modified struts & suspension

I wonder how much twisting will be affected by the fact that I'll use an air shock on the front arm... I'm thinking it might actually help even out the twisting slightly... the upper arm is triangulated to resist foward & rearward movement of the upper ball joint, but like you said, the fact that the spring is on the rear arm & the shock is on the front puts a lot of twisting force on this too as it goes through the motions of ocilating up & down while driving... the rear arm is just always being pushed down while if the shock is doing it's job it'll be pulling on the front arm while extending down & pushing on it when compressing, adding to the twist you talking about I think..,

* side question... when you were considering building coil overs, where were you thinking of attaching the lower pivot of the coil over? on the front arm where the shock sits now or on the rear spring arm or ?

ok, heres a few shots of my modded rear arms & struts done, also shortened the front end links to keep the sway bar away from the axles at this drop... my fabricator left the painting for me, I wonder why? :tongue: I like the rear arm extensions being welded to the arm much better than a bolt on extension, although that would def be the easier way to do it I guess...


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viet, thanks for your input, your the only one this low to see the in's & outs of this in use really so far. one more question, I see you have a spare subframe, do you have any spare sets of upper arms though to sell? if I had a spare set I could build an adjustable upper arm by building a jig from the original... would at least help a lot to be able to get the camber & toe perfect at ride height at least much easier. buying new arms just to make a jig would suck, there well over $200 each & would be useless after the jigs are built... custom upper arms might help you out too a little maybe?
 
Great thread!
I doubt you'd see these kinds of topix & pix on a Murano forum.
Proof that We are different animals :cool:
 
turbocad6 said:
* side question... when you were considering building coil overs, where were you thinking of attaching the lower pivot of the coil over? on the front arm where the shock sits now or on the rear spring arm or ?
Click to expand...

Adjustable set up would've been standard config. The G/Z can get away with true coil over rear since the knuckle positions the shock body somewhat center on the knuckle vs ours being soo forward. Spacing is tight on our upper shock mount as well so that would've been too big of a challenge to take on.

There's a pair of spring buckets on ebay, looks like it could be from everythinginfiniti. http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/INFI...TruckQ5fPartsQ5fAccessoriesQQsalenotsupported

Rear subframe on ebay as well. http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/rear...TruckQ5fPartsQ5fAccessoriesQQsalenotsupported

That subframe is from a RWD FX, I've bought some stuff from that guy before. :laugh:
 
on the arms I need spare uppers, not lowers, I should wind up with my own spare set of lowers when I switch these out :)

I seen that subframe, floated through ebay a few times now, but he don't want to ship & I wasn't so sure I really even want or need it too... is there a difference rwd to awd on the subframe?

---------- Post added at 05:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:58 PM ----------
theMerchant said:
cant wait to see them on John!
(noticed your not "Brick" in the back lol )
Click to expand...


no one is brick in the back, brick gets all black back there & all upper headliner too... still need to do that part:tongue:
 
so I call my mechanic up at 5:30 & ask him if he would install this stuff for me half joking I guess, but then he say's sure, drop it off to me...

gave it to him for a few hours & he was able to put the rear arms & air shocks in, but the fronts are a little bit of a problem. the tires touch slightly on the spring seat. that's what I get for trying to just have it done for me without test fitting as I would have if I did this myself, now I gotta slot the holes a little in the struts & I think i'm going to loose at least 1/4" of drop in the front, maybe even 3/8" because of this... def won't need to go back to uncut H&R's, might even think about cutting another 1/4 coil even in the front to make up for what I'm going to loose if it's still not low enough now. fronts will need to be done later.

seeing this & knowing what I know now, I really don't think this was the best way to do these front struts. the drop will be closer to 1 3/8" rather than the 1 3/4" I originally thought I'd be able to get away with. at this length the brackets that pelon did would be fine & much easier to do really. mine will still be fine, but this bracket/tube clamp way of doing it is overkill for this drop


the rears... I told the mechanic to just turn the 2 lower arms all the way in, knowing they'd probably still be negatively cambered. when I picked it up I looked at the lower bolts & saw exactly how they can be slotted further & adjusted for camber & toe, but I also looked at the upper arm mount again with everything installed & dropped & I still think this is the best way to aproach correcting the alignment as much as possible first.


