any suggestions on a place that you guys would trust to do a good job on the install once you get these?

i don't think that i would trust some muffler shop to weld anything on my car, especially not subframe connectors that can effect the handling dynamics of the vehicle so drastically and are gonna be pretty much junked if not installed right the first time...

what about a body shop that does some serious body work? they've gotta have skilled welders there and the correct type of lift to jack the car up without twisting the frame don't you think? plus they could spray on some undercoating right then and there to prevent any rust forming in the spots that were just welded...

 

I would like to know this too. I was planning on taking it to my HS Shop. They have a brand new ramp lift and i'm a fairly skilled welder. But if the install is very critical, should i find a place professionally to do it for me?

 

Yep, very important question. I've been toying with idea of driving all the way to Pennsylvania and back just to have this reputable shop install them. It would be simpler than trying to explain to a local shop what they are and how to install them, because I think even good performance shops don't do SFC installs very often; at least not on Japanese cars. If you live in Schenectady, ****, that's like a two-hour drive, just have them do it.

Poowill, if I were you and could weld, I would actually consider doing it myself. Read the instructions on Warpspeed's site and/or call up this new company for installation tips. It is a fairly simple thing; just take your time and do it right. It's just that I don't trust someone else to take the time and do it right, or to be competent in the first place.

 

The only thing you really have to be careful about is making sure the welds are as strong as possible. It's not a super-sensitive operation that has to be executed with extremely tight tolerances. As long as they stick to the car SOLIDLY, it should be fine.

 

I already got the Stage-I warpspeed kits.

I was thinking of Stage-II, but my car handles quite well right now. Ride quality is better but still not to the level that I want it. If Warpspeed can't make a Stage-II, then I would be interested in another vendor.

 

as far as installation process goes, its not as critical as you guys are thinking.. basically it just needs good welds.. as long as they stick up there, its fine. there really isnt anything that can "mess the car up", or change from better to worse. its only a steel bar..

 

on another note.. im thinking of possibly trying to find an alternate car to be donated for test fittment. while my car was getting the work done this week, i took a real close look at the floorpans under the car. im having a suspesion that one side may have a slight bend to it. it might, it might not. it just seems like the back part of the floor pan on the passanger side dips up a bit towards the back end, and the C-channel does not hang down as much as it does in the front. it could just be the way they are suppose to be for all i know, but i either want to have another car to compare them to, or possibly find another car whose underside is in "pristine" conditon. so , if i decide to send another car, who would like to volunteer? you will need to send your car to LEBANON, PA. for two weeks. in the meantime im gonna look for another car close by that i can compare floor pans with.

 

Well right, it's a pretty basic thing, just weld it. Where exactly it's welded is indeed not critical; a few mm or even an inch probably won't matter. What will matter, though, is if the car's frame is flexed when the welding is done. So that's why the car has to be on a lift that supports the tires only.

Stuntin', just walk down the street and find a 4th gen Max parked and take a peak. With the stock 4x4 suspension you should be able to get a good look just by sticking your head under.

 

AKA Pittsburgh.

 

thats probably what i might do.. theres 2 other ones and an i30 within 100' of here

 

It's much closer to Philly; eastern half of the state.

 

well heres the outcome of all the work i just had done in case anyone was wondering. steering feels much better. the ride of the car has also changed alot.. much more firm and controlled.. on the downside, i still have a wheel shimmy, so im ready to hang myself, and it seems nobody on this friggin island knows how to use an allignment machine.. its going in for another allignment on wed, to correct the one i just had.. it blows my mind that a shop can call the job "done", when the steering wheel is nowhere close to being centered, and it still pulls. please explain why they dont correct the rear wheels when they make shims solely for that purpose.. i hate everyone..

 

any clue what the weight of one of these might be?

 

probably in the ball park of about 35lbs.

 

latest update: im still planning on dropping the car off with steve this saturday. so heres the plan. my cars spending the night at a shop tonite to get the alignment fixed and a final overview in preperation for delivery. i have to pick that car up after work tomorrow, and then get a ride to queens to pick up my loaner. i'm hoping to be able to drop my car off with steve in the afternoon on saturday, cause i need to wait on another person to take the trip up there with me so i have a way of getting home.. hopefully all goes well.. keep your fingers crossed

 

Hi Stuntin':
I don't think there is anything wrong with the floorpan on your car. I recall that the rear mounting plates on my Warpspeed connectors are welded on the support tube at different angles. One one side, the plate is mounted parallel and on the other side, the plate is welded at an angle.

