How rough is it really in full soft for bad roads?

I understand that the noise factor was reduced, is this true? How bad really is the noise?

Is it bouncy? How does it handle?

Is this suspension truly a good street/track set-up? Having a suspension too stiff on harsh roads and lead to poorer handling.

Overall, I'm looking to create the best handling car that I can adjust for various surfaces. My bias is definately toward high performance street/track set-ups as opposed to comfort. In other words, I'm willing to sacrifice comfort for performance.

Tein looks good, but if it can't handle some adverse surfaces adequately, are there recs for other set-ups?

I realize that no set-up will be perfect for both street and track, but I'm looking to save money IN THE LONG RUN. I don't want to get something to stiff that won't work well on the streets.

Thanx

 

The following comments are based on a G35coupe, with an 8" longer wheel base that is therefore inherently less "bouncy" than the Z, using the tein flex coilover system with the EDFC unit.

The car also is running with Stillen sway bars front and rear, at the "middle" setting, so it is significantly stiffer than the stock bars.

With the edfc set at a soft setting of 14-16 (with 1 being stiffest and 16 softest) the car rides pretty close to stock, maybe sniff stiffer or a sniff softer...just real close, for the straight line highway cruising. This is with the 12kg springs.

The noise and thump that has been reported on the 10kg spring set ups has never occured on my car, so I think that issue has been resolved.

With the pillowball mounts the camber was not a problem, and I put 5000 miles on the Michelin Pilot Sports with no sign of uneven wear. I did carry about 40psi in the tires, rather than the standard 35, which also makes the car feel the bumps more.

The car sits about one inch lower.

For performance, with wider wheels and rubber 8.5"F and 9.5" R with 245/35/19F and 275/35/19R, the stiffer sways, the platform is much more aggressive, yet maintains civility for the street on the soft setting. It is not a cadillac. But the coilover damps out a lot of the little stuff, when set to the softer end.

For aggressive street driving you drop to something like 8-10. You definitely notice it being stiffer.

For track you go down to 4-6, maybe 3-5. I have run Laguna Seca (with the Pilot Sports) and Buttonwillow (on Toyo RA-1's)with the set up and been very happy with it, especially since I do not trailer the car, and drive to the tracks...so having the ability to soften it up for the freeway is a big plus.

If you put it low, like 2, on a city street with any kind of bumps, expansion joints etc., you will shake the fillings out of your teeth unless you have a mouthguard to clamp onto.

I will track the car 4 to 6 times a year, so this flexibility, to allow a daily driver to be converted to a more aggressive track capability at the push of a button was worthwhile for me. Also, I personally like the responsiveness of a stiffer set...but when it is time to take the lady out to dinner, if I use this car, the ability to take it to a ride quality that she won't feel uncomfortable with is a big plus. (The real challenge is taking the bite out of the limited slip differential by not applying slow turn throttle because that is a real ticket to getting startled and unhappy looks!)

Is it a race car set up? Definitely not. It is a track capable set up that is suitable for daily driving. I was able to carry much more speed through and out of the turns at Laguna Seca, such that a fellow in a Z06 with Hoosiers was no match for the car, needing only two laps to gain 400 yards and pass, and two more to leave him far enough behind that he was no longer in the mirror. For reference the Vette weighs a tickle under 3100 pounds to the G's 3400 pounds. (Lest we get too uppity here, the next month a lad in a modified and blown Miata (2200 pounds) wasted me at Buttonwillow, with its 23 turns in 3 miles compared to Laguna Seca's 11 turns in 2.25 miles!! He was a mirror spec behind on the straight and the esses, but after a few of the slower turns he was climbing into my pockets. I need more lessons and practice).

Hope that helps a little.

 

thanks for the reply-helps alot!

At what setting do you have the Nismo LSD? Is the sticking at slow corners when using throttle present at the lowest setting-60% I believe?

Do you feel the LSD increases safety on the street as it does on the track?

Do the pillow mounts allow for camber adjustment?

Which short shifter do you have and how do you like it?

thanks.

