Hi SD07GT,
As far as I can tell all of the flat/square ended polyu bushings no matter how many pieces of polyu they use have more bind in them than I would like to see. So no, I do not think the Steeda 3-piece bushing fully resolves the issue of S197 UCA bushing bind. Is it improved? Yes. Is it fixed? No.
But the amount an S197's UCA shaft has to rotate in the real world is not very much maybe 10-15 degrees or so on a car with springs and bars and I think this is O.K. with a soft outer and hard inner polyu bushing. The Steeda Comp/Street UCA/ UCA mount in my car has been in there for some time about 20K miles or so and the UCA mount side of the control arm shows no wear or compression flow. This is very different from the LCA bushings on the chassis side of the LCA which start to show wear fairly quickly.
The real issue with all of the polyu bushings is that the bushing sleeve has to compress/displace the polyu which is supporting the bushing sleeve. So unless I could use a spherical bearing (rod-end) of some sort there is just no way to escape having some bind in the UCA bushings when the axle rolls in the chassis. It's not a lot and I doubt it has much impact on the chassis handling or launch performance in the real world for a N/A motored car.
I'd like to experiment with some kind of isolated spherical bearing in the UCA mount side (it's a lot easier than trying to press out the axle top bushing) to reduce the bind factor. The problem is I just don't see any problem with the Steeda Comp/Street adjustable UCA/UCA mount kit, it works, works well and is quiet so I'm not inclined to mess with it if at all possible.
You missed a fine day of historic racing! But they will be back next year. The whole work thing is a mess and I wish you well. I'm going to try to open a new business next year and hope I can catch the recovery timing right.
HTH!
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