Author Topic: Reinforcement, reinforcement, reinforcement!  (Read 7792 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Cheezel

  • antrx.com senior member
  • ****
  • Posts: 392
  • Karma: +9/-0
  • Gender: Male
Reinforcement, reinforcement, reinforcement!
« on: Sep 26, 2011, 04:33PM »
I've been looking into turbo/high powered setups, and started thinking about the effects on the car. Despite that, don't think about my set up in relation to all this, that's just what's inspired all these questions... And FWIW this is (at the moment anyhow) strictly straight-line scenario.

Anywho, big power in the engine results in big force spinning the wheels, but in the process of that force is being shifted from piston to crank to fly to clutch to gears to driveshafts to wheels to rubber. "A chain is only as strong as it's weakest link", so!;

1. Forged internals are easy to come across. rods, valves, valve springs, etc. These have been covered to death on every corner of the internet... What about crankshafts? Is there a certain point these need to be looked at? I'd imagine most street cars are running stock/modified stock cranks at best? Looking at the layout of a crankshaft, I'd imagine these are a particularly hard wearing item. While we're still in the engine, I'm guessing fresh bearings are more than enough for street applications. Regarding race cars etc, what type of bearings do they use? I'd guess it's a bearing that's applied the exact same way as street cars, just made of different compounds? A carbon-moly or something?

2. Flywheels and clutches are easy enough to come across as well. Lightweight strengthened flywheels are available for every car. Point in case you can buy one for the pintara. ::) :D and it's also been covered quite succinctly on ANTRX. Regarding clutches, specifically button clutches (ignoring multi-disc/different compounds, since these have been covered to death again), 4-puck = race, 6 puck = streetable race. I get that it refers to the amount of notches on the clutch disc (or correct me if I've been silly enough to take misinformation from the internet as absolute fact), but I don't understand why a 6 puck grabs 'softer' than a 4 puck?

3. That brings us to the transmission. Certain boxes are stronger than others (hurr hurr... "box" - you know someone was going to do it, and now that it's out of the way.. :P) etc. But when the bigger figures come in, what is it that determines the strength of a complete gearbox? I'd imagine it's a function of the thickness of the carbon coating on the gears (or whatever they used at the time depending on age), how well things still align (i guess this would fall under general 'age' of the box), and the type of material the core of the gears are made of? Not to mention oil coatings obviously. If we introduce human error into this it gets a bit messy, I'd like not to consider it too heavily for the time being... But regarding reinforcement, is it as simple as just a carbon coating on the gears, allow it to "set" into the metal so that it blends properly, and we're done? I'd imagine a good carbon coating would also anneal any cracks/defects on the outer surface. Excuse my first year metallergical take on this, it's all I've got to work with atm :D

4. Diffs I have no idea about. They're a magical box that makes sure the driveshafts spin at a power distribution equal to something close to the amount of grip they've got. I vaguely understand how the viscous diff works (a thick 'oil' i guess? is inside with the two driveshafts such that if one starts spinning faster the oil starts spinning with a rotational frequency equal to the quicker shaft thus spinning the lagging shaft a bit faster), but that's about it. Since I have no idea how this works I couldn't rightfully ask how to improve it! I'd assume a mechanical diff would be more desirable since the viscous liquid would have a considerable 'spin up' time in terms of one driveshaft 'seeing' the other spinning faster.

5. So we're out of the transmission and diff, heading down the driveshafts. I can appreciate there'd be a fair amount of torsion being applied at one end of the driveshaft compared to the other (assume the clutch has just been dumped or something similar), leading to stress in the material. Even on regular driving there'd obviously be a slight "lag" in the rotation of the metal at the wheel as opposed to at the diff. Or am i over exagerating? I could appreciate that i'd be wrong as far as daily driving is concerned, but thinking of the 600rwkw or so that the V8s put out, that's some serious strain on the material. What do they make those things out of?

6. Rims and rubber. 'nuff said. Get better rubber, it wears faster (generally).

7. Chassis. Didn't want to touch this since this opens up a whole can of worms my head isn't ready for, but it does need to be mentioned i suppose. The saying "A chain is only as strong as it's weakest link" rings true here. Big power = big force. If you don't reinforce the chassis, GG.

Offline Cheezel

  • antrx.com senior member
  • ****
  • Posts: 392
  • Karma: +9/-0
  • Gender: Male
Re: Reinforcement, reinforcement, reinforcement!
« Reply #1 on: Sep 27, 2011, 11:27PM »
I'm guessing it's probably a bit too much for one person, so maybe i should state it explicitly: i don't expect one person to answer all of those questions. I'm kinda hoping I'm catching someone intelligent in a "splurging" sort of mood. There's never such a thing as too much information! ;D

Offline noss

  • Administrator
  • post whore
  • *****
  • Posts: 13882
  • Karma: +278/-50
  • Gender: Male
  • great scott!
    • antrx
Re: Reinforcement, reinforcement, reinforcement!
« Reply #2 on: Sep 28, 2011, 02:38PM »
1. apparently the ka24e crankshaft is forged. you may want to check with sss about that though, i think the information was relayed to me from him years ago. out of interest, the rocker arms are also forged.

2. the 'pucks' are as you said, the number of paddles on the clutch. even some 6 puck clutches are not really streetable and engage harshly. the reason it grabs softer is because there are more contact points, making the engagement more uniform and easier to 'slip' the clutch a little and the pressure from the pressure plate is spread over a greater surface area of the flywheel. i spoke in great length with adelaide clutch and talked about what goals i had for the car and they seemed to think that the multi button hybrid clutch was the go. it certainly grabbed nicely when my car was turbo and kranzy runs one of these as well.

keep in mind the harsher engaging clutches will break things like engine mounts, possibly diff and more. make sure you upgrade as much as you can. personally, i wouldn't bother with the 4 or 6.

also keep in mind that the real difference is dependant on the hub of the clutch - sprung vs. unsprung and how stiff the springs in a sprung clutch are (say that fast 5 times!). you could very well have an unsprung full faced clutch that engages harsher than a 6 puck sprung clutch.

3. again from sss. he did a lot of research back in the day in regards to strengthening his gearbox. he was of the impression that cryo treating was the best bang for buck improvement in strength. i followed up on a lot of my own research into this and i am confident in adam's thoughts on this. obviously start with fresh parts. you could also go the straight cut route, maybe only for 1st and 2nd to further strengthen everything, but its cost. PAR charge a mint. fraz mentioned back in the day he knew someone in NZ that would do it, but fraz long ago left for the moon on an epic adventure of awesome and probably can't help out now unless you design some kind of earth-moon communication system from a few bags of macaroni cheese, 3 forks and a ham sandwhich.

