350z4steve

iTrader: (1)

I agree w/K27 its alot about spring and valve/dampening on the shocks..Its pretty much an understood thing going on with more than a few 350z. guess you cant have it all when it comes to factory setups but I would think adjustable shocks would help too. this isnt a complain about the firmnes of the ride its about the "rebound" any of you that have ridden Moto-x or offroad racing car trucks would understand this too.

k27

Any issue with "tramlining" or following the furrows in the road as was mentioned, is really a product of 18" wheels,the type of tire and the alignment setup. It can be ironed out to some degreee but will probably never be totally eliminated.
that's the price of performance.

sgraham

Price of performance my ***. Pedal Pusher has posted the numbers. Start calling. Those of you that don't park in high school parking lots will be dialing. This is baloney. I'm hangin in and it's a lot more love than hate (clear bra from Jim, yea) but my chiropractor doesn't need new braces for his kids.

fullylowdd

OK... point taken that we're not talking about the same thing. For the time being, I'm siding with the engineers of the vehicle, which is quite impressive, I'm sure most of you will agree.

I had alot of experience with Nissan and other japanese vehicles, so this debate with bounce can go on forever.

I think we should keep in mind a couple of things:

1. No matter how much they advertise or state that they made no compromises when designing the vehicle, they did. Some compromises had to be made in terms of cost and streetability. The vehicle had to be designed to handle a huge variety of driving surfaces.

2. As for warranty issues, I agree this could be any or a combination of suspension related components. In order for this to be a warranty situation, it must be duplicated for the dealer. It would be difficult to consider bouncing over certain short sections of road to be a warranty issue. Just a natural characteristic of the car because of compromsies.

3. A shorter wheel base = bouncier ride.

k27

it's not that dificult to prove that the shock is not matched to the spring, but you would need the valving specs and the spring rates and the weight of the car.
By the way are those springs progressive or linear, I have not seen this listed anywhere in the literature?

happypants

So, what happened? Any effect on the ride?

jmark

iTrader: (1)

Raceboy,
You are probably correct that Nissan will do nothing. Seems to me we have determined that all they need to do is upgrade (stiffen) the shocks to better match the springs. I will still call Nissan to let them know. If enough of us call it may get looked and fixed for future models. I think that as the flagship of the Nissan line they will listen if enough feedback is given. I still love the car and will probably go the route you took (NISMO susp. kit).

Pedal Pusher

For the record....... I have owned 20 sports cars. One of the most recent ones is a C5 Vette. It has less than an inch difference in wheel base with our cars. I even lowered it and it was driven on the same roads as the 350Z. It never bounced in stock form or after it was lowered and we put over 30,000 miles on it. This is a shock or spring issue. There is a possibility that our springs are not progressive. I have had the car on a lift but couldn't see all of the way up to the top of the rear spring. Eibach and H&R are talking about the need to have progressive springs. Eibach has their spring on the market and they claim it is progressive and about 20% stiffer than stock but it eliminates most of the bounce. Their springs lower the front .8" and rear 1.2".

julian

uh.. stiffer springs means more bounce. you should change your dampeners not your springs.

for all we know the nissan ride development engineers could have "forgotten" to test their setup on the types of surfaces that brings out the oscillations. it kind of depends on how well their test roads represented the roads in the US or how many development drives they took around the world.

and no, nissan won't replace any parts unless they're out of spec or broken. they'll probably make a note of it and adjust it at their next production gateway or model year but I highly doubt they'll do anything about the ones produced already.

jmark

iTrader: (1)

It is obviously a shock or spring issue if the NISMO kit fixes the problem. If it was a wheel base problem the bounce would continue after the NISMO kit was installed. I guess I'll call tomorrow. You know NNA fixed the Bose systems because of complaints so you never know.

Dutchy

Read all the posts here..interesting. ive never had bounce problems yet.
One thing I want to say about my dealer though: I thought it was prety dangerous of him not to warn me about the tires and the climate we got here.
ive never owned a sports car and grew up in snowless South Africa, hence no experience.
I couldnt get home and had to spend the night in a motel.

Testicleez

I know this is old but it sounds to me like the factory Shock's/Strut's dampening level is set too high for the level of spring. This would cause that jarring ride.

Reason I know this is a) I am a frequent open track racer and have a great deal of suspension knowledge and b) it happened to me after changing from my stock setup in the stang to my new koni's and eibach springs.

The springs I believe were initially softer then normal because they had yet to settle and the front struts were set to max stiffness. This had me literally jarring my head while driving on the highway. Similar to the oscillating you guys are referring to. After the springs settled and the struts dampening level decreased, this no longer occurs.

Sounds to me that either Nissan needs to adjust the springs or dampeners in the Z.