Just got back from the shop and installed the other rear SPL end link... Night and Day difference over the wimpy stock ones. The SPL's have a ball joint design with a polyurethane "cover" to protect the ball joint from any debris that might enter the mechanism. I took some pics of the install and I'll post them up when I get home. I replaced the front end links with new OEM factory links and the car doesn't shift from left to right anymore! So glad this issue got fixed within a day... driving around with broken end links was very dangerous and I felt as if the tail end would've whipped out any second during normal driving. I'm going to do a, "highway bump test" tomorrow afternoon (hitting a bump on the highway at 80mph+ during cornering) some members on the forum have experienced "tail-end sway" while hitting a bump on the highway during cornering (it's when you feel as if your entire rear end slips loose).

But so far, everything is rock solid with the new OEM end links in the front and SPL end links in the rear!

 

^ Good to hear! Looking forward to those pics...

 

You know before I read this thread I was always thinking "I need some good endlinks." And that was about all the thought I put into that.

Now, after reading this thread my thoughts have gone to "Damn, I really need some good endlinks....and quick."

I feel like I'm in line at a buffet. As I read through this thread, I swear, my mouth is watering.

 

Kuah,

Your wheels look awesome by the way!

 

I can certainly respect that

Just for those who are interested, in most cars sway bar preload is undesirable because it would make left turns respond differently from right turns. Certain exceptions are like, as mentioned, in oval track racing. However not alot of people know how to properly eliminate sway bar preload. If you are getting the car corner-weighted, and have adjustable endlinks, the first thing to do is make sure the endlinks are disconnected while the corner balancing is done. Then the endlinks should be adjusted so they attach to the sway bar without requiring any force or twisting of the bar, *when* the car is normally loaded; ie. sitting normally on the ground with driver/passenger in the car. The common mistake is to either leave the sway bar connected during corner balancing, or attach the endlinks with the suspension at full droop (ie. in the air).

On my Z32, after corner balancing, the corner heights differed by about 1/2" when loaded normally. So if the endlinks were attached at full droop, that would induce 1/2" of sway bar preload when the car is sitting normally. If you corner weight the car with the endlinks disconnected, and the car comes out with even ride height left to right, then no adjustment on the endlink is needed, but this is fairly unlikely. As mentioned most drivers may not feel 1/4"-1/2" of sway bar preload that causes different response between left and right turns. But, IMO, if you are going to the trouble of corner balancing, the whole point of which is to balance out the response between left and right turns, then you will want to eliminate sway bar preload because that will make the corner balancing perfect.

 

You should have bought them when you had the chance

 

yep totally agree. I've seen some cornerweighting done at shops that obviously were clueless in what they were doing - ie, leaving the sways connected or doing the rideheight adjustments purely via spring preload when tuning a coilover that had dual height adjustment, etc. I've also seen swaybar installs where they were installed with the car in the air and at full droop and then people wondered why the bar flipped I have the results of my cornerweighing someplace with my 350Z - was done a few months after I swapped over to the HKS and surprisingly, it took very few adjustments to get it all set - the whole car was done in about 45 minutes as it was really close right out of the box (a pleasant surprise).

 

Here are the photos of some before and afters.

1. Buff SPL End Link on left, wimpy OEM on right:


2. Stock OEM End Link:


3. SPL End Link Installed:


Thoughts after driving:
Regular street driving - everything feels firmer again, no more wobble, solid! Lets hope these dont wimp out on me after I install beefier solid sway bars.
Highway cornering @ 80mph+ and hitting bumps while turning - STILL solid! Very well engineered product! I am satisfied... for now!

Next Test: AutoX Course + Corner Balancing using the adjustability function, I will post results when I get a chance to really test these to its limits... hopefully the ball joint doesn't fly off on me

 

Do you just have them the same length as the oem links? Or do you install it first and then tighten as much as you can?

