HM_Motorsports

iTrader: (1)

There's alot of posts here about handling for autoX and such, I haven't found much on hooking right off the line. Just wondering what setups people have that work the best to reduce or eliminate wheel hop and the severe traction loss associated with a mod'd max.

I've been working on setting this up on my car, and have been relatively successful with my previous RWD platforms I've raced, but this will be my first FWD experience, judging by the lack of stick I had with the 3.0L I can only assume once the 3.5L is in it will be horrible. And the wheel hop was straight up scary. Plans so far, traction bars, ES bushings, and solid motormounts. I already have Tein/AGX springs and struts. The rear, I may switch to coil overs, simply for the ability to rake the car towards the front tires on race day, and level it out on the street.

Thanks guys!

MorpheusZero

iTrader: (10)

Pretty much exactly what you said is the advice you'll get in here (things like SFCs and an LTB2 will help as well, but not very much). If you want less wheel hop you could also go auto

...or maybe get a set of slicks..

grey99max

iTrader: (12)

For what it's worth, my old 3.0 automatic (and my new cammed 3.5 automatic) in my '99 has Tokico Illuminas lowered springs/adj-struts, Jbar traction bars, small rubber spacers in the springs front and rear - extra lift in the rear-, and nothing else. No more hopping or torque steer for me! Oh, and a Progress rear sway bar, but I don't think it affects straight-line driving...

I ran the car with dual NX for combined 150-shot, usually both stages in first gear, and used BFG TA/Gforce 225/55/16, BDF DRs 255/50/16, and M&H 23/8.5/15 ripplewall slicks. No problems with any of these (except traction). This car is tight - steers very well on the strip and in tight corners. The car has just over 50K on the clock, but until I installed the traction bars, I was destroying the LCA bushings!

This same setup handles my new 3.5 just fine - it's just hard to leave a stop without spinning the tires - and I do have an Infiniti VLSD tranny in the car for the last three years. Hope this helps...

.

Kevlo911

iTrader: (36)

I read of people using the giant zip ties(3ft long) to keep the springs compressed on the launch.

sciff5

iTrader: (1)

This worked for me. I didnt have access to the huge zipties either. I just went to Home Depot and got the biggest ones they had there. I had a friend put some weight on the front of the car and we started putting the zip ties on. I think we put like 10 on each spring (we needed a lot of them because they were relativly small) and I put the rear illuminas to their stiffest setting and pulled everything out of the trunk,incliding the jack/spare. The back end of the car was stiff enough to bounce around on the road like a lowered honda. At the track this worked well at mostly eliminating weight transfer, I just wish I could have fit the drag radials/wheels from my rx7 over the 6th gen brakes or I would have really been in business. I rode around on the streets with the zip ties on for a couple months, and then drove the car across the country from FL to MA. I dorve it for another month or so and put the car on a lift to change the oil. At this point I totally forgot there were even zipties on the springs. I was surprised to see that the zipties were all still on the springs and they were even holding the springs slightly compressed with the car in the air.

Matt93SE

iTrader: (44)

There's some talk of suspension setups in the drag racing forum too. rather than drag it all here, you may want to look there. I remember Grey, Jime, and Aaron were all discussing their setups.

My personal thought is coilovers are the way to go, but you'll need to do alignments before and after. changing front end ride height in a Maxima REALLY messes with the alignment. But basically you want really low in the front with medium-stiff springs, and as high in the rear as you can get and really stiff springs.

with RWD, you did basically the opposite to promote weight transfer. you want to go backwards here- counteracting physics all you can.

Also, moving your battery to the trunk for a FWD drag car is a no-no. you want all the weight in front of the axle you can. the fastest FWD drag cars have something like 90% of their weight on the front wheels.

HM_Motorsports

iTrader: (1)

Morpheus:I did plan on SFC's, I'm working on a lower tie bar similiar to the LTB2, nothing against it, I'm just cheap. lol. I own a shop so there's plenty of scrap steel around and I'll find time with a welder sooner or later lol.

I WAS auto lol. I put the 5spd there, nothing against the auto guys, you're absolutely right, the auto had MUCH less wheelhop, just I prefer to shift.

Grey:I've been looking for a VLSD tranny however I'm stuck with an open right now. I DEFINATELY need one. With my auto and the 3.0L it would spin the tires through most of first, so I'm not expecting miracles without one. I do have a set of BFG DR's I plan on running, maybe help a little.

