A design has been made and money has been exchanged.

One month from now a prototype should be ready for test fitting.

Rough calculations show that a 0.5" ~ 2" drop should not be an issue. Anything more than a 2" drop might require 18"~19" wheels. The control arm will get lowered in order to keep it parallel with the ground, as such the arm will sit closer to the inside of the rim. There is almost a linear relation with lowering the car and the LCA being lower. With my 17" rims Jason said the arms can sit about 2" lower than they are now, that will easily correct my cars geometery and give me room to play with the roll center +/- the stock value.

Also anything more than a 2" drop may require changing the length of the axle half shafts. It depends on how the car takes the adjustments. We maybe able to get away with the OEM tie rods as well, still unsure about that one. I will fab up a set of high misalignment spherical tie rods just in case.

We are thinking of using an adjuster with jam nuts and OEM ball joints so that geometery can be corrected along with the long term use of the stock ball joint and no service required. Just set it and forget it then enjoy your improved handling. This will also keep costs down, won't say anything on final pricing right now.

When I have some prototype pics I will start another thread.

Oh and fender braces are being considered as well. Along with a 4 point bolt in roll bar for my car so the race harness sits at the proper angle.

 

Thank you for getting this started for the community. How difficult would it be to make some tie rods? Seems like it can be done with off the shelf parts for the most part.

 

No problem, I figure either go big or go home. It just so happens to be on a 4th gen.

I need to find an OEM 300ZX outer or inner rod to check the thread and pitch on the inner tie rod. Maxima uses a M14 x 1.5 thread and pitch, I think the 300ZX is similar.

SPL makes a really good bump steer adjustable outer tie rod for the 300ZX for around $200. If the thread and pitch are the same as the Maxima inner tie rods were in business. SPL's outers work with the OEM 300ZX inners so I only need to measure the 300ZX parts to verify.

Both the SPL outer and OEM Maxima outer are straight, there is no kink or angle on the extra A32 outers that I have.

The only thing is the spacers they provide for adjusting bump steer may not be the exact thickness for A32s. However you can shave them down or use high strength washers to adjust the bump steer.

 

Put me down for some of those too.....

 

Also note you have to flip the tie rods over compared to the Z32. On the ZX and SX, the tie rods mount from the bottom so you can simply use a longer shank. on the Maxima, the tie rods mount from the top, so you have to find a way to make them mount from the bottom THEN play with spacers.

 

Word. I was going to make some this summer. But I don't know if I'll have the time.

 

That is the one thing I was wondering about. The tie rods would have to go underneath the hubs in order to raise it up.

IIRC didn't you do that with your 3rd gen? You put a spherical tie rod underneath the hub to correct bump steer?

Also if we raised up the control arm would that also raise the tie rods as well? HTP when they put these arms on Foci they use the stock outers just fine. The Focus has a very similar suspension and the tie rods are on top of the hubs like the Maximas.

 

Ahhh I remember starting a thread about mounting the tie rod ends from the bottom and was promptly shut down......

 

I did to the modification, but I only made the bumpsteer worse. MUCH worse. (I just didn't know it at the time since I didn't know what I was looking for.)
If you lower the ball joint 1", then you need to lower the tie rod by 1".

the hard part about flipping the tie rod (at least flipping the stock tie rod) is the bore is tapered. you'd have to ream out the taper from the bottom or find another way to do it.
On mine, I had some bushings machined that removed the taper and I used a long grade 8 bolt through it. worked fine for me, but the problem was I never relocated my control arm pivots, so anything I did by moving the tie rod end just made the bumpsteer worse.

If you do one, you MUST do the other. it's not an either-or proposition.

 

Bumpsteer adjustment kit for a '95~'99 Sentra.

I am talking with Chuck (Octotat) to see if he can make me a custom set for my car. Checked out a Sentra outer tie rod at Advanced and compared it to OEM Maxima one I have. The taper and stud thread/pitch look similar but I couldn't measure it unless I bought it and took it out of the bag.

The only difference I could see is the Maxima inner tie rod has a bigger diameter, the Sentra one looked like it was a M12 x 1.5 thread. If Chuck will make me a coupler with the proper thread for the Maxima inners we should be good to go for adjustment.

