irish44j

iTrader: (38)

http://farnorthracing.com/autocross_secrets6.html

I've seen other stuff by this guy, and he knows his stuff....

Note the absence of the favorite brand for maximas (one which I also had).....

98SEBlackMax

iTrader: (9)

I think most people on here are ok with the cheaper strut and coilover options. Good struts are soooo expensive and most people on here won't get much benefit with normal street use.

Plus the only available option he considers OK for us are the Koni Yellows. But those are an entry level strut and I found after a few track days I wasn't to happy with them. They are truly a buy now and pay later strut...

After reading his article I agree the Koni's are weird on the rebound adjustment. I didn't understand this for a while and kept adjusting with not much success. I could not find a happy point for the suspension to be at. From what I understand now the best bet is to rebuild and revalve the struts with your measured spring rates and corner weights, then leave the struts alone! I'm planning on rebuilding/revalving the Konis for this year and see how much of an improvement it can make.

Also his article on suspension and why cars need coaxial spring perches was very helpful. I use the Stillen camber plates and I do not think they are coaxial and maybe causing some issues. I've noticed the front springs are digging into the threads on the ground control sleeves.

95maxrider

iTrader: (32)

So are you sending your Konis back to Koni for the rebuild or elsewhere? I would like to find some GCs for my car, but it seems like there's always some problem with the setup...

BEJAY1

iTrader: (19)

I'm surprised Dennis didn't get into the better Koni shocks that exist throughout the racing community. The sport yellow's are only the start of their product line before the 28xx, 30xx, 82xx. etc. That said I never used anything besides the 26xx yellows myself.

Brian Catt's, TurboMag's 11/04 article, and local shops taught me the futileness of unrestricted damper valving. Even though my Progress weren't ext adjustable, I had them revalved twice at an avg cost of $62/shock along with dyno stats. I changed springs a bunch of times but that's easy stuff. No adjusting=less to worry about at sites.

New ride this season with Koni single adj fronts, and double rears. Think I'll hide the **** lest I mess everything up.

rroderiques77

iTrader: (45)

Awesome information...Does this mean no more adjusting damping before the track? LOL!!!

MoncefA33

iTrader: (6)

I wonder if anyone dynoed the D2 dampers.

ajm8127

iTrader: (8)

I read this some time ago, but it looks like it was updated yesterday.

"March 30 2010 - as part of the massive website overhaul, this page - which is by far the most popular on the site - has a metric assload of new material. So much so that I had to break the page up into new pages to make it somewhat readable. Accordingly, some of the information that was on this page prior to the update may now reside elsewhere. Just look at the navigation menu on the left to find it. DG"

I love me some good readin'.

Prophecy99

iTrader: (1)

Great read, Thanks.

NissanMan97

iTrader: (5)

i got from this that adj shocks are both pointless on a non-tracked car and utter crap unless you pay the big bucks...

does that sound about right?

B

ajm8127

iTrader: (8)

I think it says that adjustable shocks that lack independent rebound/compression adjustment are crap, and that adjusting your shocks and not putting them on a dyno to match them afterwords is being presumptuous in thinking that they are damping the same just because they are on the same setting.

I have single adjustable Konis and I do not think they are utter crap or pointless.

NissanMan97

iTrader: (5)

ok.

I dont think konis are utter crap or pointless either. I have heard nothing good about konis except for this article.

so basically, buy some konis and have them dynoed at each setting so you know where you stand when you put them on the car?

B

ajm8127

iTrader: (8)

Well the Konis don't have discrete settings really, its just 2.5 rotations or so with no positive position feedback in between. In the article he says that for Koni yellows, he's just used the **** to get a matched pair, then never touched it again.

The point to take away from this article about adjustable shocks is don't get adjustment happy. The shocks should only be adjusted once, and dynoed so you know they match side to side. The point of tuning the suspension is to achieve the resonant frequencies he describes (2 Hz for front, 2.5 for rear IIRC) and once you have your shocks matched and adjusted to your spring rate, the only reason to adjust the shocks again would be if you changed spring rate.

NissanMan97

iTrader: (5)

ok that makes a little more sense.

i was up in the air on what i wanted to do. i know i wanted adjustable shocks and konis have a good reputation but after reading this i was hesitant so much so that i was just going to buy OE replacement shocks and call it a day, but what you said makes the article make more sense.

now on to research spring rates and figure out what i want

B

95maxrider

iTrader: (32)

Did you ever have your Konis revalved? How do you measure your spring rates? Who did the revalving?

I've had mine for three years now and would like to rebuild them while I'm still working at a garage. Since my car might be down for a while waiting on a transmission, now would be the perfect time to have mine rebuild/revalved.

EDIT
Two revalving links:

KONI

PROPARTS USA

98SEBlackMax

iTrader: (9)

http://forums.maxima.org/advanced-su...ver-setup.html

I had PropartsUSA do the rebuild/revalve on the fronts. The rears were still good and very close to each other so there was no need for a rebuild or a revalve.

It really helped the ride quality in that the old fronts didn't have enough rebound to handle the ERS 400 pound springs I have on the front. The car would jiggle after most bumps even with the stiffest rebound setting. Now the car feels so much more dampened and it barely jiggles anymore over bumps. I didn't get any good handling feedback this year as I only did one track event and there was so much different with the car.

