Maxima Forums - D2 problems fixed and adjustments explained for 5th genners

Just a post to help those with D2's (and other coil-overs in some cases) with set-up, noise reduction and maintenance.

I've had D2's for about a year and have logged about 50,000 miles or so on them. It's taken a long time to get all the kinks worked out so that they don't bounce, the ride is comfortable, quickly adjustable for going to an autocross event, don't wear the tires, sits at whatever height I want, and keeps the car flat in the corners.

Setting them up:

First of all, you do NOT want any looseness in the springs at all. By this I mean that when you put them together, be sure to keep the adjuster nuts tight against the spring when there's no load on the shock. This will keep the clunking to a minimum. If you want to adjust the height, you absolutly need to take the whole unit out and change the location of the lower knuckle. Changing the spring tension nuts are a good way to quickly determine the height you want the car at without taking the assembly out, but once you have the height adjusted, pull the strut and move the knuckle up the same distance as the space between the spring and the nuts and then add another 1/2". The 1/2" is so that you can then put a 1/2" of pre-tension on the spring. By this, I mean that once the knuckle is locked in place, move the nuts up so that they are snug against the spring then add another 1/2" of pre-tension to the spring. This will eliminate the knocking noises and add some degree of adjustability to the comfort level of the ride. Note: you can only adjust the camber on the front coilovers with D2's set-up.

I figured out a way to do a ghetto alignment in my garage using just a square and my eyeballs. The first thing you need to do once the height is adjusted and the struts are installed (everything needs to be really, really tight or your alignment will change over time) is adjust the camber. The ghetto method I've come up with is to get a couple of small blocks that are the same width and tape them to the lip of the rim on the top and bottom so that you can get a good reading with your square. I then simply put the square next to the tire on a flat, hard surface to see where my camber is. Adjust the camber with the camber plates by loosening the four set screws on the top-hat and moving the shock with the wheel off the ground. You want to get it so that the blocks are as flush as possible to the square. Once you have all the camber's adjusted properly, drive the car around the block and re-check it. You'll almost definitly need to do some more adjusting as the coil-overs settle. Don't be surprised if you need to do it 2-3 more times. The rears, at least on mine, stayed straight even when lowered.

In order to adjust the toe, I've tried a couple different things but the easiest and, so far, most accurate ghetto method I've found is to straighten out the wheel, put the car in park, go to the back of the car and look along the back rim to the front rim. You should be able to see what is going on with the front tire at that point. You want to get them in perfect alignment to avoid tire wear. If you just lowered your car, expect the front tires to toe-out. Once you see about where you need to be, simply jack up the car and adjust the tie-rods to move the tire in the right direction. If you want to bring the front part of the tire into the car, adjust the tie-rod to lengthen it. To push it out, shorten it. As with the camber adjustment, drive around the block and re-adjust.

Keep in mind that you MUST do the camber first, toe last. The geometry on our cars is such that adjusting the camber changes the toe.

Once you have that done, it's time to adjust the dampeners. At the top of the strut there is a knob connected to a long peice of hex that goes into the strut. When I adjust them, I tighten them down all the way then back off about 3/4 of a turn of every-day driving or a quarter turn for autocrossing. Between that and the pre-tension on the springs, I have no bounce. You also want to keep in mind that the front and back dampeners need to be set to the same strength for the most comfortable ride. I've gotten bad bounce when i tried mis-matching them.

If you want to add negative camber, keep it to a minimum and add and equal amount of toe-in to increase tire life. By this I mean 3 degrees camber should be offsett by 3 degrees toe-in. I would keep it to 1 degree of both, however, because more than that and you're just waisting traction.

Noises:

Squeeking: Check to see if your isolators are still in place between the spring and the top and bottom hats. I've found that D2's rubber isolators suck and the don't last very long. I found a 97 cent solution at Lowe's (It's not at Home Depot that I could find). In the plumbing department they have 6" x 6" sheets of rubber. One sheet is enough for two isolators. I cut out donut shaped isolators by using the top-hat as a template and, after disassembling the coil-over, I simply fitted them in between the spring and hats. No more squeeking!

Clunking: First and foremost make sure everything is tight (including your lug nuts!). I've had some clunking due to stupid things before and know it can happen to anyone. If that doesn't solve it, it might be a bad strut. I blew out both of my fronts and had to replace them recently. D2 will send you rebuilt shocks for around $100 each plus freight. They're easy to replace.

Side note: During my many adjustments, I managed to break the little set screws in the lower knuckles that hold the height adjustment in place. In order to fix this, I had to drill them out and replace them with regular bolts. I hesitate to say this, but it might not be a bad idea to just go ahead and use regular bolts instead of the screws in the first place as they SUCK to drill. I went through literally two batteries on my cordless and three drill bits per broken screw. It's a really, really big PIA.

Anyone that has other insights, please post them so that we may all learn.