 

I have the middle (recommended) setting.
If you are going to the track, I would recommend the middle.
The highest is insane for street civility, you will be chirping and shuddering all over the place, and the lowest is ok for street...but frankly if that is what you would trend towards, save your money and stick with the viscous unit on there. The middle works very nicely on the track (turn off the vdc), and except for supermarket parking lots, etc., totally manageable on the street. For the flat parking garage, market lot etc., just give a little gas, then depress the clutch and glide the center arc of the turn, and let back out the clutch, and no chirping. You only have to do it rarely, but it is a nice courtesy for silver haired ladies with bags of groceries, or young mothers with kids helping them push the cart to their car. A sudden bark from tires is NOT going to make you popular, and they are not going to understand any attempt to apologize or explain how from an engineering perspective it really was not dangerous to them.

The pillow mounts allow you to keep your camber with a slight drop in the height, which is an advantage.

I used the new version of the Rogue shifter (with the bolt through the shaft), and a rubber Nismo ****, basically it is a **** right at the boot. You can shift just with wrist and elbow action, with about a 20% shortened throw. Quick, and precise. Combined with a nismo clutch (and flywheel) you can get excellent responses under demanding conditions, but also keep it smooth for the street.

Cheers

 

I'm not sure what you're talking about here. The pillow ball mounts will do nothing for your camber... Also, I hate to say it, but a 350Z / G35C on street tires will get rolled anyday by a Z06 on R-compounds unless the Z06 driver is babying the car.

 

1. The front top mounts are camber adjustable on the Tein Flex system.

2. He had better or at least stickier tires. I had a better suspension and perhaps caught him by surprise with comparable hp. A stock G/Z will have trouble with the Z06, but I have 360rwhp so he did not pull away on the straights and my exit speed on the turns was consistently higher, which of course is what it is about. Maybe he did not want to scratch it. Laguna Seca is not a friendly place as far as having lots of runoff without stuff to hit should you lose it in a turn. I am not a great driver, but perhaps he was even less so. Maybe he was babying it. But he was no match that day, that track, those cars. That's all.

The point is that the system works reasonably well for street and track. It is a compromise, but that is what our friend is asking about.

Can you add some additional thoughts to help him out?

 

Thanks alot for your help Eagle1! Your response is definately what I needed.

However, about the LSD being set at 60%, isn't that for the street whereas for the track it would be 80% and 100% for drag?

Also, I thought that a clutch-type LSD at 60% would be better than a VLSD. Why did you think it wouldn't be?

 

I don't have the materials with me here at work on the initial torque settings for the Nismo LSD, but my recollection was that it was 70 at the mid setting, and I think the stiff setting was around 105 and the low was somewhere in the mid forties....sorry but I just do not remember exactly. the Nismo only gives you the three settings, and you have to choose the one you want, set it, and install it. You cannot change it without breaking down the "pumpkin", so that is a good reason to snag a ride with someone that has it, and if at all possible, a couple of folks with different settings before you make up your mind. I want a measure of street civility, so the middle setting is fine for me. You might be more willing to put up with the bad city driving manners of the stiffer setting.

If you are talking about 100 as in percentage for lock up...then that is a full locker, (some drag guys used to just weld the units solid) and there is just no way you want that on the street for a daily driver in my estimation. Straight line for 400 yards is pretty limited application. Mark Donoghue was a legendary track racer and engineer, and he liked lockers even though it made them very challenging to drive. But he was a unique combination of talent and engineering intellect. The G/Z cars are not torque grunts for stoplight racing, they are designed as road cars and have a lot more performance to offer as such with good mods to the suspension. So I trend towards some play in the system.

The viscous device is rather ingenious, using a sort of chemical "snot" that heats up and binds or grabs when the plates start to slip. But it is not a performance "locker", it is more of a safety type thing in my estimation, when you start to lose the rear in a turn with some oversteer, or pehaps encounter some understeer and reflexively lift off the throttle, and get some slip out front, you want that touch of traction when you come back into the throttle. The viscous unit gets that slip, tightens up and gives you back some traction on that slipping wheel. Unfortunately you cannot predict exactly when and how hard it is going to kick in with a viscous unit, so to performance drive with it you are not going to be satisfied. On the "edge" (and that can be at 35mph or less under the right conditions...but it is really distressing if it is 75mph+) when you start to experience understeer/oversteer you want to have gentle but deliberate inputs take effect RIGHT THEN, so the mechanical lsd is just more confidence inspiring too.

