350patriot

Hello again

I'm currently looking into overhauling the front suspension on my 94z. I'm definitely going to replace the upper and lower balljoints since all of that looks to be original, but I figured since I was there I would go ahead and replace all of the front control arm bushing since I was already working in that area. the question I have is; what are the pros and cons of going with poly bushings up front compared to the oem rubber?

I've done some research on poly's for the rear and some say that it may cause the rear end to be too stiff from binding which isn't good cornering, but I haven't seen much about the front end. I was thinking since some people add larger sway bars and strut tower braces to the front, that stiffening up the front suspension might be better.

Injuneer

Replacing the front bushings in-kind with similar, stock style, stiffer polyurethane bushings will cause suspension bind. But Energy Suspension makes a set with a different style vertical lower control arm bushing, that eliminates the bind. I've had the ES poly bushing on my front suspension for 16 years.

The bind in the front is caused by the fact that one end of the lower control arm pivots around a horizontal axis, and the other is fixed by a bushing with a vertical axis, requiring a soft rubber bushing with hollow portions to allow deflection. The ES poly vertical bushing incorporates a spherical surface that allows that end of the arm to rotates about a horizontal surface, just like the horizontal bushing.

You can improve the effectiveness of the sway bars with stiffer poly bar bushings and end link bushings. The motion of the sway bar is not subject to bind.

350patriot

Thanks for the info. So far I have already done the sway bar mounting and endlink bushing, and I was pretty impressed with the difference it made compared to the factory ones. My original mounting bushings were starting to crack and the endlinks were already deformed, so I was figuring that the factory control arm bushing are probably not in any better shape. when you swapped the ES bushings up front, did you tell a difference in handling compared to the rubber ones?