S13 suspension kit

Im thinking of getting this godspeed kit...Should work out to about R5000

what you guys think? Anyone else perhaps interested, gonna contact seller monday or tuesday!

ive thought about these kits alot but i went coilover route instead and i got it set up perfect for road and track with out it so i dont think you need it unless you want crazy camber

Would this not compliment Coilovers?

yes it will complement it

but in my opinion its a nice to have not a need to have

unless you going full drift and need that rear CAMBER

but like i say my car handels great just with coilovers street and track

but still somthing ive always wanted

the biggest suspension mod is swaybars-nothing compares.

the biggest suspension mod is swaybars-nothing compares

+1000

yes sway bars are a good must but the rest is not really needed

I believe the other way around. If you have a solid coilover setup sway bars will make little difference as body roll will be kept in check with the coilovers.
And those adjustable arms will be necessary with coilovers (depending on ride height) as the suspension geometry goes out the lower you go.

swaybars

swaybars are pretty much the cheaper version of coilovers.

either run sway bars.. or run coils.. but you dont really 'need' both.

problem comes in when you wanna start fiddling... ie .. lowering which you can do easily enough with coils... though what people forget about coils is.. each time you fiddle with either your height adjustment or camber or wtvr.. you will need to have your alignment redone. When i first had my coils and suspension i was playing all the time.. and was having to have my alignment done atleast once a week.. @ R230 per alignment session.. became costly. but i fiddled to a point where i like its settings and now i only go for alignment once every 2 months. that said .. after driving in Poizns car .. his suspension feels far grippier and stable than mine 🙁 .. not that mine is meant to be stable 🙂

...The complete suspension kits are excellent.. but be carefull you dont end up setting it wrong and having to drive a snappy, bumpy .. mishandling car.

... personally id suggest keeping the suspension as simple as possible, the smallest changes can make the biggest improvements.

Got tein Super streets-nice
Got poly bushes -nicer
got -nismo brace-oh well
Got swaybars- OMG thats grip

All those things are nice to have when the car slammed.
Longer ball joints to bring the roll centre back to original after the car is lowered will make more difference on your cornering speed than any suspension mod anyways(my next purchase)

Thanks for all the advice...

So would you guys say - Sway bars, strut braces and poly bush kit would compliment Coilovers well...

hehe, im no suspension guru, but i fail to see how you guys are even comparing coilovers with swaybars.. they do 2 differant things!!

swaybars control the wheels movement in relation to each other, thus having a huge effect on under or oversteer, depending on their setup..

shocks/springs or coilovers control the movement of the wheel its attached to, thus controlling ride height , rebound ect..

300sx wrote:

hehe, im no suspension guru, but i fail to see how you guys are even comparing coilovers with swaybars.. they do 2 differant things!!

swaybars control the wheels movement in relation to each other, thus having a huge effect on under or oversteer, depending on their setup..

shocks/springs or coilovers control the movement of the wheel its attached to, thus controlling ride height , rebound ect..

By no means would i have sway bars over coilovers.. coz coilovers do heaps more... but they do affect some core suspension outputs similarily..... but mostly in the corners

coilovers...

stiffen suspension
less suspension travel
balance the car

Sway bars...

balance load between wheels giving a stiffer suspension 'feel'
give less car body roll .. ie the feel of less suspension travel
balance the car

the biggest suspension mod is swaybars-nothing compares

to re-iterate.. +1000

from another forum.. just for some perspective to this swaybar vs coilovers debate..

Are you committed to buying an adjustable coil-over suspension for the car? Contrary to Audiworld opinion, an adjustable coil-over suspension on a street car is a poor idea and can hurt the handling of the car. Allow me to explain.

The whole purpose of a fully-adjustable coil-over suspension (FACOS - not an industry term) is, as expected, adjustability (do you know that you already have coilover suspension, stock?) However, with that adjustability is a LOT of setup requirements. If you don't setup the suspension properly, you are almost guaranteed to make your car handle worse than stock. It might ride stiffer, and look lower, but it won't handle better. See, the FACOS give you not only the ability to adjust ride height, but corner weights as well. If the corner weight is not set correctly then you end up with cross-weight all out of whack and the car's handling becomes unpredictable.

Think of corner weights this way: you take a four-legged stool with all legs the same length. When you sit on that chair, all four legs are touching the ground evenly, pushing down onto the ground evenly, if you will, and the chair doesn't rock. If you were to place scales under each leg you would find that with your weight perfectly balanced in the center of the chair all four scales would read equally. Lean one way or another and you'll find that the weight will be shifting from scale to scale but the chair will continue to be steady and not rock. The reason is because of one unique thing: the sum of the opposing corners will always equal each other. In other words, the LF plus the RR weight will always equal the RF plus the LR weight.

But, suppose you slightly trim one chair leg, say 1/16". Now, the chair is going to rock slightly, because more of the weight is being held by the opposing corner legs. In fact, if you're good at balancing, then 100% of the weight will only be on two legs, while the other two legs aren't even touching the ground. The LF+RR weight will be LESS than the RF+LR weight.

This is the idea behind corner weights on a car. FACOS is adjustable not just for ride height (different length springs will do the same thing); the goal is to adjust each spring independently so that the cross weights are identical. You'll still have more weight in the sum of the fronts versus the sum of the rears (and you can adjust that to a degree with spring rates), but when the sum of the cross weights are equal the car will handle the same left to right and will be MUCH more predictable.

