Poly Bushes Or Rose Joints?

[mgb2010]

I am rebuilding the chassis of my plus2 and will need to replace all of the rubber bushes. Would you recommend replacing them with rose joints or poly bushes? I will be using the car for hill climbs, track days and some road use. I am leaning towards rose joints (for the adjustability) however I have heared that they can have a limited life, has anyone got any experience of this?

MGB

[elans3]

Hi MGB, I've had experience of all, from Harder rubber compound, to polymer, to rose joints, to solid steel bushes, and all I can say is that if the majority of your running is on the road, go for the polyflex type. Rose joints are fine if you're running an out and out competition car that will be used for nothing else, but the noise they transmit is horrendous. Don't waste good money on them as after an hour in the car on the road, you'll wish you hadn't. All of my comp bushes were in rally cars, and they're great on an eight or nine minute stage, but go any distance with them on the road, and your ears will be ringing for a week.
The Lotus is so good on tarmac that you really won't notice the differenc e if you're going to be an occasional competitor. The only thing you lose is the adjustability, but I doubt if you'd need that unless you got extremely serious about hillclimbing for example, when you'd be looking for the last few tenths of seconds.
If you're just out for a bit of fun, stick with Colin's finest design, and just replace the metalastik with polyflex.
(There really isn't much difference between the metalastik and the poyflex either). Take a good look at the wishbone bushes on your Elan, and you'll see that there isn't much rubber between the steel inner and outer anyway, so they can't move that much as standard. The polyflex makes it feel just a little more solid and footsure.
Good Luck
Steve, Elan S3 DHC

[rgh0]

I run poly bushes ( from The Ean Factory) inboard front and rear on my Elan for historic racing. The outboard rear bushes are so thin no point changing to poly unless you cant get the standard ones or poly are cheaper. The poly bushes greatly improve stability in fast ( 150 kph plus) corners and hard high speed braking on bumpy surfaces ( above 180 kph). Great for the track but of limited use in day to day driving on the road.

The poly bushes have only a small increase in noise, vibration and harshness and signficantly less than on Elans with rose joints that I have driven. Running stiffer spax dampers made more difference than the poly bushes.

The poly bushes highlight any problems with suspension component alignment as they are not tolerant of misalignment like rose joints or softer rubber bushes.

For my road going Elan Plus 2 I have kept standard rubber bushes as I see no benefit of the change for a plus 2 which is inherently much more stable to begin with and needs no real stability improvement for normal road use IMHO.

Rohan

[berni29]

I run my plus 2 with polybushes, or I did until i crashed it. I liked them and will be putting them onto the +2 that I am building up at the moment.