New parts or Poly
 

Looking to refresh the suspension on my 2002 Boxster S. The car is a daily driver that sees the track a few times a year (DE events). The daily commute consists of some mountain roads and some stop and go traffic.

Planning to adding Feal coilovers and refreshing the rest of the suspension.

The question is should I go with new OEM (or equivalent) parts with rubber bushings or update the current pieces with PowerFlex polyurethane bushings? Replacing with OEM equivalent will cost me around 1150 where the Powerflex bushings are only around 525.

How will each affect the handling and ride?

Thanks

I would think going from old/worn rubber to new urethane you would feel a difference in ride and handling . My question would be how are the urethane bushings in regards to road noise transmission ? I am curious to know myself as I have some changes due in my future .

One of the chaps here in UK put the powerflex purple in the rear tuning fork and ended up snapping the arm. I myself have powerflex black ARB bushes and haven't noticed any adverse affects. Can I tell the difference to standard? No because I changed the dampers, springs and top mounts at the same time.

Do you mean this one? 911uk.com - Porsche Forum : View topic - Polybushed Tuning Fork Failure

If If I understand it correctly that is a case of wrong application of the bushing, that end of the arm should be flexible to allow for the movement of the suspension. A solid spherical bearing could work, but not a stiff bushing. Or?

I can be totally wrong, if so please let me know!!!

Quoting myself.. hmmm what have I become? :eek:

Anyway, what I mean is that I believe that it should be the absolute opposite of what this guy at EPS is telling.. Load the suspension.. WFT?? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O57sPjCW7YQ

I am doing a similar setup while my car is down for the winter. I installed a set of Ceika coil overs this past August (Webstore Link). I suspect these are made in the same Taiwanese factory as Feal so they are probably the same thing that you're getting. The ride is very good. Don't get the pillow ball mounts unless you like loud noises.

I also purchased a set of bushings off a 'chap' in the UK by the name of Andrew Mills (eBay Page). The Powerflex set would have been way more expensive by the time it was through shipping, taxes and duties. Andrew runs a small shop and takes care to sell a quality product it seems, as he took the time to re-pour one of the bushings after he realized he could improve his design after testing on his own personal 996. I'd rather give my money to an enthusiast making a decent product out of his small shop than a larger company. His bushing set was around $250CAD by the time it was in my hands - a great savings over the Powerflex product.

That guy in the UK actually broke the front thrust arm that controls longitudinal position of the control arm/coffin arm. The bushing set he installed evidently replaced the forward ball-joint in the thrust arm... which is a totally incorrect/stupid application for a stiff urethane bushings. Which brings me to my next point...

There are two kinds of businesses:
1. Just want to sell you as much stuff as possible.
2. Only want to sell you parts that make sense to sell.

The bushing set I bought doesn't include this bushing. You shouldn't replace any ball joint on the suspension with a urethane bushing. You gain no performance advantage since a ball-joint has no flex in it in the first place. There are only detrimental effects, as the UK guy experienced. There is another ball joint in the equivalent part on the rear suspension as well - again, shouldn't be replaced with a urethane bushing.

Anyway to answer your question;
1. You're already going to be stiffening up the ride by installing coil overs, so the added NVH from non-OEM, stiffer urethane bushings will have a minimal increase on the harshness of the ride beyond that already caused by the coil-overs.
2. If your ball joints in your existing suspension arms are still good, there is no use in paying so much more for OEM replacement arms. Might as well refurb your old arms with new bushings and save some money.

Holy ****************.

- The arm has no "loading capability" because it isn't supposed to. That arm is supposed to move freely in that joint. Not only will adding bushing pre-load change the effective spring rate of the suspension system as the guy mentioned in the video, making it "harder, tougher" whatever that means, the aluminum arm isn't designed to be loaded in torsion... and it also isn't designed to be loaded in bending (you can see the arm bending as he applies force to it). Since those arms are aluminum, they will fatigue and fail very quickly. Again as UK guy found out.

- Surface area limited - irrelevant since the bearing isn't loaded axially. This arm is loaded in compression under vehicle acceleration or tension under braking.

- The loaded surface is actually the width of the white plastic, not just the centre of it.

- EPS may be correct in saying that their product is longer lasting, but without testing data, they can't technically make that claim.


Every. Single. Time. You buy an aftermarket part ask yourself... how many hours did Porsche's engineers spend designing, testing, and optimizing this part? These are professional automotive/mechanical engineers whose life's work is to make those suspension arms, etc. and they put their reputation/job on the line if they send crap out the door since warranty costs can be huge. If it was that simple to improve the part, why wouldn't the engineer have sent the car from the factory like that?

Swapping parts on your car for aftermarket may not always be an improvement.

B6T,

I looked for the bushings you mentioned but the seller does not have anything listed on ebay right now.

More importantly how do you like the Ceika coilovers, I have seen them advertised but not many reviews of them. Everyone talks about the Feals but the Ceika's are less expensive.

Last you mention the pillow tops being loud, I was thinking about these but now rethinking it, can you give more information as to what you have noticed with them.

Did you try to send the seller a message via eBay? I can send him a message on Facebook and ask if he is planning on listing more bushing sets if you’d like.

I like the Ceikas. The pillow balls mounts create a loud banging noise on larger bumps that are typical on roads around here, things like sewer covers and driveway transitions, and this gets annoying. Aside from that I have no complaints. I contacted the company about the noise and they weren’t willing to replace them with rubber mounts so I had to pay for those myself.

Neil_b might answer your question at the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9H7GnTswHA&hd=1&html5=1

would definately recommend going poly if you intend on keeping the car as something like powerflex have a lifetime guarantee so you wont be doing the job again, amongst the benefits of the performance gains on handling
https://powerflexstore.co.uk/porsche/boxster-986-1997-2004/

What all are you planning to replace? I think you could get OEM for less that $1150

4x Meyle LCA arms: $400'ish
2x Front Meyle tuning fork arms: $200'ish
2x rear TRW tuning fork arms: $200'ish
2x rear toe arms: you are lowering with the FEAL suspension so you might need an aftermarket solution depending on how you want to run your rear camber so that cost would be the same either way

OK we are getting close to that $1150 after all :) What all are you planning to replace/upgrade? Maybe we can help shave down that $1150 to something lower?

I just spent $1800 from Pelican to replace every wear item in my suspension (all aftermarket replacements for OEM). No urethane for me. My Boxster is a DD and I don't want the NVH.

Lower control arms x 4
front tuning fork arms x 2
Upper front strut mounts x 2
Upper Rear strut mounts x 2
Sway bar links x 4
Sway bar bushings x 4
Rennline front tie rod ends, adjustable for bump steer x 2
Rennline rear toe control arms x 2

Add new H&R sport springs and Bilstein B8s. Car should ride better than new. :D

Jmitro, your car will definitely drive way better!

When my younger kid had to replace the lower control arms with new Koni struts on his Jetta, I showed up with a surprise box containing a set of H&R's springs, and the new components transformed the car completely... :)

After all the parts you already bought I would suggest to replace as well the bearings that goes on the top of the front springs, these are not really expensive and you will be surprised how bad the old ones get with the usage.

Good luck!