If, for instance, you have too much weight LF/RR than RF/LR, the car will turn in nice and sharp to the right, but will understeer in transit through the corner, and probably during exit. To the left the car will lean over more, transfer a lot of weight during the turn in, and then probably oversteer through the corner. It won't be fun to drive either way, and you'll be scratching your head trying to figure out why it's an evil-handling car.

To set up a car properly with a FACOS, you:

- install your suspension and set the spring perches about where you figure you'll need them for ride height, and equal all around.

- put the car on the ground and test ride height. Ride height is set to either race prep rules (minimum ride height) or to the lowest you can for the conditions. Those "conditions" are either external limitations (don't want the exhaust or spoiler to drag the ground) or internal (wheel clearance or bump stops.) That ride height also has to be adjusted based by testing to determine that you have enough suspension travel and the suspension doesn't bottom out; if you bottom out the suspension you're making your "spring rate" go infinite and you've just wasted all your money on an adjustable suspension. Also, don't forget the ride height is adjustable front and rear, left and right.

- After the ride height is set then the car needs to be aligned to spec. That "spec" is either to the factory limits (which you will likely never be able to obtain with a lowered car) or to values based on track testing, tire pyrometer temperatures, tire pressure results, and driver feedback.

- Once the ride height and alignment is set, then the car needs to be placed on four independent scales. These scales will give you the corner weights that you need to know to set the suspension properly. The nifty versions of the scales are digital and radio-transmitted, and give you a display box you can take with you around the car while the car is on a lift on the scales and you adjust the suspension with another display that does the math for you (about $2000 minimum for ones like that). What you want to do is adjust each spring perch independently so that the sums of the cross-weights match. If a corner is low, you extend the spring perch (chair leg) to put more weight on that corner. Of course, that will then affect all 3 other corners, so you have to go around and around until you get the numbers you want.

Of course, this is all assuming that you're running the springs you want, because a change in the spring rate will cause height to change and all those adjustments to go out the window...

- once you've made all the corner weights perfect, you have to go back and check the ride height, because it's quite possible that all the corner weight adjustment has changed the ride height. If so, start all over again. Don't settle on "good enough"; the whole point of getting FACOS is to get it RIGHT, right?

Then, once it's all set, it's time to go to the race track. Start on the skidpad and check handling. Slight changes in alignment and ride height will help you here (with associated updates to corner weights), but if you need to change front-to-rear bias for better handling you have to change springs (but, of course, one of the big advantages to FACOS is that it uses standard springs - you get to pick-and-choose your spring rates for each end.) Change the springs, start from the top, Maestro! You can also tune the corner-weights for a particular race track, like Lime Rock which is all right turns save one; of course that will make it **** on the street where you're going to be hard-pressed to find only right-hand turns...

I would NEVER install FACOS on my street car. The ironic part is that any "tuner" worth his salt has gone through all the above with an adjustable suspension, tested it to perfection of spring rates, travel, and ride height and alignment, and then took those specs and developed a comparable off-the-shelf replacement spring to give you something probably DAMN close to what you're gonna end up with on a FACOS. It just makes no sense to have all that adjustability, ESPECIALLY considering that when you finally get it set up you'll likely NEVER change it! Because if you do, you've got to start all over from the top. Kinda silly to have that adjustability when it ain't ever gonna be adjusted...

Installing a fully-adjustable coil-over suspension on a car without properly setting it up is either posin' or pissin' in the wind. It may look nice in your sigline, but you're actually hurting the car's handling.

As an alternative, consider the costs of finding a top-notch set of adjustable shocks and aftermarket springs, and paying someone to swap out the springs twice a year like you would for snow tires. You'll pay a bit annually in labor, but you'll be using a proven solution that anyone with an alignment rack can deal with.

What I suggest is to drive other same-type cars that have the various combinations you're interested in. It's *you* that has to live with those combos, not me and not the guy that claims his suspension is the best, and your tastes will vary from mine and his. There's nothing better than actually riding in or driving a car that has a spring/shock candidate. Don't take others' words for it, try it yourself and decide what your compromise is.

And it will be a compromise. "The Ultimate" for the track will be unacceptable for going to work, while a sportier suspension will give you a better handling car without leaving most of your undercoating on the parking lot speed bump or requiring monthly dental visits.

I just thought of something else you really should do with FACOS: have adjustable-end swaybars. In racing, swaybars are a tuning device, not a suspension device; you size the suspension springs to give you the weight balance and anti-roll that you want, THEN you apply swaybars to tune the balance of the car.

If the bars are attached during the suspension setup phase, then a bar may have a load (or "torsion") applied to it, screwing up your actual cross-weights (one end of the bar will lift a wheel, while the other end is pushing down). AFTER the car is set up you install swaybars with adjustable Heim-joint end to install it with no preload at all. If you don't have adjustable end bars, you'll have to force one end into place, preloading it, and screwing up all the work you just did.

For the street, bars are a nice compromise. Since street cars need to have a somewhat-compliant ride, swaybars are a way to make the car "feel" like it has stiffer springs on the outside corner of a turn. When a car rolls, the inside wheel drops relative to the car, pulling down on the bar which pulls down on the outside tire, forcing it into the pavement. It "thinks" it has a stiffer spring. Of course, if you lift the inside wheel off the ground then you've reached the limit of the bar's capability and it doesn't work any harder.

Lots of things to think about. I'd like to think the off-the-shelf "tuners" have put that much thought into their products.

these monkey bars helps a lots on traction and control of the car... with the coilover