In case you were wondering how they hold up after 90k miles, the answer is "pretty well."


Apart from a little crumbing on the OD, they don't show much wear (the chunk in the second picture was likely removed during extraction). As for their performance, I will find out later. I didn't notice any difference when I swapped the original, crappy bushings years ago. When I upped the boost I was getting some steering issues kind of like torque steer. These bushings are very stiff so I wouldn't think they're the culprit, but we'll see soon. I changed to the Moog spherical bushings. I also swapped axle seals and I'm currently letting the thread sealant finish curing before I give it some beans to test the torque steer situation.

 

Oh, the control arms are light years easier to install with the spherical bushings.

 

Ive seen these before. Always been curious.
forgot, they for fe5 lsj or fe5 lnf?

I remember these being decently priced, too. Nice to see em holding up

 

So you went from the solid MOOG bushings to Moog Spherical bushings? Why did you swap - do you have issues or did you figure it was about time based on miles? I'm also curious why you went with Moog vs Powell or OTTP - was it a pure cost choice?

I'm asking a bunch of questions because I'm about to swap in new control arms with Powell spherical cabs into my 2009 LNF - mine look ok from what I can see in the car, but I am getting a bunch of movement on acceleration. I didn't realize how much until I began driving the 2007 SS/SC everyday.

 

They are the same for both (it's the ball joint that's different). They are listed as not compatible with FE3/FE5 due to dissimilar metals, but I didn't have any problems. I'll have to press out a bushing to see if there's an issue in the interface.

I swapped now because I needed to replace the axle seals, and I've had an extra set of arms for a while waiting for an excuse to put them in. Since the arms needed to come off, it made sense. I can manage the steering issues fine, and I'm still not entirely certain it's due to the bushings. I'll find out later today hopefully.
Purely cost, but these weren't that cheap. I got the FE5 ones that are zinc coated, but in hindsight the normal ones probably would've been fine. I know Powell's are really nice, but if these last 50k miles then it'll work out fine for me. Pulling the control arms takes literally 10 minutes now. I also have zero rust thanks to my climate so I don't need to worry about that.

 

Did a couple quick 3rd gear pulls and didn't notice any torque steer. I'll keep "testing."

 

Thanks for the update. Gonna have to order some!

 

Hey sorry to ask a question in your thread but it relates to the topic and I didn’t want to start a new thread for a simple question. I’m actually trying to change out my control arm bushings right now. I have Moog for the front bushings and the zzp solid control arm bushings for the rear.

When I was trying to remove the control arm the other for the first time, there was this loud popping noise. On the rear bolt that goes thru the control arm bushings. I noticed that the bolt goes through the sub frame and got worried when I heard that loud popping noise it happened like three times and I stopped what I was doing and put the bolt back in. Also I was running out of time so I figured I’d get it done another day.

Does the control arms need to be jacked up so that they are level and not hanging down? Or is the loud popping noise normal?

 

This is good info on those moogs for the fe3/fe5. I'm going to with these bushings also instead of the more expensive powell version.

 

I would support the control arm, yes. The stock rubber bushings will put a load on the bolt, otherwise. Also, often times, the center sleeve in the stock bushings with sort of rust-weld themselves to the bolt; unfastening the bolt can tear the bushing up... and then make it seemingly impossible to pull the bolt out. And third, too much binding on the bolt and/or using too much of an ugga-dugga (impact) can break the captive nuts loose. Not the end of the world, but certainly a major PITA. It really depends on where your car has lived its life. Cars in areas that heavily salt the roads for winter are typically the worst - looks like you're in NC... you may not have that problem, just depends on where the car was before you bought it.

So the popping could have been that you had already undone the bolt/nut connection, but that the binding of the control arm on the bolt wouldn't allow it to come out, and so it felt like it hadn't loosened all the way, but in reality, it had.

TL;DR - try again, but support the control arm so that the CAB aligns with the bolt.

 

If you have access to a lift, do it there. Just on jack stands, took me nearly 5 hours to change out the control arms (new cabs and Ball joint installed already) mostly because I was fighting difficult angles.

