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Forged Upper Ball Joint for NA and NB. Yes, both.
Cir-clip retention in addition to knurled press-in design.
Made in the USA
Spacer for NA usage so that the castle nut reaches the cotter pin hole.
When we buy a new project car with the intent of track or autocross use, the first step is always catching it up on preventative maintenance. For most, that includes the basic tune up stuff, fluids, pads, tires, etc. For us, it also includes fresh hubs, bearings and flanges, as well as balljoints and tie rod ends. These cars are getting long in the tooth. Moving parts, wearable items, and highly stressed parts should all be addressed before track use. We now have a line of high quality, forged, parts that are made in the USA and available for all 90-05 Miatas.
We'll have a full front end refresh kit with the Inner Tie Rod options up as soon as the inners roll in, but each individual part listed above is available now.
Perhaps silly question, my NB is a 2003, but only has 55,000 miles on it (prior owner basically didn't drive it much) . Is it likely that the rubber in ball joints + tie rod ends still ought to be replaced? Honestly haven't had it up in the air at home since it drives ok, but i'm not sure if its response is really what I should expect from it either
Why have people spent the last decade talking about putting LE tie rods on their NBs for optimum parts-binning bumpsteer eradication?
Im going to go out on a limb and guess that the "LE's are best" statenebt started before the NB came around, and that point stuck going forward, even though the NB's are the same.
That or when Mazda ran out of NOS on LE tierod ends, they simply updated the replacement PN to the NB part as it was "close enough" and you can no longer get the mythical unicorn fart scented LE tierod ends.
Just to clarify, this is me guessing, if someone actually knows, please feel free to call BS.
You can get LE tierod ends. There's been pretty in-depth discussions even in the last 2-3 years on the subject involving BBundy and i thought it was still common knowledge that upgrading to LE tie rod ends from "normal" NB tie rod ends was a good thing for NB owners.
The LE tie rod end and NB tie rod end are also different part numbers through Mazda. Seems there's some confusion as to what's actually being said in this thread. What there actually is, is LE/R tie rods, and not-LE/R tie rods. It's not NA vs NB, NB parts are not same as LE/R.
Last edited by concealer404; 11-08-2018 at 12:02 PM.
When I installed LE Tie Rods they looked different than the NB ones I took out. Don’t know what to say otherwise.
I certainly feel more comfortable buying SuperMiata components vs some unknown aftermarket brands. These upper ***** joints are a welcome option over replacing upper A arms. The ELBJ was a game changer for me! I would like to better understand what’s going on with this tie rod thing though.
Last edited by k24madness; 11-10-2018 at 10:28 AM.
Update to info on our OTR's. We mistakenly stated R pkg and NB as same geometry. They are not. NA R pkg and LE are about 5mm longer to reduce angle of inner tie rod ends when car is lowered. This reduces bump steer. All other NA and NB OTR's have the same,geometry which is shorter.
The Supermiata forged OTR's are R/ LE geometry, longer and best suited to lowered cars to reduce bump steer. Matter of personal taste but I also like to add a 1/4" spacer under the steering rack in addition to the roughly 1/4" correction of our OTR's.
We stated a few times in multiple threads you had it wrong, to no response. I'm about 99.9% sure you're selling non-R/LE parts and have been, based on feedback seen and pics of what people have recieved when ordering these parts.
We stated a few times in multiple threads you had it wrong, to no response. I'm about 99.9% sure you're selling non-R/LE parts and have been, based on feedback seen and pics of what people have recieved when ordering these parts.
Cant tell from pics. We have all the relevant OEM Mazda parts and have measured on the bench. Pretty clearly defined and repeatable, no ambiguity.
But feel free to purchase the parts and take your own measurements. Speculation based on potato cam pics here notwithstanding.