4. i personally think you're better off making sure that the cv shaft carrier bearing that prevents torque steer is your best bet in this instance. i never looked into the diffs other than for a lot of money, you can get a mechanical one that will be much better than the viscous one.

5. have not heard of a ka24e driveshaft having issues with turbo setups, but then fwd ka24e turbos are few and far between. kranzy i believe uses a combination sr20/ka24 driveshaft, it might be worth picking his brains on the subject.

6. i run yokohama s drives on the mini. i have had them since january this year, they're really grippy and are holding up quite well, but i don't do as many spirited drives as i used to so maybe that is what is making the tyres last? a friend ran s-drives on his IS200 that he tracked monthly and the tyres lasted 6 months. wider tyres get you a larger contact patch on the ground as well. don't overlook suspension changes that will better keep your tyres on the road. no point having great tyres if the suspension is shot/sub-par.

7. sss filled his chassis rails with foam i believe, this stiffened up the car significantly. front and rear strut tower braces and swaybars will assist in keeping the chassis nice and taught. you can also cross brace between the chassis rails the whole way down the car or partially. roll cages also increase stiffness.

you can get a brace known as a chassis ladder. there is one for the mini cooper for example, pics and info here

http://www.waymotorworks.com/tsw-xbrace.html




http://polyfedelicio.us/imgs/ - free image hosting for whatever you like

Offline Cheezel

  • antrx.com senior member
  • ****
  • Posts: 392
  • Karma: +9/-0
  • Gender: Male
Re: Reinforcement, reinforcement, reinforcement!
« Reply #3 on: Sep 28, 2011, 03:16PM »
Thanks noss! You are as inciteful as my iced coffee is delicious.

1.Without being rude to the KA24E fanbase we have here, the ka24es were never (stock, from factory, FOR GOD'S SAKE DONT FLAME ME FOR THIS) used in race applications, aka the 'hero badge' models are devoid of KA love altogether. So would it be a crazy leap to say that Nissan have either overengineered this part of the car (I don't think "over-engineered' is the term i'm looking for, since it's such an integral part, but it's the closest I could get) or that it's fairly common to get a forged crank? Kinda cool to know the rockers are forged!

2. Ahhh thank you, I was wondering what parts of a FWD car the button clutches would munt. Of course it'd be the engine mounts. ::) Everything affects those damn mounts... :P I already knew about the increased pressure on the drivetrain, but completely forgot about mounts. Joys of a E/W motor.

So you've gone the cushion button route? I've driven a cushion button before, I didn't like the feel of it tbth. I can appreciate that each clutch will feel different, even two identical pinis with the same clutch will have different engaging points, but it just felt odd. Freshly installed on an SR20 fwiw. I'm more concerned about drivetrain wear though. As well as, obviously, clutch wear. I'd like to know if anyone who's daily'd a multi-button found they had to replace the clutch and certain components more often.. i could imagine forcing a bit of slip (slow/comfortable engagement) would wear the clutch a lot more.

3.Hope SSS posts here. I'd like to know more details about this. I don't know enough about metal treatments to have an intelligible discussion regarding this, I think that's made plenty obvious by my "derp... carbon it?" comment :P
I may get in touch with fraz. I've been working on an interplanetary relay system using a pound of rice and eight magnets, I'm sure I could adapt it for short distances. Although the ham-rice interaction coeffecients might be difficult to manage, depending on the system fraz has on his end.

4. without trying, yet succeeding wildly, to sound ignorant, would it not be cheaper to buy another fwd box with a mechanical diff and just mod it to fit the KA box? I originally had that as "easier" but quickly changed that, although I'm not sure I should have. Even bolt on stuff is typically "yeah just shave it here and here... and here then weld a bracket here and it bolts right on!" for this car, but anyhow:

Given the types of strains that a diff would go under for high hp cars (stepping outside the realm of fwd/pintara), I'd imagine the treatments for the diff would be the same as the treatment for gear boxes? Given that they're all mechanical gears..

7. I remember trawling and came across this. Couldn't he only get it in quanities to do three cars at once? Or am I wildly mistaken... off topic for a moment but I haven't actually seen sss' black TRX, just heard about it in passing (a LOT. :P)

Offline SSS

  • Administrator
  • post whore
  • *****
  • Posts: 8279
  • Karma: +5020/-3
  • Gender: Male
Re: Reinforcement, reinforcement, reinforcement!
« Reply #4 on: Sep 28, 2011, 05:53PM »
Stay tuned, i'll reply to this tomorrow.

Offline noss

  • Administrator
  • post whore
  • *****
  • Posts: 13882
  • Karma: +278/-50
  • Gender: Male
  • great scott!
    • antrx
Re: Reinforcement, reinforcement, reinforcement!
« Reply #5 on: Sep 28, 2011, 07:11PM »
don't get too excited i may be entirely wrong, especially on te forged crank part, hence chat to sss. but looks like he's got something coming. hopefully he won't prove me wrong on too many points lol.

i should also point out when i was talking about the difference in clutches being the sprung or unsprung centre, i meant the a portion of the harshness of the engagement is attributed to this factor, but i'm pretty sure you picked up on that.

Freshly installed on an SR20 fwiw

pulsar? don't forget that they're cable clutch, the pintara is a hydraulic clutch.

I've been working on an interplanetary relay system using a pound of rice and eight magnets




http://polyfedelicio.us/imgs/ - free image hosting for whatever you like

Offline Vithy

  • post whore
  • *****
  • Posts: 1516
  • Karma: +7/-3
  • Gender: Male
Re: Reinforcement, reinforcement, reinforcement!
« Reply #6 on: Sep 28, 2011, 08:55PM »
I am highly intrigued about foam in chassy rails to increase stiffnes.....NEVER heard of that before but it makes sense. Any foam specifically??(Im assuming a spray can foam was being used as its easiest to install.)

In terms of tyres Ive had a few mates run Toyo R1R which are apparently AMAZINGLY grippy but they are worth a pretty penny and dont last very long. 10,000km odd of driving is around the mileage on the street people are getting (pending driving style obviously)
Mates also running Fedral RSR which are semi slick but they are still pretty good in the rain and very good in price considering the amount of grip they offer. And they are also rumoured to have a good mileage as they are said to go hard after a few heat cycles but are still able to offer amazing grip levels. Im yet to have a set of my own but plan to run them when i get my car off the workshop fixing my car. But from what ive herd and experienced i would highly recommend the RSR.

