I am about to order new suspension for my Z, i have been looking around the forum and checked out most of the avalible parts and their spec but havent really found an ideal package that fits my requirements, so i was hoping someone could help me out based on own experience.

The car will be tracked on occasion and driven to the limit often I like to get the tail out as often as i can so i need to have something linear and predicable with balance towards oversteer (stiff rear), i HATE understeer though i dont want super oversteer (especially at higher speeds). Also need to lower the car a fair bit (especially rear) for looks and improved center of grav.

If i where to pick today i would most likely go with Tein Flex with Cusco sways... I would like to get the HKS Hipermax but from what ive heard they might be alittle bit on the soft side for my requirements...

Key factors in prioritized order:
1. Track / hard driving focused handling
2. Oversteer biased handling
3. Linear predicable responce
4. Not rock hard (occasional longer trips, girlfriend etc) + shouldnt damage the car if i run over a bump to fast...
5. Good stuff but as cheap as possible (Already spent WAY to much on the car recently )

- What are your recomendations on Coils and Sways to meet the above?

Thanks a lot
/Roger

 

Tein Basics & Hotchkis sways are best bang for the buck. I tracked this setup over 40 track days and can vouch for them. They can be set up for oversteer, especially if you have nearly the same sized tires all the way around. There are better, but not for the money. Still ok to drive on the street as well.

 

I agree with the Tein and Hotchkis performance for the money. Yet, I have the Tein Flex with EDFC. EDFC makes it really easy to change from road to track with one touch of the button. For oversteer, look at your tires, our cars come set up for understeer. Just install same size wheels and tires all the way around and drive w/o your VDC on!

If you go with Hotchkis, look at the thread on this board for the shaft collar fix.

Do you have to race in the Snow in Sweden?

 

I have 275 tires front and rear (been planning on balanced/oversteer setup since day one)

Ive been very tempted for the Basics as they seams to be great value like you say, the only thing ive worried about with them are the spring rates which seams abit low?

How stiff are they compared to stock? Also when talking about "stock" spring rates, do they differ between Z models (touring, track etc)? I have a European version, they are usally stiffer then the US versions. I want something which is stiffer then stock, though dosent have to be A LOT as it is already quite stiff from factory.

/Roger

 

The Basics are 500lbs front and rear. I found this to be almost perfect. If I would have kept the setup, I would have gone to about a 475lb spring in the rear. The backend broke loose just a bit before the front end and powering out of corners led to just a touch of oversteer on the shorter tighter circuits where I live. On bigger corners the car would slip gradually into a perfect 4 wheel drift. I don't think any higher springs are acceptable on the street still. The stock spring rates are around 314/342 or 314/427 depending on year. I think the Euro setup is closer to the second one.. BTW, the only reason I got rid of the setup is that I sold all of my mods and bought a racecar.

I think the koni's and tokicos are another choice in struts, but finding a good pair of matching springs will be trial and error. Truechoice/Koni has a matched set, but the reviews have been mixed with them. Very pricey as well. IMO, most of the other coilover, HKS, JIC, etc setups have not been track proven, here anyway, and none have demonstrated any particular benefit over stock besides being "stiffer". Maybe its time for ZSport Magazine to do a suspension shootout. I volunteer to drive. ;-)

 

The EDFC setup seams really(!) cool but i have already spent too much money on other stuff for the car and toys to my home...

Hehe like i said i have 275's around and the VDC is always off the second i turn the key, need to get a toggle switch for it so i dont have to switch it off all the time, on occasion i forget it and always get as pissed when i miss a drift oppertunity or race (i HATE how it cuts the ignition for like a second when you are rough shifting to 2:nd!)

The car is turning in MUCH better with the 275 around setup, high speed driving is quite balanced neutrally with a little oversteer though at lower speeds you can get annoying understeer.

I dont drive my Z during the winter when its ocassionally snow (and salt/sand) on the roads due to that the car gets really filthy and the salt sticks to the paint and whole underbody. I have an E39 BMW 540 V8 as a second car that i use over the winter, no turn without full on drift when its snowy Even though i miss driving my Z on nice warm summer evening in the twilight (in Sweden we have sunset slowly between like 9-11pm during peak summer) driving around on snowy roads is a blast!!

/Roger

 

So basically from what ive read and what you say as well the rear springs are much stiffer then the fronts from factory, even though the weight is less on the rear (by ~3%), this sounds like it would produce a lot of oversteer, especially with only aftermarket sways! Though currently with stock suspension and no sways (and same width tires around) the car still understeers annoyingly in really tight bends and when steering very quickly at medium speed (~40-60mph)...

