Front LCA rear position bearing options?

[jrbe]

I have an '09 legacy GT that has a rubbery suspension feel when cornering somewhat hard. Traced back to the front control arm, rear position bushings.

 

I've been through tons of different LCA bushings trying to fix this, Spec B, aluminum inserts with spherical bearings (awesome, no rubber steering for maybe 9 months but had to swap them out when they got sloppy / rattley from the sand collection up top wearing them out) and some whiteline poly bushings that are currently in and only half way to removing the rubber feel. I'll gladly take NVH to get rid of that rubber band in the steering feeling. The car also eats front tires like crazy. Yes alignment is good, tried 1/16 toe in and 0 toe in. Camber is ok too.

 

I'm at the point where I'm either going to add bellows / boots to the aluminum inserts to try to keep the spherical bearings clean and in good shape or mod the Legacy GT control arms to fit 2011+ sti pillow ball joints. Wouldn't be too hard to make up a weld fixture to add the proper sized ring to hold the STI bearing in there.

 

I found one thread on here where people were trying to fit the 2011+ sti pillow ball lca bushing / bearing / pillow ball in their cars. Seems size was an issue. Did anyone actually measure them? Seems their effort in trying stopped after they were like an inch bigger than the legacy one. I believe this is a good comparison pic,

 

I know i can order one and measure but was hoping to find semi-accurate measurements to see what i'd be getting into trying to swap the sti ones in.

 

Anyone have a 20204FG000 that they can measure for me?

[covertrussian]

Which whiteline bushings did you have before? I installed the Whiteline KCA334 in 2014 and they made a night and day difference in handling (I even had them setup to remove caster by mistake), my front tires stopped cupping too. I've been through a set of tires now and all they had was normal wear (with slightly less tread on the inside due to camber).

 

NVH didn't increase a bit with those Whitelines either, no rubber band like feeling either, that's why I'm asking which kit you had.

 

If I did it again I would get SuperPro SPF2803K or TRC3095 with 20mm ALK. Superpro's warranty is top notch, much better then Whiteline's. Whiteline treats the KCA kit as race only warranty on them is only 5 years.

[jrbe]

Whiteline W53353 are in the car now. I had much higher expectations for them, maybe I'm just spoiled by how the car drove with the aluminum inserts / spherical bearings.

 

It was also horrible following grooves in the road. Again its about halfway there with the whitelines not grabbing road grooves. When i had the toe at 0 I could feel it toe out when it grabbed a road groove with the spec b bushings. The perrin sphericals had the car pretty much ignore any grooves in the road. Its really how the car should feel, though changing the bearings every 6 months isn't something I want to do. I get they aren't really meant for the road (not their fault, no seals.) Thats why i'm trying to decide between finding and adding seals to the perrins or modding to the oe sti pillow ball setups.

[covertrussian]

I installed W53353 on my friends car, the car doesn't do anything that you've described, no darting and no NVH increase.

 

My car is currently sitting on KCA334's, +0.50* caster, stock height, maxed camber bolts, 0" toe. No darting or following road groves, car feels very planted.

 

Something's just not sitting well. Did you make sure to install the voids correctly? What's your camber at? Are you lowered?

[jrbe]

Stock springs, stock ride height. New shocks within 10k miles. Camber is stock, no camber adjusters added. It's been a while but camber was minimal and within .2°.

 

If you corner over maybe .7 / .8 g's the steering input just mushes the bushings further and can feel the front tires pointing different directions more and more. This is not forcing the car into understeer or forcing a huge slip angle in the tires. As mentioned, with the spherical bearings in there it was perfect. I installed the whitelines according to the install instructions they came with in the same arms that the sphericals were in. I also installed urethane rack bushings before trying sphericals, it gave a bit better of a feel but didn't solve the rubber band steering at all.

 

It's also been on 3 different kinds of tires. Proxes, conti dw's, and general grabber snows. Same mush with all 3 but obvious more slip angle for the dw's and even more for the snows vs the proxes. Had the dw's and snows on with the sphericals in there.