Also in plan on increasing power outputs of a car not design to handle them you gotta keep in mind things like cooling and brakes. But alot of that kinda stuff has been covered here aswell :)




"Noss is God"

Offline mattyj

  • antrx.com full member
  • ***
  • Posts: 181
  • Karma: +3/-0
  • Gender: Male
  • 1991 pintara T
Re: Reinforcement, reinforcement, reinforcement!
« Reply #7 on: Sep 28, 2011, 09:32PM »
i am not able to help with anything here except the tyres, ill state the obvious here with tyres you get exactly what you pay for, and 10000 k's? that is horrible and almost impossible unless he dumps the clutch everytime he takes off and rotated them and did the same etc, or his alignment is out by a bit,

ok so the left tyres on the car will always wear slightly more than the rights as we tend to turn right a lot more on australian roads and through roundabouts, during the right turn the outside(left) tyres have all the extra weight due to the roll on the car and have to travel further than the rights to complete the turn through the turning circle meaning more distance-more wear, if the tyre shop you got em from have any idea about anything they would rotate or cross rotate the tyres or according to wear, feathering etc, also pressure comes into all of this and under inflation can cause some pretty bad wear on the edges of the tyres, an alignment should also be done every 10000 or 20000ks hope everyone understands all of this,

 i can give recommendations on the best quality tyres and why if anyone is interested lol,

Offline Vithy

  • post whore
  • *****
  • Posts: 1516
  • Karma: +7/-3
  • Gender: Male
Re: Reinforcement, reinforcement, reinforcement!
« Reply #8 on: Sep 28, 2011, 10:27PM »
Nope R1R are a semi slick and they are a fairly soft compound thus wear out very quickly.

im interested to read what you rate a quality tyre and y amuse me.



"Noss is God"

Offline mattyj

  • antrx.com full member
  • ***
  • Posts: 181
  • Karma: +3/-0
  • Gender: Male
  • 1991 pintara T
Re: Reinforcement, reinforcement, reinforcement!
« Reply #9 on: Sep 28, 2011, 10:49PM »
haha, i do not see the reason for using a semi slick on a street car, they were definately headed in the right direction with the toyos, try to steer clear of anything directional, because while they are good when new become a very rough and slippery ride in the last half of their lives, if i had all the money in the world (which i dont LOL) id go the toyo T1 sport which are asymmetrical so they have an inner more aggressive style (only slightly) "wet weather" pattern and a standard more spaced out pattern ont the outer, these can take a beating and still last more than 50000ks with correct and regular services

second in line would be possibly a kumho ku 21 this is another asymetrical pattern, with the same deal as above just not made of the same compound and do tend to get slippy in their dying days haha

i would stay away from the cheaper pirellis, achillies, hankooks, jinyus, wanlis, federals, triangles, and even the bridgestones(u pay for the name not the quality TBH)

i should add the michelins and yokohamas are quite good, on par id say with the kumhos, but tend to wear very fast and i also repair a lot of them for some reason possibly the softer rubber im not sure haha, all of these are for street purposes only tho,

Offline Cheezel

  • antrx.com senior member
  • ****
  • Posts: 392
  • Karma: +9/-0
  • Gender: Male
Re: Reinforcement, reinforcement, reinforcement!
« Reply #10 on: Sep 28, 2011, 11:56PM »

pulsar? don't forget that they're cable clutch, the pintara is a hydraulic clutch.

S14a silvia. Or 200sx, technically, since it's aussie version. Couldnt believe it, the met the guy that night, asked him about his clutch, so he threw me the keys and said go for a stick and find out... gotta love mechanics :P

As for the tyres, i really did just mention this in passing ;D I'm loving the chatter though. From a pure physics stand point, not that i've ever done motion of vehicles in any depth, a softer rubber gives better grip but wears faster. That's how it has to be. A softer material "sinks" into the gravel better and due to it's hardness being much lower than that of gravel, leaves a rubber more often than a harder tyre. For all these reasons (plus many more if you start to consider a real world scenario, I haven't yet) a softer tyre will give you better grip than a harder tyre. Generally. Of course you can cheapies that dont grip well at all but wear faster than than a super tough semi slick or something.

Offline Kranzy

  • Administrator
  • post whore
  • *****
  • Posts: 3500
  • Karma: +66/-4
  • Gender: Male
  • U12 - SR20DET
Re: Reinforcement, reinforcement, reinforcement!
« Reply #11 on: Sep 29, 2011, 01:00AM »
Have a read through the last few pages of my project tread, has a lot of info about the clutch I'm running in my car.

Driveshaft wise I'm running stock ka24e driveshafts.

I achieved this by using the KA gear set and outer casing, bolted to a sr18de 50's series bell housing (hydro clutch and bolts to 50's series (KA) outer casing) imported from NZ. This allows me to use KA driveshafts as the diff and hubs are still KA specific.
Quote from: noss
learnt something new just then, dont eat baked bean sandwhiches while changing the paper in the copier


"Noss is GOD"

Offline mattyj

  • antrx.com full member
  • ***
  • Posts: 181
  • Karma: +3/-0
  • Gender: Male
  • 1991 pintara T
Re: Reinforcement, reinforcement, reinforcement!
« Reply #12 on: Sep 29, 2011, 07:58AM »
By all means you are correct in saying that a softwr tyre grips better but wears faster, but the wear vs grip can be broken down into a few things including, correct inflation at all times, correct alignment, the deign of the tyre ply wise, the "give" in the sidewall, the ratio of silica in the tyre, the suspension in the car which is bringing other factors in plays an equal part to the tyres when it comes to grip, so there kinda isnt any point paying 300 a tyre when the suspension you will be running em off is rooted, and will barely perform better than the cheaper retreaded/regrooved federal that was spoken of before (these are very prone to seperate between the chords causing tyre failure), I dont know a great deal about performance and engines but I can share a lot of info to do with wheels, tyres and suspension

Offline mattyj

  • antrx.com full member
  • ***
  • Posts: 181
  • Karma: +3/-0
  • Gender: Male
  • 1991 pintara T
Re: Reinforcement, reinforcement, reinforcement!
« Reply #13 on: Sep 29, 2011, 08:01AM »
Sorry abou the spelling im using my phone and the touch screen tends to have a hissy fit sometimes lol

Offline SSS

  • Administrator
  • post whore
  • *****
  • Posts: 8279
  • Karma: +5020/-3
  • Gender: Male
Re: Reinforcement, reinforcement, reinforcement!
« Reply #14 on: Sep 29, 2011, 10:10AM »
I've been looking into turbo/high powered setups, and started thinking about the effects on the car. Despite that, don't think about my set up in relation to all this, that's just what's inspired all these questions... And FWIW this is (at the moment anyhow) strictly straight-line scenario.

