Im about to order a whole lot of new bushings but Im a little confused. They offer in red and black colors. From what I gathered, the red aren’t lubed and the black come pre-lubed? Are they any different performance wise? I want which ever ones will perform better under racing conditions but if they are the same then I’ll just get the black ones. Someone please help me.
The black are graphite-impregnated so they squeak less. That’s the only difference. Both the red and black come with lube.
The black one’s actually contain graphite? This I’d never heard before. Mine black ones squeaked for a little while after they were put in, but that subsided after a month or so.
I didnt know that either I went with the red kit from summit racing, and I replaced everything except for the front uca bushings because they forgot the sleeves for them. I would reccomend picking up a set of oem ta bushings If you havent already. Since I installed mine the car feels somewhat more responsive when driving.
I wouldn’t worry a bit about the upper control arm bushings. I pressed my old ones out and found that they’re not any noticable ammount softer than the urethane ones. That and putting the urethane UCA bushings in is a pain in the ass.
thats what the mechanic told me about the set, he said he’s installed a few and they have all been wrong or not included.
ES hasnt done anything about it.
Oh, I think that the bushings are correct. I just think that they didn’t use the best judgement in the how-to’s of getting them into the UCA mounts.
is the front upper control arm bushing youre talking about number 3291 on the parts sheet? if so mine came with the sleeves (part 15.299) already in the bushings. the only loose sleeves in the UCA pack was the lower control arm sleeves.
Your sleeves weren’t removable? Wow…mine were.
sure i can remove them, im saying they werent loose in the bag, they were already inserted into the bushings. the only loose bushings in the bag were the ones for the lower control arm.
They just werent in the box, I looked for about twenty minutes and there were no sleeves for the ucas in the packages. Probably an honest mistake, and those bushings were pretty solid anyways so it saved me the trouble.
whats the best place to get the master kit?..black preferably
im gonna be gettin the hyperflex kit soon. i’ve checked around and really haven’t seen anything lower than around $140. between ebay and their own site the price difference isn’t all that great.
Do the old bushings get pressed out (bushing & inner/outer sleeve) or torched out (bushing & inner sleeve, leaving the outer sleeve there)?
none come with outer sleeves, so you could do it either way as far as i know.
youd still be putting the new bushing in the old outer sleeve, the hyperflex kit provides inner sleves
Well I just confirmed with ES that you do need to remove the outer ring with the old bushings. I told him that we tried pressing them out on one of the arms and they weren’t budging. So he said to torch them out and then take a hack saw or something and cut a relief cut in the outer ring and then knock it out.
My kit also came with the Upper control arm bushings and inner sleeves. Although the sleeves were just floating in the bag seperately with the rest of the bushings for that section.
What kind of press are you using? Some of the bushings were real tight on my front and rear control arms. After finding the right sleeve to press them out I just cranked until they broke loose. I guess it really matters on how big of a press you have because I know a few were in there like… ehh well maybe I should just leave it at that. :giggle:
It’s a 15,000 pound press. Has a gauge on it to show how many pounds of pressure your putting on it. I didn’t want to go too far. As we ended up breaking the caliper mount on the knuckle trying to get the bearing out. We took it up to 4000 lbs. pressure and it still wasn’t budging. Then the caliper mount broke. So I gotta buy a another nuckle (luckily it was already a spare). Maybe I should just hit them with some liquick wrench and let it sit for a few hours then try again.
This info is not true. The only difference is the color. There was a company that sold Graphite impregnated bushings (about 8 years ago) but I have not seen any advertising for them in years and they are not ES.
I have installed the Energy Suspension Total Kit on a 6 cars and I have never used a press. I use a propane torch, old standard screwdriver, hacksaw, 4lb drilling hammer and a dremel.
If you don’t know how to use a press properly, you can bend the control arms.
I have Red ES Bushings in My CRX & Integra and they have never squeaked.
If you can buy some extra grease from whoever you are buying the kit from. They never seen to include enough and the small tubes are hard to handle.