[Turninconcepts.com]

When going to a rear larger bar do yourself a favor and upgrade your rear endlinks when you install the bar. Trust me on this - it will make you happier in the long run. I know folks are going to disagree with me on this, and that's fine, but I'm speaking from experience.

Listen, I'm a simple guy, and if you ask anyone who knows me they'll tell you what a stingy bastard I am. I don't spend money for the sake of spending money. As part of that I don't tell people to spend their money on something unless I feel there's a very good reason. This is a good reason to spend money. I have seen too many stock endlinks bend or break.

Now, here's something to think about in regards to bent or broken rear endlinks. What do you think happens to the bar and the bits of endlink still bolted on after failure? Well, they flop around, and hit things they shouldn't. If you've got an 04 then it kinda scratches up the lateral links a bit, but nothing to worry about. If you have an 05 or newer you have potential for bigger problems. See, the 05 and newer STis came with some really really sweet aluminum lateral links (my being an 04 guy makes me a little jealous of those). When those bits flop around they will scratch, dent, and, in extreme cases, gouge the crap out of your nice lateral links. Now, when it comes to scratches and small dents I wouldn't be too worried, BUT when it comes to chunks being ripped out of those I would start to get a bit concerned about weakening that part and creating stress risers. Have you priced replacement lateral links for the 05+ cars from the dealer? They ain't cheap. Covered under warranty? Yeah, good luck with that. Remember you've modified your suspension right in that area with an aftermarket bar.

Now, many folks know me on this board as we've been on here a while, and they will recognize that I make every effort to try and steer people in a direction that will be beneficial to them. The thing is this board has been growing quite a bit lately, and we have a number of new members. I'm willing to bet that many of the new members who don't know me are just going to up and say "bah and fiddlesticks!!! You're just some vendor trying to make a sale." Listen, sales be damned. I am trying to give you good advice. Don't trust me? Then get some from another vendor. Bottom line I'm a car dork before I'm a vendor, and I'm trying to be helpful here.

[Mykl]

Fiddlesticks!!! Greedy vendors!!!

[stretch]

[Impretzle]

so, what endlinks do you recomend for a cusco rear 22mm adjustable bar?

[Turninconcepts.com]

Originally Posted by Impretzle

so, what endlinks do you recomend for a cusco rear 22mm adjustable bar?

Just about any number of the KNOWN and ESTABLISHED brands are going to be an improvement over stock. What it comes down to is what style you are interested in running. There are two ways you can go:

1) Spherical bearing style
2) Bushing style

There are pros and cons to each, and I'll break them down here.

Spherical bearing style -

These endlinks are typically made in two fashons.

First is the body style. The body is usually aluminum, with a bore on each end to accept a spherical bearing. A spherical bearing consists of a ball (the inner part that moves), and an outter "ring" which is the bearing race. There will be some variations on this in that some bearings use a third component between the bearing and the race for lubrication. Most commonly some kind of teflon impregnated material. Some of the brands that come to mind on this one is Cobb, and Perrin.

The second style is the rod end or heim joint style. These are made up of two rod ends, and are screwed together either by using a male/female combination of rod end like Poltek uses or by using two male rod ends, and a female tube between them like the new Whiteline ones. The rod end version works like the body version, but in this case there is no machined "body." Instead the race and body are integrated into one unit with the bearing in the race. Just like on the other version of the bearing you will sometimes find a liner for lubrication between the ball and the race.

The advantages of going with the spherical bearing style endlinks are responsiveness, and freedom on motion. There is nothing to compress which will transfer full load through the endlink to the swaybar instantly. Since there's a spherical bearing at each end there are moments of rotation on each of the link to allow for the dynamic angle changes as the lateral link moves up and down, and the bar rotates for twisting.