 

No idea why Subaru put a bushing in there that twists 90° to how it should. I get other makes use a arm bushings this way but have never felt them as bad as these seem to be. I think it's clear by their engineers seeing the benefit of fitting a spherical bearing in the newer sti's that the wrong way bushing wasn't a great solution.

 

I like everything about the car except for this horrible bushing. That's why I'm planning on doing as Subaru did eventually and fix it with a spherical, either oe, or perrin with seals.

[covertrussian]

I haven't beat on my friends car like I beat on mine, so can't say if those whitelines (W53353) turn into mush at limits, perhaps they are a pretty low shore rating for urethane? I just know that my set of KCA version got rid of the vagueness and made the car handle like I would expect, but I've never driven on sphericals so maybe I'm missing out? On my 2012 I replaced the bushings with cheap prothanes and even those made a big difference too, and those seem softer then basic whitelines (W53353).

 

Now we installed the basic whitelines (W53353) on my friends car because of bad tire wear (cupping). It's been about 20k miles and his current tires are still looking great. That's why I'm asking you about all newb things, to make sure they all good.

 

I agree with you, this design is horrible, but I see it on Honda's and Toyota's too. I don't understand why they would go away from the logical design (what pre2008 WRX's had) to this design. I curse at it myself since this design eats stock bushings in no time.

 

Next set of questions:

How are your front bushings looking? Were they torqued down at unladen height?

Have you tried getting a hold of spherical bearing LCA's and just running those?

[jrbe]

Front front lca bushings are whiteline too. Installed with control arm parallel to the ground even though it shouldn't matter with a poly bushing not molded to the pivot tube. They're in good shape and still snug. They were in with the sphericals too. I forgot to mention, new strut tops were 2nd thing to try after the spec b bushings didn't meet my expectations.

 

What I've read researching this is that the sti spherical control arms are longer than the lgt's by maybe an inch. Again, unfortunate generalities from forum info. I've tried to find a comparison pic but couldn't. I've read both that they fit fine and that they're an inch longer and understandably would / could cause issues if that's true. I'd love to drop in oe parts and be done with it but it seems like that's not possible. You have decent info on sti spherical lca vs lgt?

[covertrussian]

Roger, yup with poly bushings wheels don't have to be on the ground when you torque the bolts.

 

As far as I know Spec B bushings are the same design/composition as non Spec B's (even though they have aluminum arms), group N's are different, but they still wont live up to what your used to.

 

No info on STI vs LGT lca's, never cared since poly bushings are sufficient for me, but Subaru loves to reuse the parts so there was a chance that they might be close enough.

 

I think I have another idea, those STI sphericals have a ton of anti-lift reduction, whitelines should use around stock (heck even my KCA "anti-lift" kit is still about he same as stock). The aftermarket sphericals that you ran could have had a lot of anti-lift reduction too.

[jrbe]

The sphericals had some spacers that fit in the ball to fill the gap between the chassis and the lca rear bracket. The top spacer was maybe 1/4" taller than the bottom if I remember right. I looked for them quick, not sure where I put them.

It isn't that the car is rolling more / suddenly at the point of mush, it's just the bushings not able to deal and the geometry going more and more out of whack. Inside tire turns in more, outer tire doesn't turn in as it should more and more.

 

I'll try to dig in more to the size difference in lca's.

[covertrussian]

It isn't that the car is rolling more / suddenly at the point of mush, it's just the bushings not able to deal and the geometry going more and more out of whack. Inside tire turns in more, outer tire doesn't turn in as it should more and more.

 

That's normal operation for an ackerman steering geometry....

 

[jrbe]

I would speculate it looks like that up until the bushing mush happens. Then the right front in that Ackerman pic for what I'm describing goes away from that intersection point. I'd say it starts doing anti-Ackerman from the bearing deflection but opposite how you'd hope it happens. I don't think anti Ackerman is desirable on an awd car, especially when the loaded wheel goes anti Ackerman and the inside stays closer to ackerman.

The right front in that pic for what I'm describing is pointed more and more left of the intersection point of the rest of the tires as the lca bushing mushes.

