get the bushings seperately (aside from the compliance) I decided to get all new arms for the ease of installation.

 

I went to the honda dealer locally to get help with finding the bushings part #s on the site since its a little confusing

The rep said that i dont need to replace them unless they are bad, my understanding was that since the bushing are well 2 decades old replacing them would help with ride quality

Is that correct?

 

You can tell if they're bad, the rubber will be completely torn out and the arm will likely be making metal on metal contact with the part the bushing is supposed to cushion it from.

 

Yes ride quality would definitely improve due to the hardening of the rubber over the decades. it won't be a huge difference though. Not like replacing all your motor mounts.

 

If you dig around enough on ebay you can find some pretty good OEM style rubber bushings for the stamped steel arms.

 

So im mostly after ride quality, i am getting a better shock set and plan on insulating the car, i figured changing all the rubber would make a difference but if its minimal i will only replace them if they are bad

I will replace the motor mounts though, since it was mentioned that those affect the ride

The guy at the dealer did say that i should replace tie rod ends and ball joints though

 

It's the two main mounts in front of the shock towers that will make the biggest difference in cabin vibration. They carry all the weight of the motor. The other 3 (2 front lower, and 1 rear center) are for engine torque control. Of course they do also get hard and tear and then do a poor job of controlling engine motion.