To buy polly front and rear bushings or not, that is the question

[quick35th]

Hey guys, as you may or may not all know I am doing a complete front and rear suspenssion buildup to my 35th. I am dead set on this plan and I am not changing my mind front it. So with that said I am building the car with competative autocross and later on road racing in mind. If all goes well I will be going to this years SCCA The Tire Rack Solo II National Championship with my 35th and do battle in CP class.

Now with some of my back ground information out of the way I will get to my question at hand here. Currently my 35th's suspension has 196k original miles on it and a bad drivers side strut rod bushing. I was planning on going with the complete set of SCP polly front and rear bushings just to replace all the old stuff with new to freshen the car up. After talking with Dave Dalke on the phone he told me not to go with polly bushings and that stock was better. I told him that I think I have heard this before from people but I was not sure. So what I want to know is what you guys think I should do based off people's experiences with these bushings. Are they just purely for street use only or would they be good for race use? I am hoping that people with them in their car's will chime in here and give me their opinions about them.

Shane

[Still Crusin]

I almost did the same thing you're planning on doing. I had clunking up front and decided to go ahead and replace all up front bushings with poly. Turns out I just needed to replace control arms. Mech told me my ride would be a bit harsher going all poly. However, if you plan on racing the car, going mostly poly might be a good idea. Did Dave say why staying with stock bushings would be better?
I believe Duffy Floyd has commented on this in the past and if I remember correctly also recommended staying with stock bushings, but I believe his remarks were in regard for normal street driving. Maybe a combination of poly and stock bushings would be the way to go, just not sure which ones I'd keep stock or go poly with.
I ended up not going with the poly, but I'm not racing my car either.

[ThunderDave]

Go for it Shane. If you are going to be racing it, I'd upgrade. I think you'll be doing more racing than street driving, so.....do it. If you are gonna do it, you might as well do it right.:) ;)

[Grims95SC]

I put them in the front and rear of mine last year. My car has a bit of a jiggle when doing any small quick steering imputs and those bushings got rid of that real quick! Also there was no ride quality loss at all that I could notice. But since you're only worried about racing, I can't see why poly bushings would be a bad thing.

[007_SuperCoupe]

Shane,
For racing use, the only poly bushings that I've heard of (seen first hand) that are not worth it are the front strut rod bushings. Those under very hard cornering pop off of the strut rod altogether. The person tried larger washer to retain them, but it didn't work. They still deteriorated and popped off. Again, I have seen this happen first hand. For those 4 bushings, I'd go stock rubber. However, I know of NO problems with any of the other poly bushings under race conditions.

For what it's worth, I'm going with all poly, because I already have them all, and when my front strut rod bushings go (because they will) I'll replace those with stock bushings, but keep the rest poly.

[quick35th]

007_SuperCoupe, yeah I have heard of the polly strut rod bushing poping out as well. The most notable person to experience it was Lawrence Mansier on his road race SC. Can you still get the stock rubber strut rod bushings from Ford or if I cant where can I get them at?

Shane

[007_SuperCoupe]

Any parts store should carry them. I still haven't installed all mine yet and may go with the stock strut rod bushings.

And the person that I know, is not him. The was a local guy who raced his Thunderbird.