the upper arm inner mount is a bolt through a hole in a bracket on the subframe, & there is definately room to drill another hole above the original & further out, right on the existing bracket. the bolt will still fully clamp the bracket. no extreme fabrication, just 4 simple holes to drill (don't look too simple to drill though, real tight in there)

to me it's a no brainer to at least drill new holes & relocate this, it has to bring the top of the wheel out somewhat at least. if it brung it out more than enough it'd be really sweet, cause then the bottom could just be adjusted & it'd be 100%, but I don't think it'd be enough for 100% correction, i'll take whatever it has to give though, no reason not to do this. also when the wheels do come out a bit at the top then it should sit right flush up to the rolled lip on the body, no need for a spacer at all if it comes out as much as I think it will...




the air shocks winded up being a great fit for this, they work awesome & can raise the rear quite a bit, but even at low pressure all the way down it doesn't bottom at all & dampens nice, at like 15-20psi it just preloads without adding much height at all... I think it rides a little more comfortable even than it did. only thing is that I have to seperate the air chambers, air shocks with a common air feed suck cause they allow & create more body roll, seperated they'll be much better

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looking nice....
so the fronts are on cut H&R and modified strut in that pic....

I look forward in reading more of your impressions before I proceed with my project.

thanks

---------- Post added at 11:41 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:12 AM ----------
turbocad6 said:
... came up with a rear shock fitment for a suzuki grand vitara, found a set of delco air shocks for that aplication & ordered them...
Click to expand...



what year are the rear shocks from? also do you think regular shocks would be a good as the air shock you got? I know you can adjust the air shocks lower...

would you advised modifying the upper shock mount also?

thanks again for taking the first steps :tup:
 
I forgot to mention watch for spring clearance, I only sit 1/4' below mine. If I go lower profile tires could lower more , but can FX be reprogrammed for that?
 
You can just go less sidewall bulge to clear the fronts, not sure if you're on oem tires or not but they bulge a lot. Don't need to go shorter, either that or add more inner clearance with spacers or a lower offset wheel with more inner clearance.
 
Those are 20x10 Axis Mods right? If so I think the offset was like 40 or something similar. 10" +40 is 25mm in and out of stock offset. That's why you're closer the spring mount.
 
merchant, those pictures are with just the rear arm installed, front's I left alone till I get these rears under control, really don't need all 4 wheels pointing whacky at the same time, that's for sure:smile:. even these new pictures, front still needs to come down, not done yet...




last night's drove home after the drop was with the rear wheels all whacky, heavily cambered in. I thought it felt more comfortable in a way because it was a bit more wallowy & not as stiff & ridgid feeling at all, felt a lot of body roll too that I half blamed on the common chamber plumbing of the air shocks even, it didn't feel secure driving, it felt pretty unstable & no where near as planted & sure footed, was afraid to do high speed & agressive, just ease it till I can get it back to where it should be of course.

today I had the oportunity to use the lift in my friends shop, shop closed for 4th. decided that from everything I figured out in the geometry & the changes, I knew what I wanted to do to try & help correct this before attempting to correct this with the more conventional aproach of camber & toe bolts, I definatley wanted to bring the inner upper pivot points more towards where I figure they should be, I knew it had to help a lot & be worth it. maybe it really wouldn't be worth huge fabrication & major reworking to try & do what I had in mind, but it def seemed worth it to at least get what I could out of this & then take it from there, it had to improve the geometry overall.