Anywho, big power in the engine results in big force spinning the wheels, but in the process of that force is being shifted from piston to crank to fly to clutch to gears to driveshafts to wheels to rubber. "A chain is only as strong as it's weakest link", so!;

1. Forged internals are easy to come across. rods, valves, valve springs, etc. These have been covered to death on every corner of the internet... What about crankshafts? Is there a certain point these need to be looked at? I'd imagine most street cars are running stock/modified stock cranks at best? Looking at the layout of a crankshaft, I'd imagine these are a particularly hard wearing item. While we're still in the engine, I'm guessing fresh bearings are more than enough for street applications. Regarding race cars etc, what type of bearings do they use? I'd guess it's a bearing that's applied the exact same way as street cars, just made of different compounds? A carbon-moly or something?

Noss was spot on, KA crank is forged. If you do not plan on increasing your maximum rpms over 6500, if you have it prepared correctly, i.e. balanced with the crank pulley, flywheel and clutch cover, chamfer and radius the oil galleries etc, it will serve you well. Only if you anticipate increasing your maximum rpms over 8000, do you need to consider a fully counterweighted crank.

the only guy I ever heard of lunching a prepared KA crank was due to regular pulls to 8000rpm, that was on a significantly worked KA24DE.

Standard bearings from Nissan are the go, the key is to ensure that clearances are exactly spot on.

Quote
2. Flywheels and clutches are easy enough to come across as well. Lightweight strengthened flywheels are available for every car. Point in case you can buy one for the pintara. ::) :D and it's also been covered quite succinctly on ANTRX. Regarding clutches, specifically button clutches (ignoring multi-disc/different compounds, since these have been covered to death again), 4-puck = race, 6 puck = streetable race. I get that it refers to the amount of notches on the clutch disc (or correct me if I've been silly enough to take misinformation from the internet as absolute fact), but I don't understand why a 6 puck grabs 'softer' than a 4 puck?

Can't really comment on this one, but yes, I would go for a lighter flywheel. Regarding clutches...I only have experience with full faced ones in my U12's. I expect that my Exedy clutch in my black car will crap out despite only having 10,000-ish kms on it when I finally get this god damn turbo in later this year.

Quote
3. That brings us to the transmission. Certain boxes are stronger than others (hurr hurr... "box" - you know someone was going to do it, and now that it's out of the way.. :P) etc. But when the bigger figures come in, what is it that determines the strength of a complete gearbox? I'd imagine it's a function of the thickness of the carbon coating on the gears (or whatever they used at the time depending on age), how well things still align (i guess this would fall under general 'age' of the box), and the type of material the core of the gears are made of? Not to mention oil coatings obviously. If we introduce human error into this it gets a bit messy, I'd like not to consider it too heavily for the time being... But regarding reinforcement, is it as simple as just a carbon coating on the gears, allow it to "set" into the metal so that it blends properly, and we're done? I'd imagine a good carbon coating would also anneal any cracks/defects on the outer surface. Excuse my first year metallergical take on this, it's all I've got to work with atm :D

Again, no hands on experience here, but I have heard from reliable sources that the RS5F50 box (either A, non lsd or V, lsd variant) is only likely to take a dump if you are trying to do rather high rpm launches on full slicks, in which case you would probably pop one or both driveshafts first.
As a minimum, if I had a gearset apart, I'd send it off for cryotreating. Reputedly it helps.

Quote
4. Diffs I have no idea about. They're a magical box that makes sure the driveshafts spin at a power distribution equal to something close to the amount of grip they've got. I vaguely understand how the viscous diff works (a thick 'oil' i guess? is inside with the two driveshafts such that if one starts spinning faster the oil starts spinning with a rotational frequency equal to the quicker shaft thus spinning the lagging shaft a bit faster), but that's about it. Since I have no idea how this works I couldn't rightfully ask how to improve it! I'd assume a mechanical diff would be more desirable since the viscous liquid would have a considerable 'spin up' time in terms of one driveshaft 'seeing' the other spinning faster.

5. So we're out of the transmission and diff, heading down the driveshafts. I can appreciate there'd be a fair amount of torsion being applied at one end of the driveshaft compared to the other (assume the clutch has just been dumped or something similar), leading to stress in the material. Even on regular driving there'd obviously be a slight "lag" in the rotation of the metal at the wheel as opposed to at the diff. Or am i over exagerating? I could appreciate that i'd be wrong as far as daily driving is concerned, but thinking of the 600rwkw or so that the V8s put out, that's some serious strain on the material. What do they make those things out of?

Quaife do a mechanical clutch type LSD for the Maxima using the same RS5F50 manual gearbox, but it is about $2k.

Regarding driveshafts, AFAIK the only way you should be able to pop one is on full slicks, and over 300 fwkw. Even then, it will be the CV joint or the splines that will fail.

Quote
6. Rims and rubber. 'nuff said. Get better rubber, it wears faster (generally).

215's with standard springs will rub in a U12. They do not with King Low's.
Wheel width of 7" is about the limit before you have to started thinking about guard mods and offsets in the range of 0 up to +20.

Quote
7. Chassis. Didn't want to touch this since this opens up a whole can of worms my head isn't ready for, but it does need to be mentioned i suppose. The saying "A chain is only as strong as it's weakest link" rings true here. Big power = big force. If you don't reinforce the chassis, GG.

Repair any rust in structural members. From memory a former member damaged his cross member mounts as a result of some unnoticed corrosion and increased torque loading from the motor (turbo KA)

And you're right, chassis mods should only be on the table if the car is coming apart and you have time to spend on spot welding / cage fabrication etc.
As for bolt on bracing, the LCA brace does help, strut braces I cannot comment on. the only stb i built is on another antrx member's U12 who doesn't seem to frequent here much anymore. Never got any feedback from him unfortunately.

Regarding the chassis rail foam filling, I never ended up doing it; from what research I did, it was only heresay on the final result.

I may look into it again for my daily driver, but for my black U12, it's staying foam free.

