ok, ive relooked it through, and in my previous post (post 32), it seems as if the order in which i installed it is the most logical. so, orange perch, washer, bushing, strut mount, bushing, washer, nut. thats the order for the rear on 5th gens

next question. what do i need to grease up? anything maybe if i grease the rubber insert they wont be as likely to rip?

also curious about the front mounts with the pillow ball. i want a quick installation, no noises - how does the washer idea seem to work?

thanks all, great discussion so far

 

i was searchin google and found this. looks like this company offers 9/7 spring rates
http://www.bodykitsnw.com/ksport.html

 

Could be out of date...?
Pretty sure I'd prefer 9/6 based on the weight distribution...

 

Really? When I get these I'll try to get 9/7 or stiffer if they have them.

 

You're definitely getting 9/6 by default when you order. It was a sort of a late change. They'll cook up whatever spring rate combo you want, and as long as it's within +/- 2 kg/mm from default, it'll be free; beyond that, they'll have to use different shock valving and it'll cost you extra.

This is a good time to bring something up, though. I'll start with a rhyme for you all: "A stiffer rear makes oversteer."

In a car with perfectly even weight balance, the wheels attached to the softest springs would have the most grip. You'd stiffen the front to keep the rear sticky and create an understeer bias, or stiffen the rear to do the opposite. However, our cars' weight is heavily front biased. Normally, combined with the rear beam suspension which keeps the rear pretty sticky in most cases, that'd give nightmarish understeer, so stock springs are stiffer in the rear to balance that out. The K-Sports are stiffer by enough of a margin that the extra grip from the rear beam is not a big factor any more, and you need a much stiffer front just to hold the weight up. You also definitely need some at-the-limit understeer dialed in because the stiff springs make the car more skittish over bumps, and you do not want to lose rear grip in a turn. That's why the following numbers aren't a coincidence:

- Our cars' front/rear weight distribution is 65%/35%.
- With 9/6 springs, the front/rear stiffness distribution is 60%/40%.

That's why they made the late change to their spring rates. For reference, with 9/7, it'd be 56%/44%. That'd bias the car toward greater oversteer/less understeer.

If you ask K-Sport why they use 9/6, they'll tell you that that's what they came up with as the "optimum for handling, braking, and blah blah blah".... I think it's just a really stupidly simple formula. All the D2 guys run 9/7 and it doesn't sound like they're spinning out freakishly or anything.

 

I have the D2's and the parts are the same. The top center nut keeps coming loose. I assembled it as follows: perch, washer, both bushings (on that metal sleeve), top mount, washer, nut.

I wonder if doing it this way is causing the nut to loosen up?

D*mn, I wish these things came with instructions.......

 

blues - the only reason i threw the mount in between the two bushings is because the factory mounts (extra set bought new from dave B) came with a bushing below, and a bushing above, and the spindle going through the middle. it was already assembled that way, therefore I mimicked that notion for the coilovers. After all, if they wanted both bushings to be together dont u think they would have been one tall single piece instead of two shorter ones? there even seems to be a gap, which almost points to the notion that they should be separated. seems like it fits nicer too.

anyone know about the pillow mounts or if anything needs to be greased?

 

I doubt these would stress the axles as much as low spring/strut combos do since the strut body itself is shorter. This is precisely why it rides so low and can still have so much suspension travel as well. But you knew that.

 

Got it. But on my 2k2, there is no bushing above the top mount, so I didn't think to put one there. Maybe there's a difference between the 5 and 5.5 gens?

I thought my pillow ball mounts nmay have been the cause of some noise, so I shot some white lithium grease on them. The actual cause of the noises was the spring on the gaskets/perches. After spraying the pillow *****, the noise continued until I greased the perches/gaskets. I don't think the pillow ***** need to be lubricated.

 

blues - u want me to shoot a picture of my rear mounts? ill compare factory and aftermarket assemblies.

thanks for the info on the grease, i think i was gonna do the poly insert perch things anyway.

 

Ok, but the way you're suggesting aren't you compressing the piston by moving the body up and down and leaving the piston in the same position? Either way you'd have to loosen all perches wouldn't you to let the pressure off the threads and to move the body easier? If you do that you again have to measure everything all over, how much pre-plaod, distance between the top mount and the highest perch. The way I do it takes me maybe 5 minutes a wheel but then again I have air tools. I would not recommend what you're doing at all unless I'm not thinking straight. Then again moving the body, the "shock/strut", but not moving the piston would compress or secompress the piston more than it would if it was left neutral.

 

Makes sense. I just heard it from someone who said his axles went bad with Tein Basic coilovers and a >2" drop... That's the only report I've heard, and I have no scientific or logical evidence to back it up, but I thought I'd toss it in anyway.

 

I haven't seen the K-sports myself but many spherical bearings can be softened/quieted with a spring isolator like these from ES.

 

Cool stuff... Im kind of hoping that the ES bushings can be a last resort kind of thing... since the post about fixing noise issues by lithium greasin' the springs got my hopes up that all may be well with that easy fix... fingers crossed..!