[covertrussian]

No idea why Subaru put a bushing in there that twists 90° to how it should. I get other makes use a arm bushings this way but have never felt them as bad as these seem to be. I think it's clear by their engineers seeing the benefit of fitting a spherical bearing in the newer sti's that the wrong way bushing wasn't a great solution.

 

I agree with you, this design is horrible, but I see it on Honda's and Toyota's too. I don't understand why they would go away from the logical design (what pre2008 WRX's had) to this design. I curse at it myself since this design eats stock bushings in no time.

 

After looking for some forward LCA bushings, I had an epiphany on why everyone is switching to the horizontal design. SuperPro mentions that their design has a metal washer because the forward bushing lip can get crushed under breaking from too much forward control arm movement.

 

I'm starting to think that Subaru and others designed the flat bushing control arms because it physically can't move forward (outside of bushing flex). Coupled with the forward facing bushing, you now have two points of contact keeping the control arm in place. While with the old design even though it was bolted in to the bushing, soft bushings would have a lot of in and out movement, thus the main holding point would still be front bushing only.

 

This design also allowed them to simplify the control arms, no need for two piece designs with extra nuts and bolts. So as much as I hate the new bushings, they make sense from a stability and cost cutting perspective.

[covertrussian]

I would speculate it looks like that up until the bushing mush happens. Then the right front in that Ackerman pic for what I'm describing goes away from that intersection point. I'd say it starts doing anti-Ackerman from the bearing deflection but opposite how you'd hope it happens. I don't think anti Ackerman is desirable on an awd car, especially when the loaded wheel goes anti Ackerman and the inside stays closer to ackerman.

The right front in that pic for what I'm describing is pointed more and more left of the intersection point of the rest of the tires as the lca bushing mushes.

 

I think something else is wrong with your car, perhaps your subframe is not torqued and causing the front of the control arm to move?

[covertrussian]

On other news, just found out about Superpro's DURO3738K, they are 2011+ arms, have pillow balls built in. I wonder if they can make a set for our cars!

 

http://cygnusperformance.com/cart.php?target=product&product_id=1574&category_id=48

 

http://cygnusperformance.com/images/pi_1574.jpeg

[jrbe]

Subframe is tight, no cracks in it either. Rack is tight, no cracks around that. It's the bushings, it went away with sphericals and mostly came back with the urethanes.

 

I think I found a way to seal the perrin sphericals. I need to order some stuff to see how it would work. I'll get some new bearings and rebuild them soon and report on progress.

[jrbe]

The control arm moving forward isnt the worst thing if the suspension geometry can deal with it. Some european cars with their funky multi link setups move quite a bit under braking and acceleration.

 

I found that BMW and Mercedes uses spherical bearings in the rear of some of their vehicles. I'm ordering one of each to see if the misalignment is enough and if they're large enough. Nice thing is they would be off the shelf if they work out. I'm sure I'll have to spin up some adapter collars / hats. I'll be doing that in a manual lathe. Looks like the Mercedes bearing has a 14mm bore (might mean its beefy...) Ordering these, 33 32 6 775 551 (BMW) and 221 352 01 27 (MB) to try. Funny thing is they're cheaper than the seals i was planning on buying for the Perrin setup but way better of a seal and would be a much better solution.

 

BMW

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1P6baNElpDy_nIRlDz0BBw3GmLD0_A__V/view?usp=sharing

 

MB

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ExjDDvPRfq5JHXsKY8gfSJerpBcWMKOZ/view?usp=sharing

 

I'll be getting them next week, might be a while until I report back with the holiday.

[covertrussian]

Gonna be pretty sweet if they fit without major modifications!

[jrbe]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KCa76Zkw0ALbqBX0fOFOQFLLrt3je-tm/view?usp=drivesdk

 

The one with a ton of misalignment seems to be for a 12mm bolt. Might be able to bore it out...

The one with a lot less misalignment seems to be sized for a 14mm bolt. I'm not sure it will have enough misalignment to work for us.

I'll try to find the perrin sphericals and measure everything to compare.

[jrbe]

Hi,

 

Very slow going but making progress on this. Trying to get this done to swap the snow tires out and not destroy new summer tires.

