Bushings Upgrade For WRX

Whiteline’s roll center correction kit features ball joints with longer shanks that drop the lower control arm outer pivot point to bring the control arm to a more stock-like position in a lowered car. The kit also has tie rods with longer shanks to lower the tie rod pivot location by an equal amount so you don’t add any bump steer.

Whiteline is one of the only companies who make parts that correct geometry issues in many different popular cars on the market. They’re a step above your typical bushing replacement company.

The Whiteline hard polyurethane steering rack bushings for the GD WRX will replace our extremely worn OE rubber parts.

The early 2000-2004 GD WRX had steering rack bushings that wrapped around the rack.  These were made of very soft rubber and allowed the rack to move from side to side and back and forth a lot. This resulted in a rubbery steering feel, and even a shifting steering center on cars with sticky tires and modified suspensions. In 2005 and later Subaru changed the design of the rack to have vertical rack mounting bolts and captured bushings, which solved the problem.

But if you have an older WRX you have nothing to worry about, because Whiteline has hard urethane rack bushings that increase the clamp load on the rack and keep it from moving to fix the rubbery feeling and shifting rack for good.  These bushings are a must have item for all pre-2005 WRXs.

We replaced the worn soft rubber bushing in the front lower control arm forward bushing, rear trailing arm, rear knuckle, rear differential mount and rear diff torque arm mounts with Whiteline’s hard urethane parts. All these bushings help reduce compliance and will help hold alignment settings truer under cornering load. The diff bushings also reduce compliance that can cause component-breaking and traction-reducing wheel hop.
These Whiteline bushings replace the very soft rubber bushings in the transmission cross member. This reduces transmission movements and wind up, improving shifting and reducing another cause of wheel hop.  Ian has already replaced his broken rear transmission mount with an aftermarket hard urethane part so we left that alone.
Hard Urethane Whiteline shifter bushings, part number KDT957 should cure the car’s rubbery and loose feeling shifter.

 

Whiteline’s Pitch Stop Mount part number KBR39  is machined out of billet aluminum and has hard urethane bushings.  The factory part is made out of wimpy plastic with soft rubber bushings. The Pitch Stop Mount will greatly reduce engine and drivetrain movement which can be bad in a super grippy AWD car.  This will reduce the potential for wheel hop, improve shifting and reduce the likelihood of parts breakage.

8 comments

  1. I have a lot of the same parts on my 2005 WRX and absolutely love them. One question, if you needed to replace the rack is there a reason you guys didn’t upgrade to the 2015+ rack? There’s a bit of fabrication needed to make it work on a GD but I’m really glad I did it.

    Keep the GD WRX updates coming, I’m really enjoying them.

  2. Hello MotoIQ. I’ve just wrapped up doing front lower control arm front, front ALK, rear lateral links, and lateral arm bushings from whiteline in my 1999 Subaru RS. I have already had the Roll Center Adjuster kit a few years now.

    I haven’t driven the car yet, but what is your take on these parts “binding”? There’s a lot of info about urethane binding on the net, but I figured Whiteline has taken this into account…or have they? Thanks in advance!

    1. Hi Mike,

      How often do these bushings need to be re-greased? Would it be helpful to wrap the bushing sleeves with teflon tape (doesn’t look like it was done in this instance)?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*
*