What i dont like about the spec of the Basics (or any avalilble of the shelf Coilover ive seen for the Z) is that it would move the stiffness of the springs more towards front (and understeer). But how you describe the handling is just what i want! Thats also why i posted the question to get feedback on acctual eperience not just numbers. No one wants a car thats just "stiff" its how the balance (consistency) is and how fast you can courner/ do laps that counts. I guess its the sways that make up for the reduced spring ratio in the rear?

- With the hotchkins and basics, how much sway did you have at high speeds at max cournering G's compared to stock? I think since i fitted my 275's my car sways to much which impacts the traction area of the tires negativly and creates too much weight shift...

/Roger

 

I found the car to be quite flat at high speed for the way I drive. The thing that confirms the "flatness" of this setup, to me at least, was the entry to "the Boot" at Watkins Glen (a relatively fast 80+mph downhill corner entry). It was the first place I experienced a 4 wheel drift at speed. There is a post here with some track footage of this event. I'll search around.

I was picking up speed each session and on one lap about half way to apex, the car broke into a drift at nearly the rate my hands moved. The back did break just a second early and I thought I might be in some trouble, but faster than I could make a correction, the front broke as well. So, other than the rather exhillarating experience, it did not take me by suprise. This suggests to me that the car stays very composed. I found this arrangment quite forgiving on tighter tracks as well, but it did tend to oversteer just a bit on exit. It could have been that I was entering too fast though.

I don't want to oversell the Basics/Hotchkis stuff. Suspension is very personal thing and everyone has a different driving styles and levels. I was a noob two years ago. And now I'm going to be SCCA racing this year. I was getting to the point where I likely would have upgraded to an adjustable system. That's something else to consider. But for me just starting out, I don't think I could have picked a better setup.

As for spring rates and car handling, the way I look at it, if you've got a near 50/50 car, rear drive, same spring rate and tire size on all 4 corners, you should be driving a pretty neutral car. That's the theory anyway. Very few of the other setups have the same spring rates all the way around.

I ran 265/35/18 all the way around and the Hotchkis were on full soft in the rear and medium up front. I found the tighter settings on the rear tended to just damage tires more than add grip. The Hotchkis rear is very stiff, I think softest is 100 percent stiffer than stock. If you wanted to pony up a little more for sways, the 350EVO are probably a better choice. Although, I don't know what their availability is anymore.

I also wanted to add that there is a suspension test out there somewhere and the NISMO suspension performed nearly up to the koni/truechoice setup in lap times. So that's another choice that I doubt you could go wrong with. Although no adjustibility might be a factor.

If you want more detailed info on spring rates and their effects, pm a member called g35sedan. He is our local suspension guru.

 

Ive driven at watkins many times, i think i know the courner you are talking about, first you go alittle twisty uphill after the finish line, then a long streight followed by a long tight slightly banked right courner courner (i guess this is the one you refer to), after that there is a bit of streight and then a very fast left hander followed by a sharp slow right hander etc. Atleast i know the track as it was back in 1967, ive been driving Grand Prix Legends, a PC racing simulator with F1 cars from ´67 awsome physics engine gives very realistic handling so ive been sideways through there as well

How you describe the handling is exactly as i want it, balanced and controlable on the limit with some oversteer tendancy! Oversteering out of sharper slow bends is perfect, just what i want as im more focused on having fun rather then setting the best laptimes at this stage.

I need an adjustable height setup mostly for the apperance, im spending a ****load on a JDM Nismo V2 bodykit for the car so i want it to look really nice and perform equally nice, i just love to drive on the limit.

- Do the basics feel harder then stock when going over uneven surfaces? And how big is the difference in "steer in" compared to stock with the basics and hotchkis?

Thanks a lot for the info mate!
/Roger

 

ok guys.. i would like to chime in..
Im no pro drifter or anything but,
I am running zeal coilovers and stock sway bars.
I've tried running aftermarket sway bars and especially on transition's they make the car a little too twitchy. I am not the first to do this
I also notice that a lot of japanese d1 competitive cars run stock sway bars.

So in my honest 2 cents
Get some zeal coilovers and get out there and get some seat time.
The zeals for me i have them set at 2 and 6
Very easy and stable at drift.

 

get Motons or Ohlins if you want straight up GT500 performance..

or get Zeals (Endless coilovers).. there are a lot of high end fully custom coilovers you can get that you can customize to get your car to perform however you want.

contact www.racecompengineering.com and they can hook you up with some really stiff stuff.

