What improvement in traction can I expect, if any, by just swapping to aftermarket control arm bushings with the stock arms? Does the material make a difference (poly, delron, etc.)?
What improvement in traction can I expect, if any, by just swapping to aftermarket control arm bushings with the stock arms? Does the material make a difference (poly, delron, etc.)?
i really dont know the answer, but ill offer what i can. i dont know if you are familiar with delron, but if youre not, its brutal. i run them on the FRONT end (upper and lower control arms) of another car i have, and they will drop your loose fillings. dont know how that would be for the rear end, though. just a word to the wise ( i woulda/shoulda used poly if they made them for that car).
good luck. im curious to see what folks say, as i need to do some rear work (think ill just do new arms, stockers kinda suck). weld torque boxes at same time.
Swapping to solid polyurethane in the rear control arms actually causes suspension bind which decreases traction. Our rear suspension was a crappy design... this is why Ford put the huge rubber bushings on the control arms. They allow the control arms to move on several axis which helps to prevent the suspensions tendancy to bind. If you are going to pull the control arms to replace the bushings you may as well just replace the control arm. Don't go cheap here or you will be pulling you car apart again in the near future. I would suggest a MM lower control arm and Ford racing upper control arms. However, I hate upper control arms and I took mine off and threw them in the garbage. If you get the MM lowers, they make a ride height adj. model that is pretty trick.
Oh, and I didn't notice any increase is ride harshness after installing these control arms. They do transmit a little more noise into the car, but that's something you will have to deal with or use lots of sound deadening. They did improve traction and they also provide better lateral support.