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Originally Posted by EchoOfSilence
What rod ends do SPL use?
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Our in house products (tension rods, tie rod ends, etc) use QA1 2-piece chomoly PTFE-lined rod ends. Products we import from Japan (NAMS btw, not KTS) use M16 (M18 for lower arms) steel 2-piece PTFE-lined rod ends. These may not be the best rod ends, but do have high pre-load new, so they wear slowly and takes years to develop any play. They are also oversized for the application which increases their load rating and helps reduce wear. Our customers and our own experience can attest that these hold up well over years, and we have had zero complaints about them binding/seizing (search our history)...
We do stock QA1 M16 3-piece (chromoly housing, stainless race, bearing steel ball, PTFE lined) rod ends that we offer to customers for the subsidised price of $20/pair. We would have added them to the arms we sell but this is a very price sensitive market, and in our experience unecessary since the regular ends work very well. But if you want the upgraded ends, we have them, just give us a call. BTW, M18 3-piece ends are unfortunately not readily available.
I know some vendors make a big deal out of using 3-piece rod ends, but FYI while 3-piece rod ends generally wear better than 2-piece ends, their one drawback is the reduced misalignment. That is why we do not use 3-piece ends on our tie rod ends and tension rods. On the rear multillink where high misalignment is unecessary 3-piece rod ends can be used.
BTW I don't know why this is such a hot topic now, I thought it has been well known for a while now the greasable rod ends sold by some vendors (and on ebay) is junk. A search would have revealed several posted failures from 1-2 years back... But if some of you remember, in theory these sounded good at the time, some vendors hyped these type of ends as "protecting your investment" because you can grease them and have them last forever. Similarly, an all SS rod ends sounds good, but with all due respect to member "titan", I would not recommend them for race use unless you oversize them by 2 sizes, because they have only about half the load rating of a regular steel rod end.
If you live in an environment with alot of road salt, please wash and inspect your suspension regularly. Even with an all SS rod end, other parts of the arm, the subframe, spindle, bolts, etc can still develop rust.