 

I kinda had a question relating to the axle seals. What brand did you go with because I did both of mine when i had trans out a year and a half ago when I installed the stage 4 clutch. I used the zzp performance ones and the pass side is leaking already. Im fairly certain I installed them square and perfect and the carrier has no play, I was just wondering if it's fairly common for the axle seals to leak or if the aftermarket ones just aren't as good. I did buy a factory one and just waiting till I drive it to work again to pop it in.

 

I used National Seal seals. I just put them on so I can't tell you about their durability. They had good reviews online. It looked like the ZZP ones are the same brand but the numbers on the picture were different so I don't know if it's the same exact seal or not. They were a real PITA to put in, though.

I don't think it's common for the stock seals to leak. Mine was weeping after 125k miles and the other side was fine. I had removed the axles from the transmission at 72k miles without replacing them and didn't have any issues till now. It's also possible that the axle shaft at the seal surface is worn causing your premature leak.

 

With everything I been through with this car I thought I was being proactive with doing the seals while I had the trans out lol. I did notice though that the factory seals has a rubber sealing surface in the outside where as the zzp one is just metal. Maybe the seal is leaking where it seats to the transmission casing. I've had every type of problem with this car except timing chain, motor, or turbo issues

 

Yeah man that really sucks. I feel your pain with those cars. I went through hell about a month ago with my steering rack and steering shaft. Went to my local shop to get it done and the parts shop sent them a bad rack which I found out quickly after I drove it home. Felt like I was driving with one tire on the front swerving all over the road I was soo pissed because I dumped over a grand for that repair. Thankfully the shop owner is a really good guy and took the car out and said he take care of it and took the rack out and ordered me a new one specifically ac delco for the fe3/fe5. The original one was a remanufactured rack so basically sometimes its better to stick with oem parts for our cars even if its not a performance upgrade.

 

Yup. I've done my clutch 3 times, never go with clutchmasters again. Ended up going southbend stage 4, axle seals, shifter cables, master cylinder, e brake cables, front and rear springs, front strut top plates and bearings (rotted through), front stab links, control arm bushings, pass wheel bearing, intermediate steering shaft, fuel lines front to back (rotted through), fuel pump, intercooler (blew up), multiple a/c leaks, even inside door handles fell apart. It was beat on hard by the previous owner. I never seen someone successfully snap off the shifter cables from the trans bracket and actually ziptied them on long enough to sell the car

 

Yup. I've done my clutch 3 times, never go with clutchmasters again. Ended up going southbend stage 4, axle seals, shifter cables, master cylinder, e brake cables, front and rear springs, front strut top plates and bearings (rotted through), front stab links, control arm bushings, pass wheel bearing, intermediate steering shaft, fuel lines front to back (rotted through), fuel pump, intercooler (blew up), multiple a/c leaks, even inside door handles fell apart. It was beat on hard by the previous owner. I never seen someone successfully snap off the shifter cables from the trans bracket and actually ziptied them on long enough to sell the car

 

Damn lol. Sounds like you have basically replaced every bolt on the car. Yeah wear I'm from in Canada a lot of cobalts are rusted to **** now and that mainly because people didn't take care of them and did no work to replace parts. Thankfully I babied my g5 gt for the most part but even still my stock suspension was beat to **** before I replaced everything. Now i'm finishing replacing control arm bushings then I'm getting new engine mount and tranny mount inserts from turbo tech racing and get the powell rear swar bar to finish off the suspension upgrades. Plus I'm going to get some new tires probably firestone firehawks all season performance tires.

 

Once it's all done it'll be nice, I'm doing factory struts and shocks next and new tires. I didn't have enough money for the struts when I found the broken springs and rusted spring plates. I did zzp lowering springs. My basic plan is to keep up on it until we buy this house and I have a garage and then it's going under the knife. The turbo im going to do myself but the cams and balance shaft and timing chain stuff I may have a tuning shop do since there's special break in procedures for cams and the car can get tuned right away.

 

Oh yeah that'll be a nice setup once its done. One of the things I love about these ecotec engines is you can make them very fast with a good turbo setup and make them handle good as well. The plan for me right now is finish the handling stuff then look into upgrading the power train. Right now i'm still N/A and still haven't decided either to turbo or do a basic lsj supercharger swap for now. I'm also auto so I know if I'm going to add more power the tranny will need to be rebuilt at some point and add a tranny cooler as well.