The disadvantages of going with the spherical bearing style link are maintenance, noise, and bar "walking." You have to keep spherical bearings clean, lubricated and dust free. Some of the endlinks out there utilize a rubber "cap" or dustboot to help keep grime out of the bearing, but despite this you should regularly clean them out, and lube them according to the manufacturers instructions. Despite this regular maintenance spherical bearings will loosen over time and result in clunking noises as things move around. Additionally, since it is a solid connection you will transmit more NVH throughout the parts which may result in that NVH being detected in the passenger compartment As for the "walking," that freedom of motion mentioned above can also be a disadvantage as they will allow the bar to slide side to side in it's chassis mounts. This can result in uneven loading of the bar, and in extreme situations contact of the bar with parts that shouldn't be contacted by the bar. Some bar manufacturers are aware of this problem and thus weld collars or stops onto the bar that are designed to rest against the chassis mount bushings, and resist the lateral motion of the bar. If your bar does not have these then you can add some by either using shaft collars or hose clamps (with a bit of rubber beneath the clamp) to help resist this lateral motion.

Bushing style -

The bushing style endlink is very similar to the body style of the sperical bearing type. It consists of a body, usually aluminum, with a bore on each end. Instead of a spherical bearing pressed into the bore there will be bushings. Urethane is the most common material for these bushings. The shape and style of the bushing will vary by manufacturer. Some are a single piece "block" style bushing that has to be mechanically pressed into the bore. Some are a multipiece bushings that is pressed into the bore with just hand pressure. A good example of this is the "split" bushing where you have two halves the bushing that eases installation and possible future replacement. A common theme on either style is a crush tube going through the bore of the bushing. The purposes of this crush tube is to keep the bolt from being tightened too much thus destroying the bushings in addition to providing some "resistance" when the bolt is tightened so that is it possible to acheive the proper torque for installation (tightening torque being a function of stud stretch and interaction of the angles of the threads between the bolt and nut.

Some of the advantages of the bushing design is that they are pretty much maintenance free, will stay quiet, and resist bar "walking." If the endlink with bushings is properly installed there is not much more to do with it. Only a small amount of lube is needed for the urethane/body/crushtube interaction, and that is usually done by the manufacturer during assembly. Once that is done you should really have to touch them again for cleaning or lubrication. Because the bushings are usually urethane that are pressed into place in some manner you don't really have to worry about them loosening and clunking about and they will absorb some of the natural NVH. As for the "walking" the bushing style will naturally resist this due to a decreased freedom of motion in comparison to a bearing type of endlinks. Additionally, it has been shown that by using a bushings endlink with tapered bushings, either externally like Kartboy, or internally like DMS the bar will more easily "self center" after it comes to it's resting, unloaded position.

Some of the disadvantages of the bushing style endlink are that the bushings absorbs some motion to a point before relaying that motion to the bar. This can result in a small delay in getting the bar to move. Whiteline has an excellent paper on this very subject in the tech section of their website. Another disadvantage is the restricted freedom of motion. Some feel that this causes a feeling of "binding" and does not allow relative movement of the suspension parts to move smoothly.

As for brands and style from our experience -

We are very familiar with the rod end style (bearing), perrin (bearing), whiteline (bushing) and kartboy (bushing) brands.

For the rod end style - quite some time ago we tried out hand with making these. We did not like them, BUT that is our version. We attribute it to trying to be cost competitive with these, and using a rod end that would allow us to be cost competitive. While they worked, they became VERY noisey very quickly. If you are considering this style of endlink choose a VERY high quality bearing or rod end. In our opinion Aurora would work well, but the best out there are the bearings and ends made by FK. Despite this my statements above still apply. Now, with that being said we have heard good things about the Poltek rod ends, but we have also heard of the bearing loosening over time.

Perrin - We have a number of customers with these, and in fact Tony ran them on his car for a very long time. While Tony never did experience any noise or problems with them we have seen and heard reports of the bearing loosening or failing. We have also heard reports of the body failing.

Whiteline - Our experience with these is the larger aluminum body style. Whiteline did have an older style that was a bushing with a heavy wire wrapped around an hourglass shaped bushing. While there were some reports of the wire style failing (and subsequently replaced by whiteline in a show of great customer service) there have been no problems with the aluminum bodied ones, when properly installed, that we are aware of. This is one of the brands here at TiC that we can get, and have no problems or hesitations ordering them for customers.