 

This is awesome man, I for sure will be buying a set of these. Hopefully with these, we will see some more slammed and tucked maximas!

 

That's the easy part. worry about the balljoint issue first. tie rods are cake after that.

 

When you say ball joint issue do you mean that because the lower control arm is being shortened, it will change your scrub radius? In theory that would put the load of the car somewhere else, not the ball joint. Please correct me if I am wrong.

 

Any ETA on this kit?

 

2 ~ 3 months

My money is tied up with these guys and they are dragging their feet on the project. If I wasn't friends with the owners and didn't know where they live I would have gone down there and gotten my money back in July.

HTPerformance ran into huge trouble with their business and half of the Ford Focus community is chasing after them with pitch forks and torches, the other half is waiting for parts from them.

Friday I am going to the shop to finalize on a design and Jason is working on a solid works model. I made several changes to the design last month and they want me to OK everything.

These will be much stronger than the stock stamped steel arms, correct the roll center of lowered Maximas using OEM ball joints, allow for adjustment of negative camber and track width, more positive caster, and should stop axles from getting destroyed on extemely lowered Maximas.

Options we are kicking around would be spherical rod ends with custom tapered ball joints and spacers for exteme drops or race setups (they bought a nice used lathe). Also for a few extra bucks they can weld on tabs so people could use JClaws' or Red Lions' traction rods, we would first need a test car as I don't have traction rods so my prototype set won't have the mounts for traction rods.

Sadly odds are this will be a one off project for my car. At this point if I get my ALCAs I will be happy and leave it at that. The future of HTP is in question and they will no longer sell any Nissan products as it is no longer in their business model anymore.

Without distribution I would have to front my money to have more sets made and sell them myself, not something I want to do. If I took deposits from people on the org it would be months until the ACLAs are done and people would be out for my blood.

 

Doesn't sound to good If you go and do sell, they will help with bigger tires? ie 245/40/18...My car likes to do its own driving..

 

Sorry to hear. Props to those other projects that have gotten off the ground. It's sometimes so much harder than first thought.

 

Bigger rims are needed, 17" and up. Reason being the ball joint has to sit lower with the spacer and stock sized wheels will not clear. 18s & 19s would be ideal for these ALCAs on cars that have a large drop.

You car self driving can be alot of things, bad alignment for one. I have managed to get Mark at OEM to make us some nice camber/caster plates (shameless plug). I would try those first. Increasing caster makes the steering heavier but increases high speed stability and reduces wandering. Have your alignment setup with 0 toe, 0 to -1.0 camber, and maximum postive caster.

These arms will mainly correct roll steer which effects handling more in the corners than straight line driving.

The adjustable outer tie rods would help correct bump steer, which could also be your problem if you are to low.

 

Yeah this ALCA project is lost in the Berumda Triangle for sure.

I do this so that people have the parts available to not have bad handling. This Summer I used a multi-pronged attack strategy against crappy Maxima handling. Utilizing several different aftermarket parts makers to reduce the amount of work done by one shop. Also in case one of these shops dropped the ball and as such some of the projects did well; others did not. Honestly HTP was the only one that fell through, everyone else delivered product in a reasonable amount of time.

All these new A32/A33 suspension products are coming to market now; they are all years to late. It is too bad I wasn't working on this stuff back in '02 when I was a newbie, but back then I thought Eibach springs with KYB AGXs was a good quality setup. Ah ignorance is bliss...

Speaking of ignorance the occasional thought crosses my mind of putting in 25~35 extra hours of OT at work each month and buying a GTR, E92 M3, or C6 Z06. None of this FWD nonsense anymore.

 

Why you think I quit messing with it and moved on to a better chassis?

 

Next time I'll go mess with a 240sx, skyline, or rx7. I just bought the Maxima for dirt cheap is all, then one thing led to another and parts went flying in.

 

If I had an extra 5 grand when I bought the car I would of got a 300ZXTT instead.

But I still like messing with the Maxima, it is more about learning how the mechanics of a car work. I've learned more about cars (mostly suspension stuff) in the last year than in my whole lifetime. This is due to the fact I have had to piece together all of my aftermarket suspension stuff by myself.

Also it can also hold all my stuff and a extra set of tires while I drive it to he track. I knew from the beginning this would not be a dedicated track car. It kinda defeats the purpose to strip a Maxima down to sheet metal and drive it on the street.