 

The grease trick doesn't work on ksports. I'll tell you that right now.

 

Hey Blues, I think this thread might help you! Don't put the washer on the front coilovers!
http://forums.maxima.org/showthread.php?t=403825

 

Not to worry. I didn't put the washers on the front. My post was in reference to the rear coilovers.

Thanks for the link. I remember going through that thread a few days ago.

 

I just finished installing the ksports , but I have to adjust my height and the strut setting( hard/soft).
I put the minimum pre-load to let the springs rest on the perches, otherwise the spring will be lose and maybe make noises when you go on bumps.
I'll take measurements and post them later this week.

I have no noises whatsoever, but had a bad experience installing them, because I'm an idiot and broke the rear stud by applying too much torque.
I got it fixed today and slap the new suspension on.

I like it a lot better than stock, although my steering feels softer and turn quicker, so I have to get used to that.

my photobucket
http://photobucket.com/albums/y293/luigi38/Ksport/

 

Its just another way of doing what your way accomplishes. The piston is not being affected at all since by only loosening the bottom perch the entire unit is turning around the piston inside the housing. Compressing the piston would require a lot of force. I feel little resistance so I know its not being compressed at all. This is actually the pupose of that bottom perch to adjust only the ride height not the preload or piston stroke distance.

If there was no bottom perch (like the Cattman Gen 1 and Gen 2s) when you lower or raise the height it affected the piston travel distance which is what killed those AGXs so damn quickly - the lower you set it the more compressed the piston became. This is why he included those "raised front strut mounts" in the Gen 2s to get a lower ride height with more strut travel.

With both methods you still have to keep an eye on the spring - top hat/rubber insert distance as it will still need to be adjusted if neccessary - as far as measuring all over again - of course this will need to be done since the point is to change the ride height at the track - but once you know which two heights you will always use you can add markings or something.

 

What have you guys found is the best shock setting for daily city driving? I currently set my shocks at 1/2 stiffness, which would be 2 full turns.

 

Copying a good post from a different k-sport thread

 

guys, i reinstalled the ksports CORRECTLY today, and the noise problem is gone, i was told that the fronts were interchangeable, but i guess they were not, i knew there was something off when the camber plates werent horizontal, so i reinstalled them, and the noise problem dissapeared.

 

I was pretty sure there was a left and right. Glad you got them switched, and glad the noise went away......now slam that bietch!

 

Good to know. How do you tell the left from right, is there a easy way?

 

One stud on top is offset. Just match the orientation to the OE strut mount.

 

^Well, sort of. Except they still can fit in either way, left or right. You want the camber plate slot to be either perfectly parallel or perpendicular to the car, either vertical or horizontal. The camber plate will be diagonal if the coilover is put on the wrong side.

 

just got my fronts installed. my allignment is all jacked now. i need to hold the steering wheel towards the left to go straight. i wonder why because this wasnt a problem with my illuminas and stechs??? any help would be cool..

 

Well, after a lot of hours, seven siezed bolts, two different kinds of penetrating lubricant, one adventure with a driveshaft, and a preliminary test drive, I feel like it's time to post some stories.

Initial impressions are very, very favorable. The car turns in eagerly, corners flat, responds instantly, and does what it's told. Or, at least, as well as it could on my 205/65/15 high-performance all-season tires. The ride is a lot bumpier than stock but not jarring at all. Hard bumps are a lot harder now (coming from stock springs and GR-2s) and the car is clearly more skittish when hitting a bump in mid-turn, but otherwise the car rides and drives much better than stock. More on this after I get an alignment and the roads dry up.


Lesson 1:

Support the control arms when removing a front strut. In my mildly sleep deprived state I neglected to do this properly on one strut. The instant I took the lower bolt out, the spindle fell forward and yanked the driveshaft out of the bearing. Putting that back in is kind of annoying, so make damn sure you take care of this before it happens.


Lesson 2:

There are rubber spacers which are supposed to fit into the top and bottom of each spring and space it out from the spring perches. You might end up with spacers that don't fit neatly into the springs. At first glance the solution is to tighten the collar just enough to keep the spacers in the springs. Once you get your car on the ground, though, you will have preload, and as everyone says, preload is generally something to be avoided. But you can't loosen the collar just enough to unload the spring because if the spacer and the spring don't fit right when you drop the car, you could tear the spacer. I got around this by sticking the shock with the rogue spacers in the freezer to shrink the spacers, and then just popping them into place and installing the whole business.


Lesson 3:

On the front struts, those rubber bits made noise when I turned the steering wheel. I just dabbed some bearing grease between the spacers and the springs and that was the end of that.


So yeah. More on performance when my car actually travels properly in a straight line.

 

^got that allignment done yesterday. the car is pretty good, considering comming from illuminas and s techs. the coilovers are a bit noisy, maybe the grease is the answer, I'll need to try it, as they make a thud noise when I turn aggressively. I too will post more to come. later

 

The thud noise isn't the coilovers.