 

^+1 . . . I'm also curious how you adjust the tightness on these end links. BTW, just checked with SPL and they do not have any front end links in stock. I'm hoping Z1 will have his prototype tested soon and in production next week!

 

i simply lined them up w/ the stock end link height, im leaving the adjusting when the car gets corner balanced. And yea, bug SPL on their links, they're slacking!

 

Hi guys here are a few words from Tony over at TC Design. It looks like he'll have some high quality end links for sale soon!
I can personally vouch for his work since he did my custom rollbar install and upgraded my upper shock mount with higher quality (silent) bearings. Everything he does is made for the track/racing applications. Go to any Northern California sanctioned race event and you will see his rollbars on many of the cars out there.


TCDesign:
1) As an OEM distributor with Aurora Bearing we will be using high
quality
Aurora metric rod ends. They are made from cro-moly steel with a
Teflon
lining.

To accurately take out preload on a swaybar they need to be adjustable.
Even if you have dual adjustable height shocks, you still want to
adjust
this preload at the endlink not the shock length.

Rubber/poly/ect bushings induce more friction and binding into the
suspension system. This is not a good thing to ADD to the suspension
when
upgrading parts.

I will have pricing tomorrow on the links and a date for shipping
parts.

Tony Colicchio
TC Design
www.tcdesignfab.com

 

Can you explain the benefit of the dual height adjustment shocks? I still don't truely understand it. I even owned a pair on my last car for a brief period, but never really saw the advantage. If you adjust at the spring or at the shock body, aren't you in effect lengthening the entire distance of the shock? The only difference is that you can adjust the stroke of the shock right?

I was also pleased to see that my Z was also pretty well corner balanced right from out of the box. If only it were 200lbs lighter..

 

Does anyone know what can cause my Endlink to fail? I have only installed Tanabe Springs and APS Test Pipes, so my suspension set-up is not to harsh, yet i think my end links are dead. Also, what procedures can i take before replacing my endlinks to make sure that it is my endlinks that are causing the noise?

 

I'm first in line to test out this product!

After a day of the end link install and solid driving, the swaying came back today (it rained today... more pronounced in the rain)! Swapping out my Hotchkis with the OEM bars... this HAS TO be the reason... perhaps my collars on the Hotchkis bars got loosened overtime. Do you guys happen to know if torque'ing the sway bar bolts too tight might cause anything? I looked at the diagram of the entire rear end assembly, the ONLY 3 things that could sway left to right are:
1. Spring/Shock
2. End Link
3. Sway Bar

End links are absolutely out of the question, even with brand new beefier ones they still sway. The two top bolts on the rear shocks could have came lose, so I would simply need to tighten them down but I made sure those suckers were in TIGHT. The last and only option "untouched" is the swaybar itself, and of course, the swaybar collars. I'll get back to you guys on my findings tomorrow night.

The rear end also has rubber bushings on many components, but I doubt that would cause an entire rear end to shift when hitting small bumps. 350evo sells a set of solid bushings for $1500, but I will definite try out every possible option before shelling out unneeded dough!

 

i switched my rear rear end links out for spherical bearing ones on my 350EVO sway bar something like 6 months ago and didn't notice a difference

 

Any idea when these will be ready for sale? I really need some

 

According to daveh, Tony will be posting the pricing today and provide shipping date. I'm waiting on these too, both front & rear end links.

 

Hope so my fronts are shot and only getting worse

 

Very simple - a dual height adjustment coilover allows you to adjust height in 2 ways. Major adjustments in height (a subjective value, but let's say anything over 1/2 inch for arguments sake) should be done via the lower mounting bracket of the coilover. This allows you to literally lengthen or shorten the length of the damper as an assembly, without inducing preload to the spring. So, stroke is maintained even though overal height has been reduced. A single height adjustable shock has a fixed damper length and to adjust height, you can only do so by altering the springs position on the damper (thus adding or subtracting preload). This in turn limits the stroke of the shock