Last year's story on the Condor Speed Shop mentioned that they had a friend make new motor mounts and suspension bushings from Delrin. They now sell those parts on eBay. It's a neat material, and thanks to the glorious intart00bz, people who make little oddball parts have a market. We got a connector for the Porsche that way.
http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/project-cars/1984-porsche-911-carrera/cottage-industry-support-our-porsche/
Okay, so I've been meaning to ask, because it is relevant to my SP desires and such:
What the heck is delrin, and where can I find bushings, etc. made of it? Is it really tough and non-giving like I hear? That is, does it really give 99.9% of the performance of solid metal mounts?
There's not many cars that have delrin parts available for them off the shelf, ESPECIALLY in the area of suspension bushings.
You'll have to have them made. Usually on a lathe. The material itself isn't ridiculously expensive, luckily.
Yes, it's really tough and doesn't have any real give to it. 99.9% of solid steel mounts might be pushing it, but it's an easy 90-95% for sure. WAYYYYY harder than poly.
Delrin is an acetal resin trademarked by DuPont. It is used for suspension bushings because it machines beautifully. It isn't designed to be a bushing material and it wears pretty quickly. My experience is with control arm bushings on an A1 VW. I got about 4 months of driving on them and they were ridiculously shot. Delrin is hard so it is a rough ride.
UHMW Polyethylene is supposed to be a far superior material for suspension bushings and as a bonus it is less than 1/10 of the price. It however machines like crap.
This thread
http://corner-carvers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8786&highlight=delrin
has the typical battling egos of a corner carvers thread but there is VERY good tech in there.
FWIW, there's a DSP MX6 that's been running Delrin bushings for at least 2 years, he hasn't mentioned any real degradation.
I'll agree that UHMW is better. Got a buddy out here that used to make shifter bushings out of that stuff, i have a set. He hated doing it though, for the reason you said. Machines like crap.
Hrm... looks like this place will manufacture bushings to spec... http://www.plasticbushingdesign.com/
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