5th gen adjustable traction bars are now available
 

check out my for sale thread

http://forums.maxima.org/showthread....31#post6127431


http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s...b/PICT4865.jpg

I decided to start a group buy list. If I get 10 or more confirmed orders by January 7th 2008, the shipping and handling cost will be dropped. If I don't get 10 confirmed orders by then then the price will still be $220 including shipping and handling.


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In for what the guru's have to say.

^ Ditto.

They look very nice and look very useful, for an every day 5th gen this could prove useful for guys who are FI and those who are manual and don't have and LSD tranny I guess this could be useful. This will tighten up the front end and prove to help in the aid of take offs, they tend to be found in big SUVs and High powered Rear wheel drive cars, as they help to keep the wheels planted in the ground

so whats the science behind this? how does it work?

The traction bars connect the lower control arm, which is a movable part, to the lower radiator support, which is a stable part. When you accelerate, the lower control arm wants to pull backwards and causes wheel hop, and a loss of traction. The traction bar prevents the lower control arm from moving backwards which eliminates wheel hop and greatly improves traction upon acceleration and shifting.

odd that JClaw wasn't able to come up with a good 5th gen setup after all the 4th gen bars he made....

is the rad support strong enough to hold this force? I would think the rad support would flex......no?

the main lower radiator support is a very large and sturdy frame piece. the amount of force that is going to be exerted on the radiator support is no where near enough to flex or twist it. most traction bars that exist on the market connect to the lower radiator support

makes sense......sorry for the newbie like question but I never understood these things, thanks for clearing that up

no problem, there are no stupid questions with a part like this.

to my knowledge, in FWD cars LCAs don't "pull backwards" while accelerating.
if front wheels pull, what's the vector of the force?

Well first of all you are incorrect, LCAs do have pull no matter what kind of drive the vehicle is. As long as there is friction between the tires and ground there will be pull. Second of all, it is impossible to measure the force without knowing the strength of each individual engine and transmission mount, the tire traction rating, the road conditions, the exact weight of the vehicle, the vehicle's weight displacement, the amount of torque and horsepower, the size of the wheels and so on. If you are just trying to disprove the effectiveness of traction bars in general, you will not be able to. If it was a legitimate question then there is your answer.

tht's my point exactly. while accelerating, a forwad thrust applied to the LCAs (from wheels that PULL forward), so they tend to move FORWARD in this case, NOT backward. It all reverses tho when brakes are used. please don't ***_u_me that everyone is stupid here.

Yeah I was wondering why you said the LCAs were pulled rearward.

if the wheel spins forward.......the LCA would shift backward...........unless you're launching in reverse, its like a pencil standing on its eraser. If you hit the bottom of the pencil forward the top will fall backwards. Same concept when you launch forward the contact patch of the tire = the bottom of the pencil and the LCA is the top of the pencil.....

That is not quite correct. :o

I will leave you with this: The LCAs are the main point of longitudinal linkage between the drive wheels and the chassis. If the LCAs are shifting rearward then they are pushing the car rearward. What, then, is accelerating the car forward?

I think they'll work.........but cant prove it until springtime. My car is in pieces.

No one's saying they won't work, they perform the same function--limiting longitudinal movement of the LCA. However the LCA is not being pulled back by the wheels when you launch. It is being pulled forward and then oscillating backward when the wheel hops off the ground.

The rad support is more than strong enough for this. Do the bars attach to the hole in the middle of the 5th gen control arm? (they pass over or under the control arm?)

Not knocking you or anyone in here, but my rad supports have bent a slight amount after installing your TB's....I'm thinking of getting them reinforced or getting stronger metal welded in there to support them better.

Yeah, depending on where you secure the traction bars there will be some suspension binding upon compression and decompression, and this could possibly bend your rad support a bit or mush up your LCA bushings (less likely since it will be pulling away from them if you set the length of the TBs as neutral for static ride height). If there was a way to secure the traction bars on or close to the axis of the LCA bushing pin it would solve that problem.

