Went to my first AutoX event on Saturday. Modifications are in my signature.

During my 7th run out of 9, I felt something change in the way the car was handling. After the event, the steering wheel was at 10:30 when driving straight. The other 350z drivers were kind enough to look at my car at the track, jacking up each corner for inspection. Scott found the problem, the right rear toe bolt had rotated 180 degrees resulting in approx. 2 degrees of toe out. I had asked the Firestone tech to mark every bolt for just this reason.

When Scott went to reposition the bolt, he found that it was very loose and could almost turn the bolt by hand. He re-aligned the bolt and tightened it down. Steering wheel and daily driving returned to normal.

Here's the problem

The vehicle is dropped 1.1" However, I noticed this morning that the same right rear side is back to stock height. Weird! If I had to guess, I would speculate that with all the jostling around the suspension took while tracking the car with a loose toe bolt has somehow rotated the spring in the bucket. I'll post a couple pictures in a few minutes to show the difference between the left and right side of the car. I'm at work now, so I can't get under the car for a real look-see.

Any thoughts? I am definitely going to take my car back to Firestone for the last time and hopefully get a free rear alignment.

 

There is a lot of stickion in the inner spring bucket arm bushing. Loosen and tighten the toe bolt with the tire on the ground at ride height. I will come bown a bit.

 

Wow, that kind of resistance can't be good for traction. With OEM style coilovers is my only option for improvement the $750 SPL bucket/toe arms?

 

Our toe bolts are known to be crappy and fail, especially under track use. I would look into the SPL bucket replacements or switching to a true setup if track is your intended use.

 

I think we have this solved, but here are the pictures as promised for future search button users.

Driver's side at appropriate height:




Passenger side sitting higher:

 

Question: What is the FSM Torq spec on this toe bolt? We didn't know and went with farmer tight at 60 ft-lbs.

 

Took the car back to Firestone yesterday. We loosened multiple connecting points, jumped up and down on the door sill and got almost no drop. Snugged the points up, took the car for a quick trip around the block, thrashed the car a bit to compress the suspension as much as possible. It dropped a little bit more.

The passenger side rear, where the initial problem was found, is still 1/4" higher than the driver's side.

I don't remember it being like this before the AutoX event. At this point do I consider using the coilover to lower this corner?

 

Did the lock ring on your coilovers come loose during the autoX?

 

I haven't checked. I'll do that tonight.

 

Could be a possibility

 

It's a possibility, but unlikely. I would love for that to be the problem. The Firestone tech did a lot of poking around without finding anything.

I'll count the threads on both sides of the car for comparison as well.

 

Well crap, just walked out to my car and the right side is back to an inch higher, see pictures above.

 

Were the spring perches matched from side to side before installing and then never messed with again? The L/R sides aren't going to match up exactly with the same amount of threading for your spring perches so adjustments after installation will be necessary.

 

Thanks for the heads up, I did not know that.

I swapped the coilovers straight from ilya_mhs07's car. Cobb tuning and Jotech both had their hands on the suspension and the coilovers were properly setup. Unless I failed to notice, which is highly unlikely, my vehicle's ride height looked correct from the very start. The change occurred after the toe bolt failure.

I will still jack up the vehicle up and remove the wheel to check for obvious issues. If I don't find anything wrong, I'm hesitant to compensate with the perches as the vehicle was fine before the incident.

 

No joy.

Took the wheel off and I see no signs of anything changing.

Could I have a blown coilover? This corner looks like it did when we first installed the coilovers, when they had not settled yet. A quick drive around the block and they settled nicely.

I was hoping to add a few more suspension components before paying Cobb tuning to setup my suspension. Looks like I might need them to diagnose this problem first.

Sucky

 

Verify the spring in the spring bucket is seated in the spring bucket correctly...both sides...

see the suspension 101 thread, the last post i mention again about having a machine shop make toe bolts with tighter tolerances..

also, all the torque specs are in my images in the suspension 101 - again taken from the FSM my FSM thread sticky in the maintenance and repair forum..

-J

 

I was hoping it was that, I checked, it wasn't the problem.

Appears to be perfectly in the seat as far as one can tell without unbolting bits.

 

what about uptop, the cone....

-J

 

Typically the pass side sits higher, even with coilovers , the adjustment is a lot different on the pass side. Pop your swaybar endlinks loosen, roll the car and measure again.

 

I have an appointment at Cobb Tuning for an alignment. At a minimum, I need to get those radius/traction arms back to equal length. Hopefully they don't find any damage from the toe bolt flopping around.

I'll do the swaybar thing today before I go. I assume I only need to disconnect the endlinks on one side of the car.