Btw, with that car....it's nothing special at all. I have never posted pics of it because I knew that certain members of Victoria's Highway Patrol used to do the rounds of car forums and targeted specific owners and vehicles....case in point our own Noss.

We were out one weeknight at a meet point about to head off to "observe" some spirited driving down on Princess Hwy near Westall rd....next thing as we were about to take off, HWP rock up and have a chat to Noss about his R32 tails....said they'd been looking for him for a while.

Anyway...I haven't driven it for over 8 months since I've had my daily TRX, which used to be Budge's.

As it stands, it has:
Cobra Monaco fixed back seats on custom adaptors fabricated by yours truly
Just Jap quick release steering hub
Techedge 2B0 wideband
Moates Ostrich 2.0 for realtime ECU tuning
Solid lifters, Wade cams 262/264 cam, self ported heads (groan....when that head comes off this engine, it's getting sliced up in my bandsaw for r&d)
Genie extractors, with standard cat and a sad ass 2.0" mandrel bent exhaust, good for 7psi of fail (back pressure). Extractors will probably end up on my daily, exhaust is going in the bin to be replaced by a full 3" system.
King low's all round (need replacing), Koni reds in the red (to be revalved), some form of pedders shit in the front (to be replaced by custom valved bilsteins and coilover sleeves)
urethane bushes front and rear, to be replaced with delrin first, then heim joints later
17x7 rims with 215/40/17 Yokohama's, being replaced with Wedsports TC-05's in 15x6.5 and 195/50/15 Federal RSR's as my initial track wheels. These TC-05's a very, very light
R32 GTS-T 4 piston front calipers with 30mm thick 276mm slotted rotors
Whiteline 24mm rear sway bar with custom mounts
Battey relocated to the boot
No sound deadening
No AC
No stereo
Weighs about 1190kg with a full tank and the 17's, to get much lighter
And a paint job that really needs to be resprayed.

At the moment I've got the entire front off it so I can easily fabricate the mounts for the Spal 12" pusher fan that is replacing the standard thermos, so I can get the Garrett GT3040 and 44mm Tial wastegate in before xmas this year.

Then off to grenade this engine at Phillip Island or Winton. Woot.

Offline Cheezel

  • antrx.com senior member
  • ****
  • Posts: 392
  • Karma: +9/-0
  • Gender: Male
Re: Reinforcement, reinforcement, reinforcement!
« Reply #15 on: Sep 29, 2011, 01:33PM »
Noss was spot on, KA crank is forged. If you do not plan on increasing your maximum rpms over 6500, if you have it prepared correctly, i.e. balanced with the crank pulley, flywheel and clutch cover, chamfer and radius the oil galleries etc, it will serve you well. Only if you anticipate increasing your maximum rpms over 8000, do you need to consider a fully counterweighted crank.

the only guy I ever heard of lunching a prepared KA crank was due to regular pulls to 8000rpm, that was on a significantly worked KA24DE.

Significantly worked seems like an enormous understatement.. :P
I *have* seen KAs over 6.5k rpm on stock engine internals, but everything else started falling apart well and truly before the crank... What type of defects are common in a crankshaft being over worked? I couldn't imagine it'd be a snap, that thing looks rather solid. Hairline fractures/mild warping?

Silly me forgot all about the oil galleries... thanks for the tip ;)

Standard bearings from Nissan are the go, the key is to ensure that clearances are exactly spot on.
Probably pulling from outside of your expertise here (maybe not?), but what are the friction coefficients like on the top of those bearings. I've never held one (obviously), but they don't look particularly slippery. I'm surprised they're not a more common wear item... I mean, obviously if they were quick to wear that issue would be quickly engineered away, since it's such a PITA to replace, but still.

Again, no hands on experience here, but I have heard from reliable sources that the RS5F50 box (either A, non lsd or V, lsd variant) is only likely to take a dump if you are trying to do rather high rpm launches on full slicks, in which case you would probably pop one or both driveshafts first.
As a minimum, if I had a gearset apart, I'd send it off for cryotreating. Reputedly it helps.

Quaife do a mechanical clutch type LSD for the Maxima using the same RS5F50 manual gearbox, but it is about $2k.

There's two frames of mind I'm currently in re: gear hardening. I suppose one of those doesn't matter if you're not a shit driver (and you'd hope if you're spending money on engine internals you've learned how to double clutch on the straights like you should, and not fry piston rings. </vin deisel>). Hardening the gears on the surface (reducing interatomic spacing in the metals and filling voids/fissures on the atomic level, akin to filling the holes on engine mounts :D) would mean less wear on the teeth, but putting more force on the soft and deliciously gooey and nutty center. In my (albeit VERY limited) experience in torque forces acting on rods, they tend to fissure from the outside in, so again this would assist, but the center would be seen as a spring and still enable cracks to form... not that you shouldn't do anything, just that I'm nutting out my own reason as I type for why just carbon coating and heating it wouldn't be as effective as it should.

Cryotreating, I assume from the name, is the opposite of heat treating, forcing the atoms to bunch up and remove the interatomic spacings. This would also create a brittle surface, since <bunch of chemistry/stoichiometry i can't remember> thus the carbon in the metal is more likely to rise to the surface. =/

From what i've just googled (i decided to go look it up), that seems to be pretty much the case. Not the hardening, just removing/reducing interatomic spacing. And apparently a lot of people have invested in it! =/


Regarding driveshafts, AFAIK the only way you should be able to pop one is on full slicks, and over 300 fwkw. Even then, it will be the CV joint or the splines that will fail.

I'm hoping there's a youtube clip with this. I'd imagine there's a few out there, but a 300fwkw monster seems... well, monstrous! :D Treatment for driveshaft splines = same as gearbox? No idea about joints though... I mean you can make them harder, but... I've never been good with poviting. Give me a frictionless vacuum where everything is assumed to be a sphere any time :D


215's with standard springs will rub in a U12. They do not with King Low's.

Huh! Go figure! Why's that? The wheel arch only shrinks as you go up higher on the 1/4 panel.. Obviously you're not running more camber (camber on a u12.. that'll be the day)... wait. They rub on the inside of the arch, right? =/ I should know this, I'm running 215s, but I don't have any uneven wear on the tyre (they've only done 500kms or so in the last 6 months ::) )

Wheel width of 7" is about the limit before you have to started thinking about guard mods and offsets in the range of 0 up to +20.
Thanks for mentioning this! For a quick second, cut the quarter panel completely off the car. What you want to worry about is strut clearance, right? Keeping the inside of the tyre roughly the same as factory/so long as it doesn't rub?