Unfortunately though it has been awhile since I have been under my car so I don't know how doable that is.

well now that we have everyones opinion, I think we can all agree that they work. If you would like to buy a set please post a reply or PM me thank you.

Time to take a refresher in statics.
you're forgetting one part and messing up another.
1. the wheel is rotating about the axle, which is connected to the rest of the car via a bearing. thus there is no rotational forces anywhere but on the engine/transmission and driven wheels.
2. the control arms are between the axis of rotation and the ground.

when the wheels push forward, the forces will be pushing the entire car forward. there is no backwards force anywhere on the front end of the car. (the rears will have a small rearward force due to friction in the bearings and against the road, but that's not the point of the discussion).

since the axle transfers rotational torque into forward force, it is the point where all of the forward force acts on the car. The large majority-around 95%- of the forward force will be on the control arms, with the additional 5% at the top of the strut.

Back to the real discussion here. The traction bars have proven themselves on the 4th gens many times over. with the exception of a couple small design changes I might suggest with them to beef up the radiator support, they work extremely well.

Thanks for the input Matt.

Way to be concise Matt. ;)

Anyway I'd like to see a photo of beneath the car with these installed to get in mind how they are mounted. I've always been iffy on traction bars because they bind the suspension, but if we can fix that by connecting them on-axis with the LCA bushing pin then the arcs of travel would match up and there really wouldn't be a downside.

my radiator support is so rusty where the motor support frame attaches......

matt or irish, how do you see these helping on the autocross course...? I'm curious to see your take on this mod for racing...would it add any bumpsteer or do you think it would actively prevent unwanted toe changes?

same here, I welded a second Steel bar in there to cover the rust and also did some repairs to the severe areas.

I see this working very well for the guys who drag, but with the guys who autoX, I see this creating understeer and not helping with turn in, but I think the little we scarifice for that we will it help when we exit the corners and lay into the throttle it will benefit there. So the trade off then is even.

I'd definitely like a set, it should make the front end more solid.

This is a picture to show the clearance of the oil filter from the traction bar on a maxima that is lowered 3 inches.
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s...b/PICT4891.jpg

This is a picture of the clearance with a 18 inch rim with a 245/40/18 tire turned all the way until full lock.
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s...b/PICT4892.jpg

Nice. What's the offset on that wheel?

I decided to start a group buy list. If I get 10 or more confirmed orders by January 7th 2008, the shipping and handling cost will be dropped. If I don't get 10 confirmed orders by then then the price will still be $220 including shipping and handling.

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The rim in that picture is a 42mm offset, which puts the tires closer to the traction bar but you still have plenty of clearance. If you have a lower offset rim then you'll have even more clearance than the picture shows.

I am glad to see these being made again, maybe sometime you can make some for 4th gens. :hide:

4th gen traction bars are currently in R&D

Is it me, or traction bars cause some serious bumpsteer??

Basically, traction bar is essentially a solid bar that prevents the LCA move forward and backward. (the bar will not stretch or compress) So when the car goes over a bump (or suspension compresses in the corner) the with traction bars on, LCA (and the hub) moves upwards in a circular motion around the radiator support, instead of going straight up,(looking at the car from the side) thus pushing the LCA backward and changing toe.

Do you guys get what I'm saying?

This is what I have been saying for the past 4 posts. The arcs of travel do not match up unless the t-bar is secured along the axis of the LCA bushing pin. If we can do that then there is no downside to these.

The theory behind what you are saying makes perfect sense, but like I said I have fully road tested the traction bars on two different Maximas and have not seen any problems and certainly no bump steer.

Well, when you look at it, the length of the traction bars compared to the length of the arm between the LCA swivel point and the LCA-tbar connection point means that there will be little fore-aft or left-right travel compared to suspension movement.

It'd be nice if a few people who've had traction bars long-term chimed in here.