Just take your time, read like a voracious beast everything you can on the subject, and take it easy when you mess with the suspension, because the interplay of your springs, dampers, sway bars, wheel stagger and tire widths/compounds/pressures all interrelate. Not everything you do will make the car better handling, even when you are trying for that to be so. Some things are counterintuitive...like stiffer sways in front to reduce body roll....may actually promote more understeer unless you simultaneously stiffen up the rear, and by the appropriate amount. eeeek. IF you do a whole clump of handlling and suspension stuff together at one time, it may make it harder to ferret out what is causing what you don't like to be not likeable, and where the stuff you do like is coming from. And that makes it harder to be safe. Not to mention waste gobs of time and encounter frustration when you focus on something as a problem area...when in fact it is something else causing the upset....and you cannot find where it is wrong because it all seems right...and by golly it is right! Arggghhh. So being a bit on the dense side I like to go baby steps or at least things in a planned progression of installation and then check out. And that gives you lots of moments of satisfaction as well as learning. Saves money from too many undo's too.

And talk to lots of folks and don't look to any one person to be a guru. Some folks get overly impressed with what they do know, and not so open about what they do not know, and usually what gets you in trouble is not the 95% mastery of the subject matter but the 5% "haziness" of the rest. And some of that unknown is not just you....it just is not understood by anybody! So, when you tweak......take it gently up to where you used to feel comfy with it....'cause what you did might make it better, but it might have made it worse and there is nothing more icky than starting to lose it before you were ready to start watching for it!

Have fun.

 

He has a supercharger.

 

Eagle, do you have any photos of the new Tein setup? Since when did they introduce camber adjustments into their pillow-ball mount? If this is the case, I'll be switching suspensions soon...

 

You cannot adjust the camber on the suspension of these cars from the top, it is not a strut based suspension. If it were possible, you would not have EVO350, PerformanceNissan and Kinetix making new upper arms. The front adjust's from the upper arm only. What upper mount you use means nothing other than how ridgidly it mounts by being less compliant than the oem upper mount.

 

My thoughts exactly.

 

You guys are knowledgeable, so perhaps you are correct. Mistakes get made every day in my world, and maybe this is mine. I am going to check it out.
I know that the tein flex coil is adjustable on the top mount for some models, and that the installer told me that the camber was in spec tolerance when the car was lowered about an inch because he "adjusted it" to be so. But I did not do the install myself, having shipped the kit directly to him, so there is a possibility that my understanding of what is going on there is not correct. Perhaps the stock set up still keeps the wheels within factory camber tolerance within the drop made. I just don't know for certain. Let me check it out and get it straightened out and report back.
I put 7000 miles on the pilot sports with the set up, before changing to a different wheel and tire arrangement, and there is no noticeable increased wear on the inside of the front or rear tires after that much use, so it certainly does not seem to be adversely affecting tire wear.

 

You guys are knowledgeable, so perhaps you are correct. Mistakes get made every day in my world, and maybe this is mine. I am going to check it out.
I know that the tein flex coil is adjustable on the top mount for some models, and that the installer told me that the camber was in spec tolerance when the car was lowered about an inch because he "adjusted it" to be so. But I did not do the install myself, having shipped the kit directly to him, so there is a possibility that my understanding of what is going on there is not correct. Perhaps the stock set up still keeps the wheels within factory camber tolerance within the drop made. I just don't know for certain. Let me check it out and get it straightened out and report back.
I put 7000 miles on the pilot sports with the set up, before changing to a different wheel and tire arrangement, and there is no noticeable increased wear on the inside of the front or rear tires after that much use, so it certainly does not seem to be adversely affecting tire wear.