I wouldn’t lose too much sleep over grease fittings. I haven’t greased my MM arms in years and they are still silent.
For a daily driver car, I’d run these
For a daily driver/part time racer I’d run these
I'm hearing good things from folks here about Max Motorsport and UPR. I noticed that the Upper at MM is pretty much just a new Ford CA, but the lowers are different, the UPR ones do not have grease fittings (that I can see from the site) even though the desc of them indicates they do. I reached out to UPR support but have not heard back. Anyone know if they do have fittings?
Regarding Grease fittings, there is a lot of conversation about keeping these well greased. What about CAs from BBK or BMR, they show them with fittings. Should I be concerned about them having fittings? ( I seem to have used the word fittings a lot in this post...
That tools been around for a while now. When I did my rear axle back in 2009, I changed those bushings and used the tool. I thought it was pretty easy to use
Always use rubber upper control arm bushings, never poly. Particularly on a street car. Basically the harder the bushing, the more likely it is to "bind", also more likely to rip the torque boxes out.
Here is the lesson you need to know and make your own decision.
Drive from the road to a ramp up into a driveway on a 45 degree angle. So basically 1 tire at a time. Like when the sidewalk is 6" higher than the road.
Now stop the car with 3 tires on the road and 1 on the sidewalk. Notice 1 front wheel compressing suspension, 1 extending. Now look at the back axle. One tire is up, one is down. This is axle articulation. When a solid axle tilts, so does the control arm. If the bushing is stiff the mount is forced to twist and that ladies and gentlemen is what breaks mounts, not power.
Maximum Motorsports and heimed arms recognize this problem.
I have J&M upper and lower control arms with the “Poly Ball” bushings. Sort of like a cross between poly and spherical. I also have poly axle bushings too. (GASP!) There is no binding. There is no snap oversteer. I don’t track my car, but it sees more spirited street driving than most peoples cars, I would imagine. I hung the back end out really far a couple days ago, nice predictable angle of attack, throttled out, zero issues.
I do want a panhard bar setup real bad, though.
Edit: also, the MM bushing tool is worth its weight in gold.
I particularly like the fact that there is what looks like a tactical Sig in the first pic!
Yeah, that MM tool is awesome.
I have the Steeda sway bar (they call it that, it's really a yaw bar). It makes a big difference. It can take the car from it's natural really bad understeer all the way into oversteer. Trouble is that it sometimes doesn't clear an axle girdle. Worth looking into. Cheaper and easier to install than a panhard bar.
Kurt
On the red car, I just burned the bushings out of the shell with a propane torch. It was easy, but made a smoldering, gooey mess on the driveway. Once those old bushing shells are exposed to the business end of a propane torch, the bushing inside can just be pushed out with a stick. Cleaning the remaining funk out is done with a wire brush, and more applied heat. The fix for the “ thin flimsy factory control arm” has been documented many times over, well before there ever was a Chinese replacement set, and if you have access to a mig welder can be done for next to nothing. Only requiring some 1/8” strap welded across the open bottom of the channel in a couple of places. After that, some cleanup, and paint, and either rubber, or poly bushings just push back in with out the need for a press.
bottom line, it was a fraction of the cost, but took a lot to make it happen.
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