do you guys spray white lithium grease on the spacers? OR LUBE the bushing? just wondering if that would take noise away for a while

 

There is no noise, just a myth. Occasionally they groan when theres dust, i hose it off.

 

I put nothing on mine

 

Ok so I've had them for a year and change now, and the clunking is starting to get really tired, and more pronounced.

Wondering if I can add beefier O rings, or get the cones machined. Maybe just contact SPL for machined cones, and new O rings?

Wish I had known at the time of purchase that machined cones was an option. It should be a recommendation in bold on their site for lowered cars.

Sigh...wth.

Not hugely overjoyed at having to tear it all apart again for some stealth, but I can't see using any other style of compression rod bushing.

clunk, clunk, clank goes the Z

 

this might be a weird ideal. but what about putting two springs between the arms and brace/unibody(one on each side). the springs will keep enough tension so the arm wont clank around, yet wont hinder the movement of the bearing it self that much.

 

I was actually tossing this idea around with bungee cords...yes I'm getting that desperate...LOL.

 

Been there and know exactly how you feel. Unfortunately I don't think you will see a difference. I've taken my arms apart more times that I can count to try and remedy the issue and during one of those attempts went from no o-rings to the o-rings sent to me by SPL with no real difference in clunking...it persisted no matter what I did short of machining the cones.

Now here's the important bit; once I got fed up with it and removed the bushings altogether I noticed one profound issue and that was play in the bushing itself (passenger side much more so). These do wear and/or pound out and much more so than SPL is willing to admit or being genuine about mentioning. The exact same thing happened on my SPL rear knuckle bushings which were clunking intensely on every single bump and bruise in the road by the time I removed them.

The biggest issue here is I'm pretty sure SPL knows, but certainly don't advertise the issue ....a simple heads up would be nice..."hey everyone these will make a ***-load of noise pretty damn soon so if you wanna use these on the street watch out"...would be nice SPL...would be nice

 

I agree 100%. EXPOSED JOINTS/BEARINGS/KNUCKLES WILL WEAR! No matter what they claim. Even sealed/lubed ones wear out. The fact that SPL bearings/joints are exposed to the elements of sand,dirt,moisture just exponentially wear them out much, much faster!!!!

My SPL A-ARM joints are squeaking again after about 15K miles!!!! In addition to this the SPL compression bushings clunking.

This gets old real quick on a street car!!!!!!!

Don't buy SPL if it's for a street car!

 

Yeah im hoping to press mines out today. Only had them in for a week lol. The car feels good but people looking like whats wrong with your car haha.

I expected some noise but these are killing me. Whats crazy is my lower control arm inner bushing were blown so i installed the Whitelines and decided that i mess well replace the compression arm bushings, just to find out my oem compression bushings weren't in to bad of shape after 85,000 miles and my caster was in spec. Car has been Lowered around 1.4 inches for the whole 85,000 miles .

 

wow i dont have any noise from my upper arms and compression rod. maybe down the line i will find out what noises you guys are whining about and i will eat my words

 

That's actually very interesting to hear as what you did there is confirmed my a suspicion about SPL upper a-arms. I'm using cusco upper A arms and after some 70-80k miles on them, they are still pretty much perfect, no noise, no issues, I've recently started adjusting them regularly when doing track days and love it. They do however have boots on both the bushings and the ball join....huge difference.

I really hope you won't run into this issue...but all things considered I suspect its only a matter of time and mileage.

 

LOL yeah, I'm slowly coming to the same conclusion. SPL suggested I add another set of O rings to each side, but I'm wondering how long that lasts before they squish, and I have to tear it all apart again....a matter of months is my guess.

I currently have the Tein S tech springs which only lower 0.6"/0.7" or something like that, so maybe I could just press in a pair of Whiteline poly bushings and be done with it?...ehhh I dunno how that's going to work out.

A "set it and forget it, and not have to hear it go bang, bang, clank" option would be nice...for a couple years at least anyways.

 

Is it possible the clunking is caused by worn compression rod ball joints? Maybe adding the free articulation of the spl bushings is exposing this to those who did not have noises prior? I just bought another z and have clunking coming from my front passenger side, and it only happens over slow speed rigid bumps. I'm hoping to enter local time attack competition, so I've just decided to replace all the compression rod and transverse link bushings. The last ones I need to order are the compression rod bushings and was planning on going SPL. Also when I called around my local shops, a very reputable shop that works on a ton of Z's advised me that when the compression rod is clunking, it is most often if not always a worn ball joint which means the entire compression rod needs to be replaced. Aside from visually inspecting, How do you diagnose a bad ball joint? They said you will not be able to tell a ball joint is bad by yanking in the arm by hand. I'm pretty sure my rod bushing is done as my caster seems far off. When letting go of the steering wheel it doesn't centre as it should. It requires a little help.

 

dang....guess i should just replace all my front bushings with OEM then? Sounds like SPL, Whiteline, and ES all have noise issues.

 

Not really an issue

 

suspension squeaking and clunking isnt an issue???? puahahaha

 

Has no effect on the it. Minor noise, nothing compared to an aftermarket exhaust. Mine has full SPL bushings, hardly ever makes any squeeks or clunks

I installed the full Whiteline set in the front of my mothers G35, no complaints from her.

 

How many people with these bushings have stock endlinks on a lowered car get noise?

How many people with these bushings have aftermarket endlinks that are set up properly get noise?

How many people with these bushings have aftermarket endlinks that are not sure if their endlinks are set up properly get noise?

I think the endlinks have something to do with this as I have no noise with these and I have SPL endlinks. The only noise I get is what I suspect are my swaybar bushings

 

SPL Compression Bushings and Powergrid Endlinks adjusted correctly.

No noise what so ever.

 

Any good link / reference on how to setup endlinks properly?
thanks.