Tonight I put the exhaust back on, put the car on the ground, torqued the suspension fasteners and the subframe nuts, then took the car for a brief ride (maybe an hour).

I wasn't really expecting a noticeable difference. Well, I sort of was (more on that later), but not really. I was wrong.

Before I even got off our dirt road, I was smiling. Less wiggle/chatter in the rear, car tracks straighter over bumps. Whaddya know, my suspension is actually working on the small stuff now.

Turn-in is noticeably more precise, even at five tenths. A good indication of the amount the subframe moves with the stock bushings. At eight to nine tenths, there's no mistaking the difference.

Difference in hard transitions is almost night-and-day (empty Meijer's parking lot). Not something you'd normally notice on the street, but if you're pushing the car near the limit, you'll notice immediately. I assume Randy has observed the same thing with his stuffers.

No discernable change in drivetrain noise in the cabin.

Almost imperceptible difference in road bump transmission to my butt, and only on steep bumps that want to pull the subframe rearward. Not a sharp jolt, just a tiny bit more thump. If you don't live in a pothole-ridden state like Michigan, you probably won't notice it at all. And the upside of the car tracking straighter over rough surfaces more than makes up for it.

Tentatively the best $90 I've spent on the car (assuming it doesn't cause problems over the long haul).

As mentioned, I wasn't expecting a noticeable difference right out of the gate. However, there is something I noticed (which I now wish I had photographed) when I had my subframe mount support brackets out. The wear pattern... the left one showed no wear, but the right one's paint was completely gone in the shape of the bottom of the rubber part of the stock bushing. Looking at it, it appeared that the stock bushing was fully deflecting (gap in the webbing fully closed) and then some on a regular basis. It's hard to say why there was no wear of this type on the left one, but it's the opposite of what I expected with my mental picture of subframe movement. Normally the rubber on the bushing doesn't really touch the bracket when the car is at rest. If one of them was going to touch the bracket, I'd expect it to be the left (pulled down during acceleration). From the wear I observed, it looks like the subframe is rotating horizontally (Terry, I hope you're reading this ), with the left mount as the pivot point. However, there are other possible explanations, since I haven't taken measurements. I live on a dirt road, so there's always mud and dirt finding its way between the bushing and bracket. More mud == more wear. No way of knowing which side has seen more mud over time. But I don't think that's the explanation.

I was too anxious to get the new bushings in to take all the measurements I wanted. For example, I didn't measure subframe droop with the stock bushings (i.e. how much the diff cover moved down with everything disconnected except for the subframe mounts). I do know it was quite a bit more than with the Ireland bushings (more than double). With the Ireland bushings, the diff cover moves down only 1" before the bushings stop it (wheels removed, but all other mass in place on the rear subframe). This is with only 50 ft-lbs of torque on the subframe mounting nuts. It's probably a little less when they're torqued to spec (I have a Butt-Strut, so that's 80 ft-lbs).