Since we're on the topic... a 9" wide front tyre (or anythng larger than 7", for that matter) would ruin steering because of that huge contact patch. Either that or the old XM 351 hotrod we had was just a pig of a car... :P


Repair any rust in structural members. From memory a former member damaged his cross member mounts as a result of some unnoticed corrosion and increased torque loading from the motor (turbo KA)

And you're right, chassis mods should only be on the table if the car is coming apart and you have time to spend on spot welding / cage fabrication etc.
As for bolt on bracing, the LCA brace does help, strut braces I cannot comment on. the only stb i built is on another antrx member's U12 who doesn't seem to frequent here much anymore. Never got any feedback from him unfortunately.

Regarding the chassis rail foam filling, I never ended up doing it; from what research I did, it was only heresay on the final result.

I may look into it again for my daily driver, but for my black U12, it's staying foam free.
I actually remember reading something in the performance forums about some guy saying how amazing your custom made brace was. Wasn't pretty, but that's just PROVES it's practical (ffs no one post bosozuko cars -.-). ;) Either way you got a bit of feedback there, I might go trawling later to find it...

From what I've read on chassis foaming, that "in-a-can" stuff is garbage for anyone else reading this, and not what we mean here. Typically there's the 4, 8, and 16-pound (pounds per cubic ft) variants, and probably everything in between.

To me, chassis foaming doesn't make much sense unless you compress the foam as it expands, and even then you'd need to use some damn hard foam. It would, in my head, certainly increase rigidity in a car as old as ours, and undoubtably help all around (think metal board with four springs as opposed to a giant spring with four springs). Couldn't imagine the cost though, of getting it professionally done. Apparently the RX8s use chassis foaming from factory? So it might be worth having a sticky at again...



Wait, NOSS LIVED IN MELBOURNE!? Does that mean he shifted the midgets with him? Aren't there anti-midget trafficking laws regarding that...

Pretty harsh what they'd done to noss, did they end up booking him for anything? I'm assuming he's not daft enough to post up a "look what my car can do in the back streets of werribee" video or something.

Sounds like a damn good build man, very solid. Hopefully this time next year i'll see you down at the track. Provided I can keep this car on the road long enough... ::) by then i'm sure it'll either be a whole new car with an old chassis, or i'll have gotten rid of it :P

« Last Edit: Sep 29, 2011, 01:43PM by Cheezel »

Offline noss

  • Administrator
  • post whore
  • *****
  • Posts: 13882
  • Karma: +278/-50
  • Gender: Male
  • great scott!
    • antrx
Re: Reinforcement, reinforcement, reinforcement!
« Reply #16 on: Sep 29, 2011, 05:08PM »
Thanks for mentioning this! For a quick second, cut the quarter panel completely off the car. What you want to worry about is strut clearance, right? Keeping the inside of the tyre roughly the same as factory/so long as it doesn't rub?

could be your offset. its because there is a lip on the inside of the guard. i used to run +43 offset with 205's, i ran 215's and they scrubbed.

Wait, NOSS LIVED IN MELBOURNE!? Does that mean he shifted the midgets with him? Aren't there anti-midget trafficking laws regarding that...

Pretty harsh what they'd done to noss, did they end up booking him for anything? I'm assuming he's not daft enough to post up a "look what my car can do in the back streets of werribee" video or something.

Sounds like a damn good build man, very solid. Hopefully this time next year i'll see you down at the track. Provided I can keep this car on the road long enough... Roll Eyes by then i'm sure it'll either be a whole new car with an old chassis, or i'll have gotten rid of it

yes, lived in melbourne from '99 - '07, thats how i have friends there.. including a few antrx assclowns.. moved back for personal reasons (as opposed to work reasons), plan was to move back to melbourne in 5yrs time, which would have been this year. not happening though, too much has gone on with my family and i'm torn between family and melbourne lol.

i'm in adelaide at the moment working, and i have seen 3 midgets in 2 days, was very excited. i wasn't allowed to move the midgets with me unfortunately, but i dated a near midget for a while. just wasn't good enough.

did you know, that to be legally classified as a midget, you only need to be 4'10" or less?

it also turns out in adelaide, which is now known as midget-paradise, it is a long weekend this weekend. so i'm stealing a car and driving to melbourne to watch the nrl grand final. makes sense right? come have a drink, that's if i can find a pub that plays it. the grace darling doesn't anymore! fuckers.

edit: apparently channel 9 will be showing it live.. now to find a tv!
« Last Edit: Sep 29, 2011, 05:10PM by noss »

http://polyfedelicio.us/imgs/ - free image hosting for whatever you like

Offline SSS

  • Administrator
  • post whore
  • *****
  • Posts: 8279
  • Karma: +5020/-3
  • Gender: Male
Re: Reinforcement, reinforcement, reinforcement!
« Reply #17 on: Sep 30, 2011, 08:36AM »
Significantly worked seems like an enormous understatement.. :P
I *have* seen KAs over 6.5k rpm on stock engine internals, but everything else started falling apart well and truly before the crank... What type of defects are common in a crankshaft being over worked? I couldn't imagine it'd be a snap, that thing looks rather solid. Hairline fractures/mild warping?

the failure I was referring to was a bent crank, which would not suprise me if cracking had starting before the vibration became far more apparent.
your hydraulic lifters will start to give up around 7,000rpm, that is they will won't stay pressurized (ie pumped up) and will started ticking like mad. it means you won't get full valve lift, so a torque / power decrease.

Quote
Silly me forgot all about the oil galleries... thanks for the tip ;)
Probably pulling from outside of your expertise here (maybe not?), but what are the friction coefficients like on the top of those bearings. I've never held one (obviously), but they don't look particularly slippery. I'm surprised they're not a more common wear item... I mean, obviously if they were quick to wear that issue would be quickly engineered away, since it's such a PITA to replace, but still.

*technically*, conrod and main bearings are not a wear item. when the engine is running, this is a very thin pressurized layer of oil between the bearing and the crank (for this example), which deals with the friction and load. even during startup, there is enough oil present in the system to prevent bearing to metal contact during cranking.
this is why your type of engine oil, and controlling oil temperature, is so important.

