I definitely recommend genuine FKS bearings at -F1 tightness; not sure about the stainless steel variant yet.
TL;DR - The stainless steel bushings seem to be doing a bit better, but I'm not ready to say that they are the right way to go. Yet.
So far, I have just over 16K miles on the FKSSX10T-F1 spherical bearings. The passenger side is still "OK," driver side is "OK+" or "Good-". While they definitely not as tight as new - when a bolt/lever is needed to move the sphere, they certainly aren't loose either - there is no space between the ball and retainer. I can move the ball by hand, relatively easily, and more easily on the passenger side than the driver side. So, these SS bearings are certainly lasting longer than the COM10Ts I was running previously (where I was getting a jiggly joint at 7-10K miles), but I don't know if they would be better than the hardened steel versions.
Oh, and here's my rating scale:
- New
- Good - not new, but still tight.
- OK - not time to replace, but not really tight anymore.
- Time to Replace - loose, but not jiggly.
- Jiggly - noticeable gap between ball and race.
- Oops - starting to wear through one or more of: race, misalignment spacers, shock bolt.
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