Front end groan and other odd noises - '95 GT

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Alright, now that I have the rear end worked out, I'm trying to fix the front now. The previous owner of my 95 GT put used Lakewood 70/30 struts on the front and 50/50s on the back. It also has offset poly steering rack bushings. I'm running Steeda Superlite springs with poly iso's front and rear. When the car is stationary and I turn the wheel, it makes a groaning/popping noise from the front control arm area. I also noticed the last time I had the front wheels off that one of the boots is torn on the ball joints. Are the ball joints the culprit? I was just going to replace the whole front control arm assembly with the 03/04 Cobra arms. That way I get new ball joints, new lower control arm bushings and shiny new control arms.

My second question is about struts/shocks. I want to replace the Lakewoods with something a little more street friendly. The rear had a cheap coilover setup which was setup for drag racing. I removed it when I switched to the Steeda springs but had to leave the top collar of the coilover kit because the rear shock was missing the upper bushing. Now, when ever I reverse direction quickly (like backing out of a parking spot then going forward) there is a loud "BANG" coming from the rear suspension. I can hear and feel it around the rear seats. I think its the coilover collar moving around in the upper shock mount but I'm not sure. The car has UPR econo upper and lower rear control arms. I can get a good deal on Tokico HPs. I just want a good D/D non-adjustable set. Also the Fox versions are $25 cheaper than the 94-04 versions. I've read all the controversy about using Fox struts in an SN95 but I just want a simple answer: Would I run into any issues running the Fox ones? If not I'm buying them ($274 for front and rear). Thanks in advance for any advice you guys can give me!
 
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The car has UPR upper and lower control arms which are about 2 years old. The UCA bushings on the differential side could probably be replaced. I don't know how old they are since the car doesn't have the factory axle housing. I do, however, have a pair of spherical bushings for the UCAs on the diff side. Would I see any benefit to putting these in? Or would it simply transmit too much road noise and harshness for daily driving?
 
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Here are the bushings; does anybody know who makes them? They kinda look like Steeda's but they are different.

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Paradox

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I seriously doubt you would like the spherical or whatever those are for daily driving. They probably would not last long either since any speck of dirt can get in there. Those usually are for race setup's only. Go with a set of rubber UCA rear bushings to prevent damage to the torque box. It sounds like you have poly on the body side of the UCA. Poly/Poly or Poly/Spherical on the UCA is probably asking for damage to the torque box.
 

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