Soon I plan on starting the rear suspension project and finish the front suspension. I'll be getting the front upper control arm bushes from powerflex and the upper ball joints to wrap that up. As I turned my attention to the rear suspension, checking on powerflex's catalogue, I noticed they sell the rear sway bar link rubbers (at a hefty price). I was wondering if its worth it to upgrade to those or if its a better option to buy new sway bar links for the rear for less than half the price?

Rockauto also sells a few options for the rear sway bar link, including parts from Moog, Mevotech, and Proforged. Has anyone tried these that can chime in on if they are any good?

 

In my case I just replaced the bushings on the rear links. Part # MNA3504AB That was @ about 60k miles. Soon I plan to replace the entire link since I am close to 100K now. Not sure what your mileage is on your existing links but if it is 100K+ I would replace them.

My opinions on poly are well documented here. "Not on my car".

 

On my car I’ve got 71k miles on it.

I am happy to buy poly just for the longevity of the parts. The ride quality is not perceptibly deteriorated in my opinion. My front end is almost entirely poly.

The roads here are so bad that rubber suspension components last a year or two at best. That was my experience after redoing the suspension on the XK8 I used to have with OEM parts. They lasted 1.5 years; about 9k miles. I’m not going through that again with this XKR.

 

Well I found the powerflex brand poly bushes for the rear sway bar link didn't last as long as I'd like. After a while they flattened out on me.

I had a couple of packs of CD red Energy brand poly bushes on the shelf from a purchase years ago. Measurement showed the thickness was good, bu the inside hole diameter was too small. Then it hit me - let's give it a try and see...

I pulled out a pair of vice grips and put a drill bit in the drill that matched the links thread od size. Seconds later, I had a set of poly bushes that fit perfectly. 2+ years later they are still100%.

As I mentioned the purchase was years ago, but I did look them up a short while ago. Still available at a fraction of the powerflex price last time I looked.

Thought you might be interested. I have an unopened pack downstairs. Just ask if you'd like a photo.

John

 

I very much would like to see the picture. I wouldn't also mind knowing what the price of those Red Energy bushes is. Do you feel upgrading to poly on the rear sway bar links made any improvement over the stock rubbers?

 

Photo to come. The act of changing to new links / bushes makes such an unexpected- huge improvement (nice surprise) that I cant say what part of the improvement was due to the bushes.

They must have contributed to the difference though. Certainly nothing but good happened.

John

 

 

Glandaniel, IMO you can shape these with a drill or belt sander easily with no loss of functionality. I don't remember if I flattened them out a bit with the belt sander or not. Probably not.

Looks like they are widely available at about $15 per pack.

If you give it a try, I'd love to hear how you like them.

John

 

I’m going to look around. I think I have seen those locally. I want to give those a try.

How many packs should I buy? I imagine it’s two bushes per link?

 

Looks like 1 pack is fine.

 

Went to my local pep boys and found the same code 9.8101R, but they were fresh out of them. It was listed for $4.99. I'll check again in a week or two to see if they have new stock.

 

Located the part in either Black or Red on E-Bay for $6 incl S&H. Sounds like a decent buy.