One thing I've found that I'm not totally thrilled about is it's ride on the interstate. It is very bouncy. I would have thought with its relatively long wheelbase that this wouldn't be a problem. Anyone else notice this?

 

The Z is a sports car not a blvd. cruiser.

 

Yup, same here. I believe it's due to the springs not matched perfectly with the stiffer shocks. As I recalled, this was discuss here on this forum.

 

I realize it is not a blvd cruiser, but not all sports cars have to bounce down the road.

 

I love my Z, but I have to agee with those complaining about the bounce. I have the same problem and I met a girl today who complained about the same thing. I was hoping as the car gets broken in it might lessen, but she has had her white touring since Sept 9 and said it is still bad. (Yeah, it's only 5 weeks)

I know full well that the Z is a sports car, but this bounce is too much. When a drink with a commuter top is splashing all over there is a problem. And the Bose sucks! I can't believe Nissan charged me for this system. I would have been better off with the standard stereo. I will be back to my dealer about this one. Just to let you know the problem with the base doesn't happen when playing CDs or MP3s with my iPod.

With all that said this car is otherwise fantastic. I felt comfortable with the stick and clutch right out of the gate. It is such an easy car to drive. 450 miles, 4 days (3 in the rain)

Glenn

 

I'm not sure what you all are experiencing. I don't bounce or porpoise. Perhaps I haven't driven on the road surface and speed to hit the magic oscillation frequency that every vehicle has. Can you describe it?

Enforcer

 

My best description would be like riding on cut springs, but not as bad, or riding in a car with only lowering springs on stock shocks.

 

Hi way.... I have had my Z for about a month. I have 628 miles on her so far... washed second time today... she sits in the garage a lot...

there are areas of the hiway here in town that I get bumped on and some places where I bounce.. or porpoise over..

wheel base.. cycle of the bumps or waves in the road surface ..... you will get this problem.. you could go with a tighter or softer shock..but I believe.. you will get the same problem or you will lose that close to the road.. no sway round corners feel you get now.. I

know it aint perfect.. but she is a new Z... gonna be lots of odd trippy problems.. or shortcomings... I know we all love her anyways...

and yeah the bose really reeks... gimmie the fix dam*it!

EZ

 

1300 mi. and only an occasional bounce. I'm changing wheels/tires, so we'll see. Handles great in the rain, though, as is.

 

Ok, so it is/would porpoise when going down a concrete highway with dividers? I haven't been on that type of highway yet. My drive to work is bumpy but no consistently spaced interval bumps. IE random vibe. I was expecting a harsh ride but was really pleased to see it wasn't yet it takes twisties so well.


Enforcer

 

Those who live in Los Angeles.. the worst is when you're going Eastbound on the 10 freeway just east of the 5... It's HORRIBLE, porpoising to the point that I got a headache.

 

In San Diego... 163 South the car porpoises enough near Clairemont to shake your fillings loose!

I only notice it at high speeds, though.

 

Actually, I think that perhaps with the MLS in the rear, that the car is oversprung, undershocked. I'm curious to see what a stiffer shock in the rear would do, especially if it would help dial out the wheel-hop on launch.

 

I was so just going to post about this. Everytime I see a Z on the freeway, the back end is always bouncing. Not big bounces, but many tiny ones which are really obvious. I've seen one with 17's and 18's and they both had the same problem.

 

I can agree on the bouncing.. 4100 miles and it still happens. Not very pleasant at times on the far from smooth los angeles freeways.

 

Yep, I got it too. I just thought it was only me & my buddy's because we put those 20's on the Z. I was just gonna learn to live with it because of the way the wheels & tires make it look, but since it is in the car, I need to now find ouit what will take care of that..

 

So I decided to look up the use of a word I've seen a lot to describe this proble: "porpoises"

This is what Merriam-Webster dictionary had to say:


Main Entry: por·poise
Pronunciation: 'por-p&s
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English porpoys, from Middle French porpois, from Medieval Latin porcopiscis, from Latin porcus pig + piscis fish -- more at FARROW, FISH
Date: 14th century
1 : any of a family (Phocoenidae) of small gregarious toothed whales; especially : a blunt-snouted usually largely black whale (Phocoena phocoena) of the No. Atlantic and Pacific 5 to 8 feet (1.5 to 2.4 meters) long
2 : DOLPHIN 1a

 

Porpoising meaning the front and rear rotate up and down around the center of the car on an x-axis. So basically its like the car is a see-saw while it's moving. Or related to a porpoise, it looks like how porpoises move when they go in and out of the water when swimming...

 

Everyone on this list that has their car type listed is either a touring or a track model. Could there be something about the tuning of these models that is causing the porposing? Or is it happening in ALL models and we just aren't hearing from the Base/Enthusiast/Performance folks?

 

This happens on my performance as well. All the cars share the same spring and shock rates, so it should happen to all of them. In fact, this type of motion happens to pretty much all stiffly sprung vehicles. I've owned three different pickups, and all of them have bounced worse than the Z. It happens only over cerain types of roads (where the bumps are spaced fairly evenly and perpendicular to the direction of travel. Typically, the oscillations will occur at a specific range of speeds, and then reduce when you are above or below the speed (of course, the range I always notice the bumps is about 50-80 mph, so it's pretty difficult to stay out of that range). Typically, the best way to damp the high frequency response is to reduce the spring rate and then adjust the damping accordingly, but of course that will hinder cornering. Another option would be to play with the damping rates without changing the springs, but if the suspension is anywhere near optimised, I would be surprised if it would make a significant difference. Maybe a fancy type of variable or progressive shock would help, but I think we are running into the tradeoffs inherent in a stiffly sprung vehicle.

-D'oh!