OK, coming clean up front -- I'm a rookie when it comes to suspension changes. I'm looking to upgrade the suspension of my SE... not springs and bars, but things like bushing, tie rods, and other front suspension changes,

My question: what's the best changes that I can make? And what benefits should I expect from the changes? Better ride? quieter? Better performance?

thx for the help folks!

 

Really depends on mileage but more often than not:

Ball joints
Inner and Outer Tie rod Ends
heavy duty Moog idler arm
Pitman arm
Poly bushings
Rubber rear upper bushings w/PB&J mod
OR
Trilink setup
Spherical links for front tension rods

Steering will be much tighter, suspension will be slightly stiffer with the bushings. PB&J mod will loosen up rear upper links or go to Trilink to remove entire binding issue completely.

 

I just replaced my tie rods(both inner and outer) pitman steering arm, new control arms ( Mazda factory manual says to replace entire arm instead of pressing in new ball joints, some folks here will say just press them in but cost of having them pressed in, purchase price of joints and bushings not far from new ones on e-bay) and bushings, idler arm, end links, sway bar bushings and tension rod bushings. Then took it in to a good front end shop and had them adjust the steering box (you only want someone to do this who knows what they are doing as they can screw it up if they are not familar with it). Sounds like a lot of work and it is but MAN, what a difference. Drives like a new car. No wonder steer and super responsive. Best thing I have done to my 81. You can find a lot of parts on e-bay at good prices and what you cant find there blackdragon.com has them plus a great catalog with exploded diagrams. My biggest thing with any car is that it starts, stops and steers well. Also do some searces on this subject as a lot of help on this forum. Hope this helps.

 

My stock suspension is pretty tight still (just turned 30k miles). I was looking at what to do that would be improvements over stock parts that wear out over time.

I probably need to replace the shocks.... pretty obvious, but didn't even think of it until now.

 

Well, idler arm always disintegrates from the heat of the exhaust... the moog one uses a ball joint and is a usual heavy duty upgrade but I don't think you need to really do it unless your bushings are in trouble. The real improvements come when you do struts / shocks & springs. The rear end is where you should do most of your work... stock it binds pretty bad and if you really want to do some good suspension work losing the upper links and going with a trilink setup makes a substantial improvement. This requires welding etc. Others can elaborate on how to do this.

 

thx for the insight. On shocks, I know everyone usually goes with Tokiko.... are struts likely to be dried out and shot, or are they likely OK, but I'd get a performance boost from replacing them?

 

Check out Respeed's products, they have bearing inserts for the rear and many other very cool parts, Billy is a great dude to deal with

 

Really depends I think. My shocks were holding up pretty well at 140k, but the struts were leaking pretty badly.