I'm planning an extensive rebuild of my suspension. Now I believe that simpler is better, I also believe in doing it properly the first time.

What I have planned:

KW Variant 3 Coilovers
z32 rear uprights
SPL aluminum rear subframe bushings
New suspension arms front and rear. Leaning towards SPL or Cusco arms.
Replace all old rubber bushings with spherical bushings or poly urethane.
New sway bars front and rear
Nismo power brace
Perhaps a roll cage/bar.

What I'd like to achieve:
A better handling 240sx.
Freshening up of the old suspension. The 15 year old rubber bushings are all busted as far as I'm concerned.


Which bars should I replace?
Should I replace all possible bars with aftermarket ones?
Spherical bushings advantages over polyurethane?
The bushings found in the uprights, can they be replaced with spherical bushings?
This car will see street driving but not daily. I can put up with a lot of harshness. It will be designed with performance in mind, and it will be aligned aggressively for the track.

Wide open for changes and additions.

 

no one has any input?

 

sounds good to me.

 

Wtf? no pushrod suspension? Weak, man.


JK, it looks really good to me. not overkill at all

 

no such thing as over kill in suspension set up

 

thats a pretty good set-up, not too much at all IMO.
As for rollcage though, I guess you were thinking of doing a Cusco 6pt bolt-in?

I think you should replace as much as possible considering the car is old and alot of its components are worn out.

 

that sounds like a good setup to me. i wish i could afford to do that now.

 

Get a cheapy ebay floor bar, for a couple bucks it really silences some of the creaks in your midsection. I didn't expect much from it but I was amazed at the difference. I noticed more of a difference from it than I did from the strut bars but that could be because of the old worn out suspension I had at the time I put them on. The tunnel brace also stiffens the chassis quite nicely although there is an increase in cabin noise.

 

do they sell spherical bushings to replace the rubber bushings found in the z32 uprights? is there any part of the suspension where you'd want to have a little give?

edit: never mind i see spl sells spherical bushings for the uprights.


another question. i see they sell aftermarket lower control arms. what benefits do they have? that's an arm i'm not sure if i want to keep it simple by going with an oem arm and just putting in new spherical bushings or upgrade to this. this is my first serious suspension build i'm not sure how much adjustability i'll do on my own. you thoughts?

 

I think it's good to have adjustable suspension components if you want to have custom camber,etc settings but if your just going for something simple, I think just replacing the bushings is fine.

 

Spot on to me. Only coments are avoid a full cage for the street and only go with a roll bar. The cage can be dangerous when not wearing a helmet and should be left for only track cars. People have died in accidents from head trauma caused by roll cages without helmets.

There are no direct application spherical bearing replacements for thos bushings and its not really necessary. In a race car, you would simply eliminate the busings on the uprigths all together and go solid by filling in the aulmunim around a sleeve. The drmatically increased NVH would be bad on the street and can actually crack things. Stick to poly where you can, dont worry about the uprights. There is a company called Noltec that offers some links with a combination poly/spherical bushing for the best of bother worlds. Poly is great but has a tuny range of movement. Spherical allows free pivoting as requires, but no deflection. They incase a spherical in a small surround of poly to get the advatage of spherical without the bad NVH. Hard to find though and you would have to probably call their US office.

 

charles: should i go for adjustable lower control arms or just replace the old lca's with poly? should i replace the old lca bushings with spherical if possible?? what about the tie rods for the steering rack? i'm hoping to use aftermarket inner and outer tie rods. my knowledge on adjusting all these adjustable things isn't that great. i'm hoping to save some $ by only replacing the most key components to make the car, track competent.

 

Go poly on the stock LCAs. The adjustables are overkill for most people. The only advantage of aftermarket tie rods is increased angle mainly for drifting. Its more angle than you will ever need for road course and offer not other performance benifit.

I would do this:

-Poly on sway bars, LCAs, Diff, steering rack
-Spherical adjustables on tension rods, camber, toe, traction. Get a brand name, as ebay ones sometimes break or come loose
-Solid collars on subframe or poly if you can afford/do the install.

 

yeah. i'm def. going brand name. I wouldn't trust something as important as suspension to some knock off company especially when it's going to see the track.

You mentioned differential bushings. Does the s13 use differential bushings? When I installed mine the rear cover studs went directly to metal mounts on the suframe. Are you talking about the 2 bushings near the front of the differential? I thought those were all metal as well.


I'm def. going for the full metal subframe bushings from SPL for the rear.

What's the big stuff to keep an eye on in the front suspension?

 

The S13 doesn't have differential mounting bushings.