When the time comes I will part this car out and move on to something better. Something with greater aftermarket support and more track oriented along with applying all my skills and knowledge, it will be a beast of a car.

 

My sentiment exactly. Too bad the ALCA's will never see fruition.

 

Got to see the rough prototype today, it is definitely different to say the least. These ALCAs are different than anything I've seen before on a car.

This method uses the OEM style ball joints, a special made spacer, and a special made tool that you have to use when pressing in & out the ball joints. When ordering the arms you will have to specify how much of a drop you plan on doing and they will make the spacer for it. You will also be able to adjust the length of the arm to fine tune the roll center along with changing the camber.

With the OEM ball joints the arms can be dialed in to correct the lowered car's geometery and you can go 50K ~ 100K miles without having to worry about them. They also will have the option of heim joints but these will need to be serviced monthly and replaced every 5K ~ 10K miles (rough estimate).

If someone wants to prototype the heim joint setup they will have to deal with HTP. Since they cannot machine a stud in-house to match the stock taper, found out their lathe isn't that precise and they don't want to take the risk. They are planning on using a mass produced 3/4" heim joint and providing a reaming tool so the buyer can cut the hubs to accept them.

However I am opting for the OEM ball joints and a 1.5" drop, I can fine tune the length of the arm and use the camber/caster plates to do the alignment. It is assumed the users of these arms will have camber/caster plates, because camber will definitly be changed by these arms.

We test fitted the stock hub with the prototype ball joint adaptor along with the Blehmco two piece '04 rotor and my rims. The BBK rotor just clears by a few mm, we will remove a little material from the adaptors to give the rotors more clearance. The 17" rims will have plenty of room, but IMO that is the smallest size rim that these arms can safely run, 15" rims & possibly 16" rims will not clear. This occurs because the physical location of the arm has to be lowered to correct the geometery. Other options would be to raise the subframe & steering rack or make custom CNC front hubs with the corrected geometery, both of which are far more complicated and expensive options.

As far as a time frame for these I do not know, they say another month but we will see.

Pics will come when the product is finished, right now its just a couple of machined parts.

This whole thing got FAR more complicated than we thought it would. As such pricing is going to be a bit higher because of all the machining that needs to be done and the cost of all the material used. All tubing is DOM, 1" adjuster thread, and the ball joint adpator is made heavy duty. These arms are going to be beefy, if you plan on breaking them it will take some effort. I seriously think you could go off roading and not break these things...

 

I really appreciate the R&D in this. I'll leave it up to the guys who can ask the right questions but I'll continue to be following this thread closely as it is looking on the up and up.

 

These are the bump steer adjustable tie rod ends, these are made for a B14 but will fit into a A32 spindle. We are still testing fitting and they may require some modifications but should be available if anyone needs them.

You can mount the tie rod above or below the spindle to correct bump steer. Odds are the rod end will mount underneath the spindle since the location of the ball joint is getting lowered as well.



It will look something like this when all said and done, except with adjustable lower control arms. The A32 sway bar will be made adjustable by welding on similar tabs like they used and using similar adjustable end links.

 

When will the tie rod ends be available? Will it be possible to make the FSB adjustable without the new ALCA?

 

Bump steer tie rods are available now, just ask for a A32 Maxima bump steer kit.

http://www.sr20-forum.com/bolt-bars/...steer-kit.html

We may machine the piece a little differently but as is it should work, there is a little material sticking out of the top of the hub that you can see in the 2nd picture. I will use some high strength washers to fill that 4 mm gap and use the spacers he provided.

I have yet to fully install mine and will do so when I get a baseline with the stock arms and stock tie rods. Then I will start messing with roll center and bump steer with the adjustable bits.

Also the FSB can be made adjustable with the stock LCAs pretty much on any car if you have the right knowledge and skills. Thats what MotoIQ and alot of other people have done in the past.

The idea for bump steer tie rods or the modified FSB are not new, just new to this forum cause there is little interest in suspension or it has been thought out but not shared. It is nice that the bump steer kit doesn't require machining of the hub to accept a different sized bolt for the rod end.

 

Very interested, any progress on these LCA's? Did the bump steer get fixed with these custom tie rods?