I opened up the new holes directly above & slightly out from the original holes in the subframe. it is very tight in there & you can't get a drill or anything in there, even an angle drill might be tough, I didn't want to have to drop the subframe, so I did this with a dremel with right angle adapter & a good 1/8" bit. I was able to drill in each circle I made & then slowly ream it out with the same bit, slowly opening to the right size. some of the holes I had to drill straight through the middle of an opened hole in front of it as there was no other way to get on it straight. it was a tideous job but not extremely difficult, the dremel was a perfect way to do this & it worked out well. after drilling the front ears were perfect but the top part of the rear ears intefeared with the control arm, had to cut into thr top a bit & flap it up, probably will have this area welded when I get a chance to rienforce it as what I did had to make it a little weaker, but I'm still sure that it's strong enough as is too...




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...so I reintalled the upper arms with just this one modification, everything else the same. dropped it & wow, what a difference! the top of the wheel came out quite a bit, the top of the tire was inside my qtr lip by a good amount before as it was cambered way in, but now it's out enough that it'll rub hard for sure... finally a reason to roll my lips! :laugh:

the wheel was much straighter, but now that the upper arm mod corrected so much of the camber it also made the wheels toe out a lot. I still only have the factory adjustments so about all I could do was to actually bring the camber out to correct the toe. I had to bring the coil spring bucket arm all the way out to get the toe reasonable enough to drive

these pictures show how much better the upper arm mod makes the wheel sit. it's still not perfect, but it's worlds better than before, & this is still with the stock suspension adjuster bolts, no nothing yet!

I'd say that this upper mod is something that should def be done if your going low. it's not an extreme amount of work but it is an extreme improvement in the rear geometry & well worth the effort.


I drove it home tonight & it drives great. much much better than last nights unstable ride. the body doesn't roll at all like it did last night, guess the air shocks weren't the major cause of that afterall. it feels sure footed & stable, even got on it a bit & it feels almost perfect. of course, this is before even doing a final alignment or even modifying any of the adjustment points at all or even adding the offset camber & toe bolts. it's still not right, but it's a whole lot closer to right & now needs much less altering of the factory adjustments...


in these pictures you can see that it is still slightly negatively cambered overall, but remember this is with the spring bucket arm actually adjusted all the way out. camber may actually be perfect after I correct for the toe adjustment, just toe might need the most modification now, camber may need very little modification if any :tonguey:

not only is the camber problem much less at ride height now, but the upper arm mod will also make a very good improvement in the goemetry as the wheel travels through it's stroke too, kinda what I explaned before with all those diagrams & stuff. I think these pictures really show the difference compared to the pictures from last night, huge difference


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here you can also see the improvement in the overall geometry too as the fx raises & the wheel drops. goes positive camber as it should too, this would not happen as much either without the upper arm mod...

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it really worked out well & yeah, that's a fender roller, had to roll the lips after doing that upper arm thing. the right way for me to have done this would have been to drop it first & do all the suspension mods first, then get the most acurate measurements for my rims so I could get them right up to the edge of the lip perfect, but I winded up having to order the rims first. luckily I went with a not so agressive offset & kept the wheels in as much as possible, because now the wheel has come out a bit from the drop. it now is exactly where it should be, right up to the edge of the body with minimal clearance enough to not touch, but it def needed to have the edge rolled or it would have rubbed big time at this point.


this would be a problem if you had an agressive flush wheel already. you wouldn't be able to do this without having the wheel stick out too much... to go this low with this rear geometry you'll need to rethink your wheel fit too. stockers would work well with this, you'd need a wheel that is not flush already before the drop, & it'll become more flush after....

I rolled the edge, then hammer & dolly flattened it completely flush, there is no edge anymore, just a folded over lip that is smooth & flush on the inside now. to me this way is better than just cutting some of the lip off, this makes the lip as thin as possible & smooth, no sharp edges. then I cut the plastic to a thin strip, overall very stream lined & smooth edge, the tire rides right up to it on full compression, but doesn't touch it. worked out well. the middle center of the molding is no longer retained with either the screws or the clips, the center will be siliconed to secure it



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