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Hickster's MB9 Aerodeck-


hickster

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  • 3 weeks later...

Everybodys bank holidays look a bit like this... don't they?

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Interior now pleasantly gunmetal; carbon wrap all gone

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I have realised this is not a poor colour match- it is exactly the colour inside the tailgate and other internal areas not exposed to the sun :roll: . It turns out I like Vesuvio red as it should be so I have changed tack a bit and will be coding a lot more bits in it. Every single panel needs attention so it will end up as a piecemeal respray.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Decided on a course of action for the trailing arm bushes, I had to do something as the rubber on the old ones was falling out of the shell :? . I am trying a set of Energy bushings as they claim to be only a fraction harder than stock (a claim I can not verify I'm afraid as I have never driven or been in a single Honda that hasn't had completely fekked TAB's). I got hold of these for £15 so worth a try.

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Not much effort needed to get the old out, however the shells looked like this and needed a fair bit of cleaning.

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Getting the new ones in is a bit of a pig; I had to make up a tool out of a spring compressor and some oak boards! Even getting the cross pin back in required spring compressors and a long bar- this is definitely a tight setup, no worries there.

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Immediately on driving I could tell the improvement was well...big. I don't doubt new OEM ones would also be an improvement (and there is a tiny increase in road noise) but I am still impressed. I have been thinking (and looking with the aid of a jack under the LCA) and it seems to me there may be a huge amount of BS surrounding these bushes. I can not see how harder ones would lock out the active geo there is just not that much movement here. The lateral movement in the oem item is high but it uses only a fraction of a degree of that when fitted. The energy bushes are free to slide on the cross pin (which they do by about 5mm when unloaded) and even they will generate one or two degrees lateral twist, you could fill the shells with concrete and it would hardly impede the movement of the 3 fixed points (toe arm, camber arm & LCA). Another perhaps minor issue is that when lowering the car you need to clock the TAB's accordingly a few degrees so that they sit level but I am pretty sure not many people have ever done it which would mean the cross pin is not loaded properly at all- aftermarket bushes will reset themselves. I have heard that some people replace them with spherical bearings, but this seems a very expensive and unnecessary way of going about things. I could now reasonably cut out the old shells (although it risks damaging the trailing arm) but after just 3 days on 'backup plan' bushes I am rapidly changing my mind about them. I also can't detect any tracking issues (which would definitely occur with new OEM units).

In other news; after 10 months of working out how to get the most out of the car I have come up with some plans...

It has to be lowered!

It does need some mods after all. Although mighty frugal on the motorway I find a large proportion of my driving is on B roads and cornering with economy is a little tricky to say the least. I am not sure if the cost of insurance/ Eibach springs and a 3 point brace will balance out in fuel but it will look and drive better anyway- and the aim is to make it as fuel efficient as possible not as cheap as possible!

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Yeah with a better handling motor you won't need to slow down so much for the bends, so saving braking and accelerating which means saving fuel! :D

Also consider "the racing line", try to take the bends as smooth as possible, use the full width of the lane too! You'll carry more speed through the same bend thus again, no braking means not wasting fuel building speed back up!

I also let off early and go down through the gears on approach to save braking.

Just a few ideas if you don't already do this! :)

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