I've been lowered on H-techs and Illuminas for 80k+ miles now. My car is at 120k miles right now, and I'd say around 90-100k or so, my car started to hit bumps pretty hard. Small, sharp bumps would make crashing noises that felt like my dash was loose or the frame was bending excessively.

I recently purchased a lower control arm kit from FCP Groton (http://fcpimport.com/products/nissan...kit-maxima-sk2) and can't even describe the change. The crashing over bumps is GONE. Nothing but pure solidity now. I have 2 good friends with 5.5 gen 6-speeds with similar mileage and have convinced them both to buy the same kit because it made such a drastic difference. One of them was on stock suspension and the other is on tein SS coilovers and both had the similar 'crash' over bumps.

The reason for this is that over time, the cyclic motion of the suspension has broken down the polymer material the Lower Control Arm bushings are constructed from. With this comes an increase in displacement of the control arm itself when loaded. Ideally, the control arm is designed to rotate about the centerline of this bushing, but if the material is too soft, this will cause vertical motion of the arm at this rear mounting point which is undesirable.

You can also choose to simply replace the bushings (with either stock or polyurethene) and balljoints but it is much more difficult to do so, especially if you don't have access to a press.

Anyway, I just wanted to get the word out what a difference this has made. Going over speed bumps now, the car is ultra quiet and solid feeling on the front end, and much harsher when the rear end goes over it; time to replace those bushings too.

 

Good find, Colin, and good price, too, that looks like a buncha useful stuff for a couple hundred bucks.

"adds url to 'to-do' list"......