Matt:The alignment issue is the reason I was planning only rear coilovers, the front sits pretty low already, and I figured I could get enough lift out of the rear to help out a little at least without having to spend time on the alignment rack every week. The battery, definately, I actually had plans to move it to the trunk when I was thinking about a turbo setup, but for now the car will stay NA, so thought that might not make much sense.

Thanks for the responses guys, I will definately check out the drag race forum some more. But got most of the questions I had so far answered at least. And confirmed some thoughts. Thanks again!

Aaron92SE

iTrader: (128)

Here is the best thread on these forums about this topic:

http://forums.maxima.org/showthread....uspension+drag

If you have any questions or further ideas, please post in that thread. It has a ton of useful information from the fastest Maxima 1/4 mile racers on this forum!

Pics of my final locked front suspension design are found on page 3. The pics that Jime posted are not working right now, but they look very similar to my pics since I copied him.

DandyMax

iTrader: (7)

to what Aaron posted, the thread he linked has a lot of good info in it but I will mention a couple things here anyways.

1) IMO traction bars are unnecessary, assuming you have poly bushings and motor mounts (or solid mounts). I believe those are the main reason people get wheel hop. After switching out my motor mounts, LCA bushings, subframe and sway bar/end link bushings with Energy Suspension poly I've never again had a wheel hop issue on any tire, street or track, and that's without traction bars. The LCA bushings and motor mounts especially seem to have a large impact.

2) Suspension. IMO coilovers are the best setup. I mentioned this in the other thread Aaron linked but I'll repeat it here: I don't mess with the front ride height on mine at the track so that I don't need to realign all the time, but I do jack the rears up high and stiff. Doing that seems to have eliminated most squat for me. I also don't have a heavy back end, but if you need to relocate a battery to the trunk for turbo or whatever I wouldn't be overly concerned. You can always switch to a lightweight Braille or Odyssey etc, it's not a large detriment especially if you put it right behind the seat and not out at the end. As for the fronts I have tried zip-tying the springs which I think helped marginally since the shock still pulls up, just the spring isn't helping to push up anymore (maybe a couple hundredths off the sixty foot?). This is one remaining area for improvement for me, I still get a bit of lift in the front although even still I can usually pull 1.75 to 1.79 sixties. At some point I plan to rig up a solid tie to the chassis, something similar to what Aaron/Jim have done/discussed in the other thread but it will be different for the coilover setup on mine.

Aaron92SE

iTrader: (128)

Thanks for posting that. Anybody who can do 1.7s in a FWD Maxima has my attention!

I also have done a lot of reading on honda-tech.com and most have coilovers and say that is the best setup. The only other info I could find is the setup I'm using with locked front and rubber spacers in the rear. Some have talked about a lock rear suspension as well as locked front. But, this may be a little extreme. But I still plan to experiment with a fully locked suspension. It may be too much, but I have to find out for myself on my car to see if 60 foot times are helped. Every car seems to be different. Some have found that a tiny bit of front rise helps the 60 foots. I guess it depends heavily on what setup you have (ie, weight distribution, slick size, curb weight, etc). Also, I should point out that Jime has tried locking his rear suspension on his 4th gen Maxima. He has found that preventing the front end of rising is FAR more important than worrying about the rear dropping. So he aborted that project since he didn't see any difference in his 60 foots by locking the rear. He used hard plastic boat rollers over his strut piston without a spring.

Also the honda guys talk about wheelie bars, which I plan to stay far away from unless I'm trying to get into the 9s.

DandyMax

iTrader: (7)

lol yeah no bars please...

It's good you mentioned the locked rear... I was going to add that to my post and then forgot. I too have toyed with the idea of going solid in the back but intuitively and from watching video of my car I always felt it wouldn't make much difference over the super stiff/high coilover setup (and Jim confirmed it), that the front lift vs the rear squat is much more of an issue. I can hear the difference in engine tone on my car from one launch to another depending on how much give there is on the front end. Even if the wheels don't spin, there's occasionally still a brief undulating up and down in engine tone over the first few feet as the load changes on the tire (as opposed to consistent and even acceleration). And you can certainly see the front lift on the car with slow motion video replay. So I definitely want to try something yet to lock the front in place (in so far as decompressing of the spring/lifting goes), although it's likely not going to be anytime soon, my current focus is a 3.5 swap.

gt35r

good full race coilovers and traction bars. all your other suspension mods are really going to do anything for you in drag racing. like strut bars and sway bars

sciff5

iTrader: (1)

I think the other huge mod everyone is fogetting is tire compound.. Drag radials or Et streets are your best friend if you want to go fast at the track.

JSutter

iTrader: (46)

FWD wheelie bars!