 

I had the WSP Stage I and II subframe connectors on my 96 SE. I think the SFCs were one of the best mods I ever did to the car, but DO NOT fool yourself into thinking it's going to make a lowered Maxima ride like a Benz. Yes, they defintely improve ride quality over rough surfaces, quell some rattles, and improve handling, but it's not a massive difference.

IMO, stage II is a waste of time. I noticed absolutely no difference so I removed it.

I traveled to Arkansas and got my SFCs put on at the WSP affilate shop and I hung out with Dallas much of the day. The WSP SFCs were not crappy in anyway, shape, or form. They're designed for purpose, not looks. Powder coating these things is a waste of time and your money. I simply removed the protective oil from the bars and shot them with rubberized under coating. Every year I'd have to clean up a little rust somewhere and shoot a little more coating on.

Welding them on MUST be done on a 4-post lift and the welder must be experienced. The WSP SFCs had some fairly elaborate bends and turns and some welding points are very tricky. The guy that installed mine had already installed about 20 sets at the time and it still took him about 80 minutes to do the install. For someone who's never done it, it will take a lot longer assuming these SFCs are of the same design.

I must say I'm confused about WSP and them not selling the SFCs for the past 8 months because a friend fn mine drove down to WSP's new shop about 1 month ago and got SFCs put on his 96 Maxima.

 

What springs did you have, Dave B? I was thinking that those of us with the biggest drops and the stiffest springs might be more likely to notice an improvement from the x-bracing (Stage 2) because of the higher stress on the chassis.

 

I notcied a pretty dramatic difference with the X brace missing on my 3 gen. then again, I'm running 450lb springs on all corners. not exactly a soft setup.

I took mine off last fall when I was building my exhaust and left it off for a while. very noticeable (and welcome) difference when I put it back on.

 

H&Rs, Koni yellows, and ME rear strut mounts. The whole set up was amazing for daily use. On most surfaces, the ride was great, even on my lightweight 17" rims.


Yeah you probably would, Mr. Andretti I got no skills turning and I'm not the auto-x/road race champ like yourself. With the stuff I've seen you do in a Max, you can probably test the limits of nearly every suspension/chassis/brake mod out there

 

any updates???

 

Stuntin's taking the car to the shop tomorrow for prototype installation. Read the thread.

 

well i hate to announce it but the car isnt in the shop. i emailed steve the day before to confirm the apointment and he told me that he could not take the car this week becuase they got help up on another project. i asked about next saturday and am still awaiting a response. im a lil dis-appointed to say the least.
on the brighter side, i finally found a person in staten island that can actually operate an alignment machince so my car finally drives straight. ( only took a year ). the guy that did it for me is also an underbody specialist and went over the enitre bottom of the car for me. he reassured me that the car was never hit and there has never been any kind of reconstructive work underneath. unfortunately, after replacing my entire suspension, complete front end, i still have a friggin wheel shimmy. so if you people dont hear from me, its probably because i drove this car off a cliff.
lastly, i just so happen to recieve an email from warpspeed that was in response for one i sent almost a month ago. they said they'll be shipping sets next week. my reply was that ive been hearing that for almost a year. so- we'll see what happens.. if they happen to actually come through this time, im debating on persuing this other vendor, although i might just out of spite. it makes me sick just to think id be giving them any of my money, after all the lies and b.s. they put everyone through.

 

what about tire balancing?

 

been done 40 times.. the ONLY thing i havent chaged is the rotors

 

Exactly. What about the tires themselves? Have you tried a different set of wheels/tires to confirm? Radial ply separation will do exactly what you're describing.

 

yes i have.. put that was also b4 everything else was done.. my friend, who i bought this car from, still has the stockers down at his mothers house in south jersey.. i may take a ride with him to go get em, and try them out..

