Question for anyone who bought LSDunique's traction rods
 

Is it just me or has my car lost all it's traction since I swapped out the stock traction arms. My car doesn't grip for $hit and I'm getting pretty pissed. I'm going to have to put the stock traction rods back on and realize the fact I $hitted out $200 for something that's going to end up in the trash. At this point, I could care less if my TOE spec is off a bit but I want my traction back. I really want to know everyone's opinion on these rods, those who bought them. I swear, I almost lost control today while taking a corner at 40mph, something that never happened with my stock set-up. Plus, everytime I shift hard, the car doesn't grip AT ALL. Please, all comments welcome.

Buddy, your traction is ALWAYS going to be better with the tires pointed in like that. It's just a basic physics issue. I guarantee you that your tires will wear more evenly now that you have his traction rods on.

If you angle the tires of ANY car inward as they come stock on our cars, you will have better handling...you just lose more rubber.

Maybe your tires are too far out?

It also may help to set the camber negative to almost the max setting. Just don't go past the -2.05 max.

My $.02.

Our cars rear suspension has a "toe curve", or "bump steer". Lowering the car changes the point where the curve starts. Generally, you are entering a faster gain of the non-linier toe change when you lower the car. If you only return the toe setting to OEM, you haven't corrected enough for the drop. I'll suggest setting the toe at the minimum spec, or a smidge more towards toe out at static ride height.

I went through this problem on my race car when I lowered it 1 1/2".:eek: I ended up running 1/16" toe out. When the car cornered, it would end up at the OEM setting of 1/16" at it's loaded corner ride height. If I had set it to OEM static, the toe in would have been about 1/4"!:eek:

I hope I haven't totally confused you, I'm not an engineer or an author.....just trying to help.:D

Interesting post EnthuZ...

Have you determined what you think are the optimal alignment settings once you put an aftermarket suspension in and the car is lowered?

I only wish I was that smart.:confused:

Do you want to loan me your car to test till it's death????

Properly modifying a suspension is a science. Be careful out there.

I have enough problems setting mine up at stock ride height.:D

Ok, I understand all this but that still doesn't fix the fact that my car is not gripping. I left my camber at -1.9 and my toe is not set to factory spec for this purpose. I don't see how such a minor degree in the toe would effect the car's handling so much to the point that I can't take a curve at 40mph with the TEIN's set at their max stiffness that I used to take at 65mph with my stock suspension. Anyways syf0n, let's say I did put my Toe back to factory spec, isn't that what I was running before anyways? Makes no sense, the car should handle better, right? The car handles great stock plus I have sway bars, TEIN suspension, JIC strut bar, plus the camber and traction rods. My determination, go with JIC for aftermarket Traction rods. Unfortunately I don't wanna spend $400 right now so I will put my stock traction rods back on. Word to the wise, buy JIC, at least you know your getting what you paid for!

Depending on the set up your running I would say you need a Max. of 1.5 negative camber in the rear and if you want better straight line acceleration even less than that down in the negative 1.1-1.3 range. Rear toe should run just a lttle toe-in .01 to the max of.04 .
What anti-sway bars are you running either stiffen up the front setting or soften the rear.
Your shocks I would bet are set on a way to stiff setting, soften then all the way up. Set your anti-sway bars on their softest setting and have it re-aligned by a good shop. I would say 3/4 of all shops do an improper job of aligning. Talk to a local auto-x group to find the "good" shops.
The tuning process will take a while.
Too stiff of shock settting will cause your tires to skip on the road and improper setting of anti-sway bars will cause under-steer or oversteer.
I would get rid of any parts now till you have got it working as a package and you need greater adjustment range.
Talk to others with the Teins about their settings
And if you want to lower the car TOO far (over about 1") its not ever going to work real well, you may be on the bump stops
Another area is tire inflation, what are you running for tire/wheel package?

With help the parts you have should kick A** on a stock car
don't give up.
If you would list all suspension/chassis and wheel/tire mods you have made and you favorite use for the car (drag race or auto-x) I will scratch my head and work with you.

I must advise that the traction rods are for MINOR adjustment of the toe specs. The 350z has its own toe adjustment bolts, but the traction arms will also give you minro adjustment of toe. If you attempt to crank the arms considerably longer or shorter than the factory arm, it will actually position your entire spindle forward or backward of its original position, completely throwing out all of your suspensions geometry.

With the way the arms are set up, you can actually start at factory length of the traction rod and begin extending the adjustment bolt, you will actually notice the toe beginning to be pulled out, but then further extension of the arms actually brings it back in.

Definately recommend starting with the traction arms at factory length, then do your minor adjustments from there. you can have the same amount of toe with the arms being different lengths. I also would not recommend doing an alignment without the aid of the computer.

Your main benefits on the traction arms are minor toe adjustment and incredible stiffness in the arm itself and the urethane bushings.

I am certain there won't be many, if any, performance differences between 2 companies suspension arms when the design is so simple.

lsdunique, hey sorry to be a pain but could you check you email-pms for my inquries. i would like to speak with you and am not sure if you have recieved my previouse attempts. thanks bro.