 

I mounted some SPL tie-rods on a s13 that were made by SPL. Totally eliminated bumpsteer and those things look like you can beat somebody to death with them. Too bad they do not work on the maximas otherwise it would be a nice way to eliminate bumpsteer with a lowered vehicle.

Anyway. Subscribed to this thread

 

Question from a nube(with suspension anyway) if the angle of the LCA(at stock height) goes from flat to slightly angled down toward ball joint, but then changes to being angled upwards toward the ball joint (2 inch drop) then wouldn't it make more sense to raise the location of where the tie rod attaches the hub, so that the angle of the stock LCA and the angle of the inner and outer tie rods are more parallel?

 

subscribed: BUMP!

 

If you change the angle of one part, you need to change the angle of the other as well. moving JUST the ball joint or JUSt the tie rod end only makes the problems worse. you've better off with a bad camber curve than you are with a bad camber and bumpsteer curve. too many people think that just tie rod ends will solve their problems. They didn't freaking HAVE bumpsteer until they installed their 'bumpsteer correction kit'.

 

That is why the factory curve has to measured first and to my knowledge no one has done that for a Maxima other than the Nissan engineers. Putting different tie rods on blindly is a good way to mess up something and something I would not condone. If you saw what I posted I had mentioned changing both the tie rod and ball joint heights, but also taking a baseline reading of the toe and camber curves.

I get different opinions from those that have installed these bumpsteer kits on the B14s, some say its better and some say worse. Every modern factory car I've seen has some bumpsteer dialed in for various reasons, even the Elise/Exige.

I have a feeling that under compression these cars (A32) have excessive toe in to keep the driver safe but at the expense of more understeer. When we do the corner balancing and alignment I've noticed that as the camber goes negative under compression the toe in goes up. The guy who sets my car up is puzzled by this behavior from his observations most cars toe out with more negative camber. From what I recall he has only observed this negative camber/toe in behavior on the rear suspensions of EVO 8s & 9s.

I have a bumpsteer gauge with the 5 x 114.3 bolt pattern and if I can ever get sometime off from work I will check what the baseline is and go from there.

 

My CTA software only models for camber gain as the full toe/bump steer package was a little pricey and didn't give me the other features I needed years ago. That said, PT does offer 30 day evals, and I've got half the measurements already. Later this month I'm working on front brakes and I'll try to input the z-axis pieces and tie-rod measure's I'm missing to see what it says.
http://performancetrends.com/SuspAnzr.htm

 

It's pretty easy to figure out which way the suspension is going to go under compression. look at the angle and length of the arms, and the location of the steering rack.
The steering rack on a Maxima is quite a ways behind the front axle centerline. it's also located above the joint on the knuckle.
so when you lower the car, the arms are going to move toward level- thus push out- which will cause the car to toe in.

If the steering rack were in front of the axle and the spindles were reversed from their current location, then the car would toe out on compression.

At least that's the way I remember seeing it since it's been a coupld years since I've looked under a Maxima.

 

I was at 2J Racing's shop over the weekend for my panhard bar install and i happened to come across a really nice red powder coated custom control arm with spherical rod end and extra long tapered bolt ready for install for b15's. i asked Joe, the owner, if he'd be interested in fabricating some control arms for the maxima. he said as long as i'd be willing to get him a set of stock control arms so he could take some measurements, whether it be a one off part or a bulk order, he'd be down to do it. Joe did an awesome job with my panhard bar and just by looking at the b15 control arm, i'm sure anything from 2J Racing will be a quality part. i can shoot him a pm if any of you guys have an extra set of control arms and are seriously interested. let me know or just pm smokinjoe.

*Edit*

here's a pic i found of his b15 arms. hope you don't mind Joe.



and here's a link with info.

2J-Racing Chromoly LCA

 

How bout some fender braces? A good design was already made, it just needs to be copied!

 

Don't go copying other people's stuff. that's why the good guys quit. fender braces are easy enough anyway- just make another set.

As well, keep things on topic. I'm no longer interested in making the control arms, but I'll leave the thread open for the discussion to continue. if you're going to talk about fender braces, make another thread please.

 

I thought having a rod end/tapered stud to replace the ball joint was a bad idea on a street driven car?