Quote
There's two frames of mind I'm currently in re: gear hardening. I suppose one of those doesn't matter if you're not a shit driver (and you'd hope if you're spending money on engine internals you've learned how to double clutch on the straights like you should, and not fry piston rings. </vin deisel>). Hardening the gears on the surface (reducing interatomic spacing in the metals and filling voids/fissures on the atomic level, akin to filling the holes on engine mounts :D) would mean less wear on the teeth, but putting more force on the soft and deliciously gooey and nutty center. In my (albeit VERY limited) experience in torque forces acting on rods, they tend to fissure from the outside in, so again this would assist, but the center would be seen as a spring and still enable cracks to form... not that you shouldn't do anything, just that I'm nutting out my own reason as I type for why just carbon coating and heating it wouldn't be as effective as it should.

Cryotreating, I assume from the name, is the opposite of heat treating, forcing the atoms to bunch up and remove the interatomic spacings. This would also create a brittle surface, since <bunch of chemistry/stoichiometry i can't remember> thus the carbon in the metal is more likely to rise to the surface. =/

From what i've just googled (i decided to go look it up), that seems to be pretty much the case. Not the hardening, just removing/reducing interatomic spacing. And apparently a lot of people have invested in it! =/
I'm hoping there's a youtube clip with this. I'd imagine there's a few out there, but a 300fwkw monster seems... well, monstrous! :D Treatment for driveshaft splines = same as gearbox? No idea about joints though... I mean you can make them harder, but... I've never been good with poviting. Give me a frictionless vacuum where everything is assumed to be a sphere any time :D

Re cryotreating, that's what I orginally thought too. correct me if i'm wrong, since you know a lot more about molecular structures than I ever will :), but due to the fact that the crystalline structure has been previously stabilised via other heat treatment methods, that the controlled cooling / heating / cooling in cryotreating only serves to "refine" the grain structure, not drastically alter it?


Quote
Huh! Go figure! Why's that? The wheel arch only shrinks as you go up higher on the 1/4 panel.. Obviously you're not running more camber (camber on a u12.. that'll be the day)... wait. They rub on the inside of the arch, right? =/ I should know this, I'm running 215s, but I don't have any uneven wear on the tyre (they've only done 500kms or so in the last 6 months ::) )
Thanks for mentioning this! For a quick second, cut the quarter panel completely off the car. What you want to worry about is strut clearance, right? Keeping the inside of the tyre roughly the same as factory/so long as it doesn't rub?

Strange isn't it? I attribute it down to the stiffer spring rate of the king lows.
Basically, my trx, still with stock springs, with my 17x7's, 215/40's, just scrubbed on the lip in the rear.
Put these on my black U12 with king low's, and they have never once scrubbed, or even touched for that matter.
I cut those lips off in the trx rear wheel arches, plan is to do the same on the black car.

Quote
Since we're on the topic... a 9" wide front tyre (or anythng larger than 7", for that matter) would ruin steering because of that huge contact patch. Either that or the old XM 351 hotrod we had was just a pig of a car... :P
I actually remember reading something in the performance forums about some guy saying how amazing your custom made brace was. Wasn't pretty, but that's just PROVES it's practical (ffs no one post bosozuko cars -.-). ;) Either way you got a bit of feedback there, I might go trawling later to find it...

Ha...wasn't pretty! It wasn't ugly either!
A 245-255 tire will give you reduced steering assistance, but if you muck around with your camber / caster it will be amazing in the corners.
I have noticed that U12's only have 1-ish degrees positive caster at the front...this is really quite shit since positive caster is directed related to your negative camber gain curve dependant on how much steering you dial in when you enter a turn.
Ie, as a crude example, with 1 deg pos caster, turning your front wheels 45 deg for a turn may give you 1 deg extra neg camber when it's at the 45 deg mark, when it's at 0 deg (ie straight ahead) you are back to 0 deg camber.
Say if you had 5 deg pos caster, you could still have 0 deg camber at 0 deg steering (straight ahead), yet at 45 deg steering angle, your negative camber could be around the 2.5-3 deg mark. This is good.

Quote
From what I've read on chassis foaming, that "in-a-can" stuff is garbage for anyone else reading this, and not what we mean here. Typically there's the 4, 8, and 16-pound (pounds per cubic ft) variants, and probably everything in between.

To me, chassis foaming doesn't make much sense unless you compress the foam as it expands, and even then you'd need to use some damn hard foam. It would, in my head, certainly increase rigidity in a car as old as ours, and undoubtably help all around (think metal board with four springs as opposed to a giant spring with four springs). Couldn't imagine the cost though, of getting it professionally done. Apparently the RX8s use chassis foaming from factory? So it might be worth having a sticky at again...

Yep...i've pretty much come to the conclusion that the foam will work for reducing NVH, yet will do SFA for rigidity.


Quote
Wait, NOSS LIVED IN MELBOURNE!? Does that mean he shifted the midgets with him? Aren't there anti-midget trafficking laws regarding that...

Pretty harsh what they'd done to noss, did they end up booking him for anything? I'm assuming he's not daft enough to post up a "look what my car can do in the back streets of werribee" video or something.

Sounds like a damn good build man, very solid. Hopefully this time next year i'll see you down at the track. Provided I can keep this car on the road long enough... ::) by then i'm sure it'll either be a whole new car with an old chassis, or i'll have gotten rid of it :P

He had a bit of stuffing around to do to get them "legal".

My build unfortunately with the wisdom I now posess, was done very half assedly in my younger years. It will get out on the track..eventually.

Offline Cheezel

  • antrx.com senior member
  • ****
  • Posts: 392
  • Karma: +9/-0
  • Gender: Male
Re: Reinforcement, reinforcement, reinforcement!
« Reply #18 on: Sep 30, 2011, 10:57AM »
You answered so many unasked questions. It's brilliant! :D Cheers!

the failure I was referring to was a bent crank, which would not suprise me if cracking had starting before the vibration became far more apparent.
your hydraulic lifters will start to give up around 7,000rpm, that is they will won't stay pressurized (ie pumped up) and will started ticking like mad. it means you won't get full valve lift, so a torque / power decrease.
Ah, and this is a plus for solid lifters, then? The rocker arms aren't a pressurised system like the lifters are they? So many different valve rocking devices! :O

*technically*, conrod and main bearings are not a wear item. when the engine is running, this is a very thin pressurized layer of oil between the bearing and the crank (for this example), which deals with the friction and load. even during startup, there is enough oil present in the system to prevent bearing to metal contact during cranking.
this is why your type of engine oil, and controlling oil temperature, is so important.
Ahh that's the kind of stuff I love to know. :D!

