5X Racing Miata/MX-5 Door Bushings

These replace the OEM soft rubber door bushings with far superior machined Oil-Impregnated Polystone plastic. These are not the same as the common Delrin versions available elsewhere on the market as we use a very high-tech plastic that has a high-lubricity and is designed for EXACTLY the type of environment where door bushings live. These are NOT 3D printed, nor should a high-impact part such as these be 3D printed (careful of 3D printed eBay door bushings!)

Read about the development process behind our bushings in our blog!

What do they do?
Your Miatas doors are held closed by the door latch, but they're kept in proper alignment by a cupped bracket on the door that slides over a rubber bushing bolted to the door jamb when the door is closed. This cup/bushing combo is designed to align the door and hold it tight vertically (and in a lesser extent horizontally), but with Mazda using rubber for the bushings, the door to chassis connection isn't as tight as it could be. With a convertible - and more specifically the Miata - the doors are used as a structural connecting brace between the front of the chassis and the rear because of a lack of a roof structure (B & D pillars). This tends to make convertibles more flexible than a fixed roof car, which translates into squeaks and rattles throughout certain places in the chassis, especially the doors. With solid door bushings, the door is more solidly locked into place than it is with the rubber bushings, as the solid bushing creates a solid link on the latch side to match the solid link in the front with the hinges, all of which reinforces the chassis and creates a more solid and rigid car overall. It is such a simple concept and hard to believe, but that very slight movement the OEM rubber door bushings allow does translate into the car finding ways to squeak and rattle. While solid bushings won't heal a car with a horrible shimmy from out-of-balance wheel/tire, they have been known to make the car feel more solid over rough roads and railroad track crossings as well as reducing rattles and squeaks from an aging convertible.

How do they install?
Installation is quick and easy. Simply remove the two bolts that hold the factory rubber bushing in place and replace with our solid bushing along with the new bolts we provide. The new bolts are the same size as the OEM bolts, but without the screwdriver head. They're also zinc-chromate plated to provide excellent corrosion resistance as this area is exposed to water/rain/corrosive fallout in Winter (look at the condition of your original bolts). Upon reinstallation, do not tighten the bolts completely, just snug them and ensure the bushings can move beneath the bolts with moderate force. Center the bushings on the jamb and close the door. This process will auto-align the bushings to the cups on the door. Open the door and final tighten the bolts using sensible torque from a 3/8" ratchet and 10mm socket. With the Nylatron material having such a low-coefficient of friction and self-lurbication, it might feel as if the bolts are not tightening completely, but they are.

Will they require modification?
No. Our bushings were designed to fit right out of the box. Other brands require sanding of the bushing to get the "best fit", which is really another way of saying they're too big and won't fit out of the box. This is annoying. Our bushings won't require sanding and are designed to allow the door to be closed with little to no additional effort than required with the OEM bushings.

What is Nylatron and why do we not use Delrin like everyone else?
The first answer is: "If we can't make it different than everyone else, why make them at all?!" While delrin is a great material and it most certainly qualifies for use as a door bushing, our research led us to find that Nylatron might be an even better material for a door bushing due to a few standout qualities, most notably it's Low Coefficient of Friction due to its oil-impregnation, Abrasion, chemical and corrosion-resistance, Self-Lubricating Formula, and high-impact resistance.