 

my front end pulls to the right and ive already had les schwab do an alignment twice in one month and dude says all the specs are correct he cant figure out why it is pulling, so he suggested these little camber bolts or something that he thinks might straighten it out? I can understand why the car would pull if the alignment is correct? anyone else experience this

 

Whether or not Warpspeed comes through in a week, it looks like this other shop wants our business a lot more than Warpspeed does. If they're gonna be better about it and deliver the goods as promised with no BS, then they deserve our cash a lot more than Warpspeed does too. A little competition never hurt us customers. Plus, having a supplier out in NY might help us guys out here in the Northeast with shipping costs. So if it's not too much trouble for you to get this done, Stuntin', I vote for going ahead with the new guys.

But if it's gonna be a big sacrifice for you, then it's your call.

My $0.02....

 

i agreee.......i always pay up the butt for shipping cause it all comes from teh midwest or west-coast

 

Stuntin, you crack me up. "..I hate everyone.." I've been though the same shiza w/ my car and have resorted to messing w/ the alignment and shimmies, etc myself. I bought a lifetime alignment at firestone recently so now when i mess it up I just take it back. I have a pull that I can correct by giving more + to the right front or - to the left front. it's a pull to the left. With all being adjusted, the only thing that's not aligned is the factory toe for the rear is off. It should be "0" in my opinion, but that's another story... In your case the vibration could be the rotors or wheels (...and much more), so you might consider those if that's all you haven't replaced/tested.

 

Are you running aftermarket camber bolts? I had a set installed with my GCs when i did my suspension to "play it safe" incase i was going low enough to mess up the camber. I had to get about 20 allignments done before i realized that the reason i wasnt holding an alignment was because the camber bolts themselves!

Everytime i would drive outa the parking lot the camber bolts wouldnt "grip" enough to hold the freshing done alignment and my wheel would flop to one side then the other, as well as throw my toe and camber completely off..

Just a thought, i dont know if this is what your experiencing tho.

Good job with the SFC btw, i cant wait till you guys get these made!

 

Yes, I have camber bolts now. (I had a R pull before changing struts/springs.) I played w/ the settings myself (yes I realize this affects toe) and got them close, or how I liked it anyway, before I ever had an alignment. Here's what happened... I first installed struts, had a Left pull, then did an alignment. Still left pull. I bought camber bolts, and made 2 or 3 adjustments and it rode best before I made the last one. Very little pull and very comfortable. Then, I screwed it all up (basically toe was completely unknown) thinking I need the camber closer to the same (L was -, R was +) and took it back to the shop. Now it pulls again and rides a little rough. I may try to go to even camber, no +/- to see how much that helps, then adjust slightly on my own. I mean not even a full turn on the tie rod makes a huge difference in how the car responds to toe. Toe out and it feels uncomfortable, toe in and it feels less responsive/spongy. Camber changes of less than a degree to each side makes very little difference that I can tell but seems to negatively affect straightline comfort if not close to equal. Rather than keep getting spec alignments, I think SFC's would give me some of that comfort and a bent beam would give me more OS and might eliminate the pull. Both of these seem to be extinct at this point though! : ( Nissan should have kept this car w/ independent suspension. Anyone converted? I would consider it if the price was right.

 

i bought camber bolts to use " in case i needed them" about a year ago. never had to have them installed though.. i seriously think that the person using the machine makes the biggest difference. first of all, the machine even tells the person using it to " straighten the steering wheel " as step 1.. my wheel had been crooked for over a year. secondly, i got my car back from the alighment shop after i had the front end work done, with my steering wheel a 1/4 turn to the left, and still having a pull to rite. the print out they gave back my mechnic had the " after " with every setting with-in spec except the toe on one rear wheel. i went ahead and did the front end for 2 reasons. 1- to try and get rid of my shimmy, 2- cause everyone swore "somethings bent, thats why it lines up on the machine, but still pulls" . 3 different shops told me that.

i had met this other mechanic a while ago, and told myself, " next time im going to him".. so i finally did.. he gave me about a 20 minute lecture how all the mechanics out in staten island suck, and that hes so sick of it he wants to get out of business. he sat there and took the time to explain that when things dont line up rite, you have to look at other settings to figure out why, and then change things on the machine to get it rite. he said that hes been doing this for 35 years, and hes capable of doing things some other people cant..