Kartboy - This is the brand that we keep in stock here at TiC. It has a proven track record, and excellent aftersale support. There have been some reports that due to the shorter than stock length some of the adjustable bars will "catch" on the lateral links when on the full stiff setting. We have yet to see this first hand, and applies to the WRX and RS (NOT THE STI). Another additional note on the Kartboy endlinks. A long time ago Tom@Kartboy ran some stress tests on the various endlinks on the market. He doesn't share those test results with the public, but I happen to know them. This is a large part of the reason why we stock his endlinks. The other reason is the aftersale support. See, that's something that is VERY important to us. Should we see the quality go down or aftersale support fall off then we would not hesitate to stock other brands that we like. At the same time Tom@Kartboy is very particular about the quality of his distributors in how they support customers. If at any time he sees us slack off on this I fully expect him to rescind our distributor status.

Now, to actually answer your question - We run Kartboy endlinks on our cars. Not because we stock them, but because the cars are daily driven (no noise from them) and they are a quality, test proven product. In fact, we are running the prototype test fit rear endlinks for the STi on my personal car. They will never be coming off.

My personal take on it - if you have the time and money to replace the bearing style ones when they wear out then go with that. If you daily drive your STi, don't want to keep buy replacement bearings, and you want something that works well for a race on Sunday, drive to work on Monday setup then just go with a bushing style.

[LOLSTi]

I'm in awe of Clint's awesome summary of the Subaru endlink situation. That's amazing.

And +1 from another bent-stock-endlink-with-stock-rear-sway-bar-then-upgraded-to-Kartboys-and-have-had-nothing-but-great-experiances-owner.

[awd4life]

all the knowledge and info in the world still won't help me justify spending $100+ on two little chunks of aluminum w/ some poly bushings stuck in them!!!!!! maybe offer a "deal" on a set. besides i've broken more fronts than rear endlinks anyway.

[LOLSTi]

Originally Posted by awd4life

all the knowledge and info in the world still won't help me justify spending $100+ on two little chunks of aluminum w/ some poly bushings stuck in them!!!!!! maybe offer a "deal" on a set. besides i've broken more fronts than rear endlinks anyway.

troll much?

It's fine if you disagree, but you could at least respond in a fashion that doesn't make you look like a thirteen year old.

[awd4life]

but i am 13!!!!! sorry i'm not an elite hacker, damn.

[mtskibum16]

Nice write-up! Good info.

[stretch]

I don't get how spherical endlinks can be considered high-maintenance when the OE Subaru endlinks are spherical.

[Turninconcepts.com]

Originally Posted by stretch

I don't get how spherical endlinks can be considered high-maintenance when the OE Subaru endlinks are spherical.

Thus the dust boot, and packing with grease. They are trying to make it so you don't have to maintain them by keeping them clean and lubed. Now, if only they had made them stronger...

When I say high maintenace I should have clarified - in relation to the bushing type.

[stretch]

Originally Posted by Turninconcepts.com

Thus the dust boot, and packing with grease. They are trying to make it so you don't have to maintain them by keeping them clean and lubed. Now, if only they had made them stronger...

I thought that might be the only difference, but still- why would the aftermarket overlook such a seemingly simple thing? One could probably improve the Cobb endlinks by simply stretching a tiny water balloon over the end (a cut would be necessary) and zip-tying it. It's also interesting that OEM's seem to have moved away from bushing types to spherical, despite the increased NVH.

[Transworld]

I have the Kartboy endlinks. They are great. I put them on and never looked at them again...ever..I have the Whiteline 22-24 rear sway bar and with the stock endlinks the bar flipped. Well worth the money..

[Turninconcepts.com]

Originally Posted by stretch

I thought that might be the only difference, but still- why would the aftermarket overlook such a seemingly simple thing? One could probably improve the Cobb endlinks by simply stretching a tiny water balloon over the end (a cut would be necessary) and zip-tying it. It's also interesting that OEM's seem to have moved away from bushing types to spherical, despite the increased NVH.

Some of the aftermarket folks have not overlooked that. pltek puts dust shields on theirs, and I believe a few others do also (I want to say you can get them for the Cobbs, but I'd need confirmation on this). Despite this those shields are still not as good as the sealed units from Subaru (but again they are not strong enough which is a different problem than the joint).

I have a feeling that OEM has moved away from it due to the fact that in reality there are only a few companies making the OEM linkes (kinda like RAM for computers), and they drive that decision.