 

How the hell did you pull out the half shaft? I've done MANY suspensions and not once has this happened to me nor have I ever heard anyone say it happened to them.

If everyone says that preload is bad then I guess everyone doesn't know what they're talking about. Without ANY preload at all you will have all sorts of noises. If KSPORT says that we NEED a little preload on the springs why do the opposite.

 

I knew Dave would have something to say here.

It really was entirely my own idiocy and forgetting to not be a complete tard about removing something that helps hold the spindle in place. I pulled the bolts out and the entire spindle just fell.

Yeah, we do need a little preload, but no more than is necessary to keep the springs in place. Any more will make the ride unnecessarily bouncy.

 

if it aint the co's then what...the axle? I hope not the axle.
it only makes the sound when turning way in.

 

dave man! relax!

doodfood lets see some pics of it! how far did you drop it? you like it so far?

 

It's pretty darn low! I'll post pics as soon as I have a chance to snap a few. I have about a 1-finger front gap and 2-finger rear gap. I was trying to be a huge nerd about it by calculating how long each coilover body would have to be to give a certain drop, and ended up being completely off.

It's good though. My alignment is in the crapper and I'm still having a lot of fun. I intentionally set the rear a little higher than the front, and the car's handling balance seems very, very neutral -- I only get the tiniest hint of understeer. Otherwise, the improved road feel, handling, and sense of involvement from being a lot lower have all been wonderful.

The only problem is some annoying bouncing on this one highway near me (which actually isn't that well paved). The car is already a ton more skittish over bumps (can't be helped with springs this stiff), but some imperfections in the road that I can't even see can get the car jumping so much at highway speeds that if I were to hit them in a turn, I'd slide pretty badly. I have the shocks set to 3/4 of one turn from full stiff and I'm still getting it. I'm gonna be hunting for preload next time I have the time.

 

i am getting this same problem, and it is kinda bugging me now. if you figure out how to fix that, let me know

 

Good timing Ducky, I was about to post a more thorough performance review anyway.

I fixed the bouncing as well as it's ever gonna be fixed by set all the shocks to full stiff. It's by far the best setting I've tried. When I was just ****in' around with the coilovers before installing them (compressing them and watching how quickly they moved back up at different firmness settings), I noticed that in the rears, there's a very very big difference in damping between absolute full stiff and even slightly less than that. After experimenting at or below 1/2 turn away from full stiff, I just cranked it all the way up and it was great.

The handling is fabulous. When I had my alignment done I asked them to dial in -1 deg camber on the front and just put everything else to factory spec, and it's almost perfect. I still get some understeer when I really chuck it around, but the fact that I can correct that with judicious throttle application is total gravy. It also inspires a ton of confidence on the highway. Coming from stock springs and GR-2s, it almost pains me to look back.

For some reason, my traction has also greatly improved. Even in the rain, it takes effort to break the tires loose and keep them spinning in situations where it'd spin all day on the old suspension. I'm not sure how much of that is just having coilovers and how much is having the rear higher than the front, but I like it. Rainy situations (like last night in Philly... what a monsoon) now feel like a dawdle.

The only big problem I want to draw attention to is how horribly the car is upset by broken pavement. I'm not sure if my stopping distances on the rough stuff are actually worse than before, but it sure feels a lot worse because it's much more apparent how little grip the tires have as I get tossed around violently. Some dull-but-deep down-up bumps on the highway also make the car jump so much that I really shudder to think what'd happen if I hit one in the middle of a turn.

As I started to say earlier, I tried to calculate in advance how long I would have to make each coilover for a 1.5" drop in front and 1" drop in rear, and boy was I wrong. It's more like 2.4" front and 2" rear -- slightly lower than Tein S-Techs. I haven't had any serious ground clearance issues though, so I don't really care to raise the car and have to re-do my alignment again. But yeah... if anyone in the Philly area sees an almost foolishly low dark green SE with pinstripes, strange 3-double-spoke aftermarket wheels (previous owner), and a dented front driver's-side fender, that's me!

Overall, the car is just.... so much better. I didn't want the car to look like it's skimming the road, nor did I want to have such a tiny wheel gap in front. But hey... It looks awesome from the front, and quibbles about looks matter very little to me when I'm behind the wheel. I definitely did want the car to handle a ton better, be a lot more responsive, and let me sit a lot lower, and I definitely got those things.

 

thats great to hear doodfood, im glad you are happy with them, i will be fiddleing with the dampening myself soon

 

Can you give an estimate or description of how you had them before the install, so I might be able to reduce the time (and cost, unfortunately I probably will be taking to a shop, unless someone knows of a writeup)
it will take to get them to about a 2" drop?

Thanks d00d

 

ya d00df00d i too noticed that when i had the springs off, the big difference in damping from being turned from full stiff to just like 1/2 way turn to less stiff. like night/day. i have mine on full stiff also.