so anyway, he did the allignment a week after the other shop. the "before readings" on his print out, both toe settings on the front wheels were way out of wack, and rear toe was way out. his after readings.. green across the board, except for the toe on the rear wheel , which he shimmed and got it VERY close to being within spec.
so the outcome of my experience with him is, my steering wheel is finally straight, and my car finally drives straight too. the funny part.. both shops use the same machine.. so you figure it out..

as far as my wheel shimmy.. i still have one, its less dramatic , but also, "different" then what it was.. the best way i can explain it is to say that the wheel just feels un-steady as you drive now, instead of like a wheel being out of balance ( had him balance my 2 front wheels too) . like its wants to go very slightly one way, and then very slightly the other way, really fast, but still tracks straight. im thinking that it could even be my tires now, cause of how long i was probabaly driving with the bad allighments.

 

If you are having a wheel shimmy problem and have replaced that many parts I would bet you have a bad wheel hub on one of the front knuckles. I have sole 4 hubs in the last 2 months becasue of this same problem. Most people that have the problem start with the brakes and find out afterwards that it was the wheel bearing and hub assembly that is bent or bad. Borrow or rent a dial guage and check the runnout on your front hubs. If its more than.015 can cause the wheel to shift a 3 tenths of and inch at 20" of tire diameter. I'm not sure ont eh specs but I would think it would be no more than 15 or 20 thousands of an inch. One of you Nissan techs might know the exact spec on this.

 

[QUOTE=deoncollins69] check the runnout on your front hubs. [QUOTE]
honestly.. i dont know what this is.. how much is a front hub anyway?

 

next thing im gonna do is get the stock rims/tires , and at least put the fronts on for a few days and see how it is.. theres so many things that it "could have been", the list is endless.. theres no way of me knowing that MABYE, it was, or is, a combination of 2 different things. so now i wanna throw another set of rims and tires on the car, and see what happens..

like i said, the only thing i havent changed is the rotors, and i imagine that i would feel a pretty noticable pulse while braking. i can feel something in my pedal when i brake on the highway, but i feel it in my wheel too..

 

If you have ever dial guage micrometer waht it does is measure the amount of deflection(movment in and out) of the hub. if it is as little as .05 of an inch the wheel will mover up to .145 of an inch or about 1/16 of and inch. here is the equation

xcos-1/diameter of the wheel= run out at the tire x= run out at the hub

I would definetly check the brakes first. I had assumed you had done them first. 75% of wheel shake is bad brake rotors the other 25 is the tire or wheel bearing.

New from Nissan about 185$ I can get you used knuckles for about 80$ shipped. I don't know how much they usually are from the yards

 

anyway.. as far as the subframes go... i still havent gotten a response from steve about bringing the car there.. my time frame on having a second car to use is running out too.. so, thats definately going to be a factor.. im going to email him again today a see what happens.

i mean, im pretty pissed off about the whole warpspeed thing, and would love nothing more than to see a real fabrication shop give them a slap in the face. but on the other hand, the options have to be weighed. it doesnt make much sense for me , or anyone for that matter, to have to rent a car for 2 weeks. the bill alone will be close to or over $500 just for that after you finish paying taxes and fee's. and then you still have to figure i'd be driving 2 hours there, 2 hours back, WITH another car and driver following me. it just isnt logical when warpspeed is selling sets for $200..

bottom line, i want sfc on my car. obviously you guys do too. i know warppeed doesnt deserve a dime of my money, or yours, but if your choices are, spend 300 - 350 and have a set intalled on the car, or spend 500 and have 8 hours, of 2 cars driving back and forth, it makes me wanna push my ethics aside.

rite now it seems to be a race as far as i can see it, if steve emails me and says, " have the car here saturday", its going.. if i hear from warpspeed and they say, " i can ship it tomorrow" sorry, but i might have to sell out. sorry to admit that, but it just makes more sense. no matter what way you look at it, somebody else is gettin our money at the end of the day. ive been waiting for about 2 weeks to close on my house and im not in the position rite now to take the more expensive route just out of spite. (although i really do want to)

if anything else, we have a new vendor in our back pocket. any B.S. from these other people, this new guy isnt far away. so rite now , i think we should just play it by ear and see what happens in the next few days. hopefully i get a green light from steve for the weekend.

 

Have you checked to see if your control arm bushings are in good shape?