Re cryotreating, that's what I orginally thought too. correct me if i'm wrong, since you know a lot more about molecular structures than I ever will :), but due to the fact that the crystalline structure has been previously stabilised via other heat treatment methods, that the controlled cooling / heating / cooling in cryotreating only serves to "refine" the grain structure, not drastically alter it?
Hahah, behold my 18 months of metals research knowledge! ::) :P So cryotreating is heating first to anneal the metal (remove the interatomic spacings) then the chilling is to pack the atoms as close as is possible. This would increase preload, and stress the metal out, so bringing it back to room temperature slowly would probably be very important.  So, to answer your question, not drastically, no.

Offline noss

  • Administrator
  • post whore
  • *****
  • Posts: 13882
  • Karma: +278/-50
  • Gender: Male
  • great scott!
    • antrx
Re: Reinforcement, reinforcement, reinforcement!
« Reply #19 on: Sep 30, 2011, 11:35AM »
He had a bit of stuffing around to do to get them "legal".

My build unfortunately with the wisdom I now posess, was done very half assedly in my younger years. It will get out on the track..eventually.

yeh i had to put indicators in the side and rear of the bumper to get the canary cleared, which sucked, it looked like shit, on top of my already shoddy efforts of making the tails work.

overall, bad advice from the wrong people in my earlier years as well, just like sss, but for me, with how to make the tails work. i gave all the advice i could to kranzy on where i went wrong and what i would have done differently to make it work, in the end, his tails turned up trumps.

http://polyfedelicio.us/imgs/ - free image hosting for whatever you like

Offline Cheezel

  • antrx.com senior member
  • ****
  • Posts: 392
  • Karma: +9/-0
  • Gender: Male
Re: Reinforcement, reinforcement, reinforcement!
« Reply #20 on: Oct 2, 2011, 07:47PM »
Ha...wasn't pretty! It wasn't ugly either!
Are we looking at the same brace? I mean, sure it's painted, but jeeze... :D

A 245-255 tire will give you reduced steering assistance, but if you muck around with your camber / caster it will be amazing in the corners.
I have noticed that U12's only have 1-ish degrees positive caster at the front...this is really quite shit since positive caster is directed related to your negative camber gain curve dependant on how much steering you dial in when you enter a turn.
Ie, as a crude example, with 1 deg pos caster, turning your front wheels 45 deg for a turn may give you 1 deg extra neg camber when it's at the 45 deg mark, when it's at 0 deg (ie straight ahead) you are back to 0 deg camber.
Say if you had 5 deg pos caster, you could still have 0 deg camber at 0 deg steering (straight ahead), yet at 45 deg steering angle, your negative camber could be around the 2.5-3 deg mark. This is good.
FFS I could not thank you enough for this explanation. For the longest time I thoughtly caster was something completely different. As to what I thought, i don't wish to embarass myself.

I've seen crazy (front) camber being run on the U12s (more specifically, u12 bluebirds). Are their camber tops that suit the Aussie U12? Or, more generally, has anyone researched this? NFI how to do rear camber short of munting the rear end and adding in a camber arm or something.. =/ No immediate access to my own tig/mig makes this an impossible idea.

I'd imagine the U13 front coilovers would be a good way to get front camber... Since they bolt in ~75% on the rear, has anyone been able to get any kind of usable rear camber? (the ~-1deg that camber bolts gives is not what I'd call usable... :P). I ask this only because I've read most of the u12 performance section back to front...

@ Noss - Indicators into the side/rear? Youch. Hideous. Amber is always terrible. :P I must say Kranzy's pintara's rear is amazingly clean... Kinda Korean OEM looking, from the rear. I don't mean that as an insult. :P

As for doing things half assedly, I'd like to imagine I'm learning quickly, I've already got three or four things I want to revisit. I guess this harks back to why I want forged vs standard internals...

Offline noss

  • Administrator
  • post whore
  • *****
  • Posts: 13882
  • Karma: +278/-50
  • Gender: Male
  • great scott!
    • antrx
Re: Reinforcement, reinforcement, reinforcement!
« Reply #21 on: Oct 4, 2011, 01:47PM »
Are we looking at the same brace? I mean, sure it's painted, but jeeze... :D

don't upset him, he is also bearer of the ban stick :P

NFI how to do rear camber short of munting the rear end and adding in a camber arm or something.. =/

its pretty easy, check the adjustable arm on the rear suspension, one is solid, one is adjustable. you want two adjustable ones, will give you full toe in/out and camber adjustment on the rear. there used to be a guy in the usa that made a really nice custom set for $180 to suit a maxima but they fit on the u12 as well, but i have no idea where he went.

also you talk about ~1° rear camber adjustment stock, are you sure? it's been a while since i have had an alignment done on a u12, but i thought camber was only adjustable on the front, with toe only on the rear.

here are some others though; cheaper too

http://www.horsepowerfreaks.com/partdetails/Specialty_Products/Suspension/Camber_Kits/Rear/16006


also wasn't it discussed that the maxima has the same suspension as the u12, except possibly larger diameter coil springs? i'm certain rake said it did, then k-sport make a set of coil overs for the maxima, which appear to have the camber tops

http://www.ksportusa.com/asp/coilovers_detail.asp?product_id=cd01



http://polyfedelicio.us/imgs/ - free image hosting for whatever you like

Offline Cheezel

  • antrx.com senior member
  • ****
  • Posts: 392
  • Karma: +9/-0
  • Gender: Male
Re: Reinforcement, reinforcement, reinforcement!
« Reply #22 on: Oct 4, 2011, 02:17PM »
Pssshtt imnot afraid of no ban ham-- did you say stick?! *shreiks and runs off*

Im actually not sure on how much camber is/isnt available on the rear tbth. Ive only been playing with the front, the ass of the car hasnt left the ground except when the tranny was pulled out (car hoist at the mechs :P)

The u13 coilovers work with some fudging and they include camber tops, or can atleast. Didnt know the j30 had the same sussy. I knew it was the same hub size, albeit 5 stud vs 4, the sways at the font were the same (bigger on maxima),  but thats all. =\ didnt know this!

Go figure, before i could find a set of coilovers for our car i managed to find bolt-on airbag suspension. Crazy americans... I also found height adjustable coilovers for our car - no damper/camber/etc settings though.

Already got my sussy all paid for and picked up though. Mine was never going to be a proper track car, although it will be tracked a bit. Not worth revisitting... Unless i could recover all the money for my sussy. ;D
« Last Edit: Oct 4, 2011, 03:22PM by Cheezel »