 

I found a sealed spherical bearing that is the correct height, has over 20' misalignment, and has a 14mm bore.

I've ordered a pair of used front control arms to do this. I'm waiting on ordering the sphericals because i am trying to find something better to use in the front position bushing location as well. I'd rather have the nylon sphericals in both positions. Front control arm bushings are currently urethane in this car.

 

I'm trying to get this done then install it in one shot. I need the car and cant have it apart long. To make this happen, the stud that bolts up into the chassis needs to be swapped out for a bolt. This is the part i need help with, a couple things with this.

- I found the front LCA rear position stud is M14 but I'm trying to find the thread pitch. It looks to be 1.5mm from pics I've found, would be great if someone had one to check and verify. Need the size that threads into the chassis but I think they're the same pitch on both ends.

- I'm also looking for the length of the stud for verification. I can get it from the pic once I get the thread pitch if I have to.

-The "washer" thickness in the middle of the stud is something I need as well.

Talking about this stud, http://legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php/whiteline-kca334-same-anti-lift-stocki-252653.html?p=5639863

 

Once I have this info, I'm looking for an OE flanged (washer built in) bolt thats 10.9. I'd like to keep it subaru, but havent been able to find any. I have BMW / Porsche / VW options I've found if I cant find a subaru bolt to do this. Looking like it needs to be an 85mm+ bolt from looking at this in CAD. Also need 1 or 2 hardened M14 washers per side that are 3? mm thick, OE Subaru washers would be ideal here too.

 

The company that makes the spherical also makes inserts to be welded into control arms. The one sized for this spherical is a bit small to be drop in to the LGT control arm. I'll be turning down a collar to space the insert in the arm to be welded.

The company that makes the spherical can do custom inserts. Might require a group buy, can get to this later.

 

Some pics to inspire help. Green thing is the weld in collar the spherical company offers. Blue thing is the spacer needed to be able to insert their collar centered and weld it in. Ideally the blue and green parts would be replaced, the 2 combined into one that's sized properly, pressed in, and welded in place. I'll be sharing part #'s and where to get all of the parts when this is done and tested.

[jrbe]

Parts arrived.

 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/kNv7DRAqRkau1KwI2

https://photos.app.goo.gl/mNf9SXNGNhU4CeD12

https://photos.app.goo.gl/lUQAjlOVo1exlfCa2

https://photos.app.goo.gl/RBWNi9s6VahDjNpQ2

 

Looking promising. Red comparison spherical is an old Perrin setup. Going to order bolts and hardened washers. Couldn't find Subaru bolts, going with VW 10.9 bolts for now. Might be welding these in next weekend if I get all the parts and time.

[covertrussian]

Curious to see how it works out. I haven't been working the car lately so haven't had a chance to measure anything.

[roadsterdoc]

Any updates?

[jrbe]

Yes, I welded in the collars into the control arms, por15 metal prepped them, and painted them. Going to try to install them today.

[jrbe]

I only got the control arms assembled today. I likely won't be able to get them installed until next weekend.

[jrbe]

I installed the control arms with the sphericals. Car feels rock solid again. No dartyness or following dips in pavement. It goes where you point it. No more rubber band in the steering.

There's enough misalignment to get the balljoint in without popping the control arm bolts loose (both control arm bolts are tight in the hanging ball joint pic.)

Getting the rear bolt in was tough, had to use a pry bar to squish the front lca bushings (new white lines) back to get the rear lca bolt (bolt with this) up into the chassis.

The rear studs are removed and use a 10.9 bolt that's the same length. I installed hardened washers between the spherical and the chassis, not sure what's inside there..

 

I put some firestone Indy 500 tires on a week ago. With the old poly rear lca bushings in and weren't too harsh. With the sphericals I felt every crack on the ride home and checked tire pressure when I got home. They were at 45 psi. I dropped them all to factory pressure, will see how bad it is tomorrow. I definitely see why the sti sphericals are insulated.

 

It had conti dw's with the last set of perrin sphericals, I don't remember it feeling this harsh. With tire pressure that high it's not fair to say it's terrible yet. I'll report back soon with more info.