 

+1 on Zeals as I run them on my Subarus.

when you are drifting, especially with a lot of angle, it's easier to control the car some with when the corners of the suspension is more independent (since the sway bars will put more stress on the tires to maintain grip, but once the outside tire brakes traction, the inside tire will lift and it will render the sway bar useless.

anotheraznguy, what sizing on the sways did you get? did you get a set of hollow or solid? You can also dial down the shocks too and add the sways to keep the car more flat while drifting so you can put that LSD to good use when you are doing throttle steering... just my thought on it.

 

Acctually from the research ive been doing during the day the Zeals seams like the best coils you can get, best spring rate combo and I saw some very possitive feedback from owners, though i have no idea of propper price (saw some for $3000!?) and availability, where can you get them for the best price?

I guess since the Zeals have stiffer springs and are more biased towards the rear they would compensate for the sways, while adding additionally stiff sways would make the car too stuff and very "snappy".

If the Zeals are in the $3000 ballpark im clearly leaning towards ~$700 basics + $300 hotchkis sways based superior value and zillinios experience with this setup... Ive already booked up $6500+ to get a full JDM Nismo V2 bodykit with CF rear wing, so im not so keen on making it 10k so fast hehe

/Roger

 

The corner I'm talking about is the left hander before the sharp right hander.

Since I recently switched back to stock I have a fresh comparison of after and before. Bumps are definitely harsher with the Basics. Turn in is nearly the same as the Basics, however mid corner correction is a totally different experience, now, as is weight transfer. Mid corner corrections and weight transfer are not very precise with the stockers. The way I would describe it is when the stock suspension transfers weight, it has momentum or ocellation. With the Basics, there is no momentum. The weight transfer is very crisp fore and aft and side to side. With the stockers, the car feels like a boat on the water in corners. And the weight transfer on one occasion led the car to unexpectedly loose traction upon acceleration out of a corner. That never happened with the Basics. When I hit the gas, the car never suprised me. I have a new appreciation for one of my fellow Z drivers here who ran nearly stock suspension and tires for many track days and set blistering times. He had to use more car control skills than I did to go nearly as fast. (You know who you are!)

Also, the front end feels loose and wandering compared to the Basics & sways in corners. The ride with the stockers is smoother but nothing I would call smooth. IMO, the Z does not have a very good suspension stock. It doesn't handle weight transfer very well and it doesn't handle bumps very well. I actually prefered the bumps with the Bascis over stock because you hit the bump and you were done, yes it was harsh, but it didn't upset the car as much.

Hope this helps. If you are looking for budget stuff, this is it. I would mention again that the 350EVO sway bars may be a better option if you want more adjustability. Something to think about anyway. I have no doubt the Zeals, Motons, Ohlins, Truechoice/Koni etc are really nice. Its just they cost an arm and a leg.

 

Opinions on Silk RM/A8 or Swift Coilovers on the Z/G chassis?

 

Thanks Zillinois, that helps a lot!

When my Z is ready i might take it down to the old Nurburgring in Germany (154 courners!, one lap takes 8-9 minutes at good speed), been there once a few years back when i had an M3, amazing track!

I love it when "cheap" stuff is good, to bad it dosent happen more often!

Ill concider the 350EVO sways with the basics, though since i wont be pushing my car at the track squeezing laptimes i dont need a lot of adjustability, most important is that i can set it up once for the balance im looking for and then ill just keep it like that. They are marginally more expensive, but the biggest price difference would be the separate shipping to Sweden if i cant find a good place to buy both, are the 350EVO sways avalible somewhere else then from 350EVO.com?

/Roger

 

when I last emailed them, 350evo didnt have any in stock. maybe you can some how persuade dklau to have him sell and ship you his 350evo bars...he wants to have local sale only - thats why the persuasion. And if you go on over to the G35Driver board, there's a few guys selling their Tein Basics.

 

Thanks for the heads up 636Racer!

/Roger

 

I think the best suspension setup for drifting would be a 2-way (compression and rebound) adjustable shock. But I don't know of any manufacturers that make this specifically for a 350Z except for the RS-R i-Shock. And good luck getting those, I don't think there is anybody in the US who has them. I say go with a good off the shelf coilover like HKS Hipermax II's or be a guinea pig and try the Tein Super Drifts (supposedly beefier version of the Flex with drift specific valving) or Tanabe Sevens (supposedly updated version of the Tanabe DD which the 240 guys swear by). Any of these coilovers with track time that will allow you to try different tires, tire pressures and alignment settings will be your best bet.

 

silkroad is great w/ the 240sx community but no one has tried them out on the z as of yet