95maxrider

iTrader: (32)

So basically I would go get my car corner weighted to measure the weight at each corner (I should probably wait until I relocate my battery), then send my shocks to them and they will tell me if they are uneven or need to be revalved? I'm only running Eibachs, do you think I would benefit from firmer valving?

98SEBlackMax

iTrader: (9)

With regular style springs I would not even bother revalving unless you want to get the front & rear struts to have equal compression/rebound numbers.

Also when I talked to Proparts they asked what the corner weights were but since these aren't F1 cars they don't take the weights into the equation that much for Maximas.

What is more important is the spring rates. I found the Koni yellows are good for about 150 ~ 350 pounds of spring force from the factory. Since I am running 400 pound springs the front struts did not have enough rebound force in them to accomidate the front springs and hence why it jiggled over bumps. Now my struts are valved for 250 ~ 550 pounds of rebound force so they can easily work with my front springs.

Nealoc187

iTrader: (23)

god I envy a few of you guys' suspension setups. part of me wants to go all out on making the max handle as well as it possibly can, and the other part of me is so sick of addressing all the shortcomings of this platform (and spending the $$$ to do it) that I've told myself i'm done and wanting to move on to a new platform.

98SEBlackMax

iTrader: (9)

Its called "The Guys with Maximas with more money than brains club".

No matter what car you mod its always a waste of money, its a hobby an expensive one at that.

I did alot of these mods more as a way of learning how cars work. I could of bought into a popular car platform and just ordered all my suspension parts from a catalog, then send the car off to have everything installed and aligned but I wouldn't have learned as much; if anything.

This year I went through alot of problems with getting all this suspension stuff done and it has severly killed my motivation to do anymore to this car's suspension. If I can get those ALCAs done along with the bump steer adjustment and adjustable sway bar end links, that will be it for front suspension. The rear beam will stay, as I no longer have the motivation to convert to IRS or a panhard rod setup.

Ominous OP

Hey Guys. New to the forum. I have a 2000 Maxima. I just got Tokico Illumina's and S-Tech Springs that are going to lower the car by 1.4 inches all around. I am looking into getting Enkei EDR9's in 17 or 18's. Will the 18's cause fender rub? And also, I would perfer they just fit on (no customization). What is the best width and offset to use? Width options are 7, 7.5 or 8 and offset is either 45mm or 38mm. Thanks for the help. Need to know so I can order.

E55AMG2

iTrader: (4)

This guy loves Koni...take that with a grain of salt. I've had Koni Yellow/GC "coilovers" and they cannot control any spring rate over 500lb/in effectively due to their low pressure design. GC said they should be good to go, but after having the suspension dyno tested independently they said the shocks are NG for what I wanted.

I currently run Cross/JIC coilovers with 1000lb/in springs in front and 800lb/in springs in the rear on my M5. It rides like a normal BMW until you go over a large sharp bump (speed bump) or a sharp dip. It's interesting that he says JIC is crap...yet provides no dyno plots. That would mean a lot of JGTC teams are running on crap. JIC was willing to dyno my shocks and set the damping to the spring rates I ordered.

According to every suspension company I've ever talked to, adjusters are only to be used to reset the damping curve for a new spring. If you dont change spring rates, you dont need to play with your adjusters. If you have nonlinear springs (progressive rate), you have no business using adjustable shocks.

Shift_Max

iTrader: (18)

Good luck trying to get a company to release their shock dynos. Unless you send them off on your own to get tested, most companies dont share that information.

98SEBlackMax

iTrader: (9)

He doesn't like the Koni Yellows that much, he says they are cheapest option that he would use or go with them if you have no other choice.

For the Maxima there are no good adjustable shock options and the revalved Koni yellows I have are the best of a bad situation IMO. I had them dyno tested and any springs above 500 pounds would be the limit of what is safe on those Konis. He mentioned the Konis do explode when revalved with very stiff springs.

That article was written a while back and updated in 3/10 so JIC might have improved their product and customer service, especially for the M5s.

Also any shock used in professional racing is $$$$ and as such doesn't apply all that much to their cheaper production street shocks IMO. A good set of race ready 4 way adjustable remote resivor shocks go for around $10K~$20K a set.

E55AMG2

iTrader: (4)

The only good Koni are the orange d/a's, and they cost as much as motons. 500lb/in is very very soft in terms of competition springs (any suspension will do for the street, so let's leave that out of the equation). From my Koni experience, I would never ever touch them again.

I sent the guy an email to see what, if any, he has on JIC.

I've had the FLT-A2R (dyno tuned) on my maxima with 12/10 (680/560, it was a compromise track/street setup) and they never had issues with shock cavitation or with critical damping.

I have 18/15 on my M5, and no issues whatsoever with shock control/damping. I remember my tockico illuminas were trash, and the KYB GR2 werent much better with lowering springs...but Im fairly certain that JIC makes a pretty stout coilover.

E55AMG2

iTrader: (4)

This isnt the right forum for this. This is better asked in the 5th gen forum.

Do yourself a favor and get the offset specs from the factory wheels, then figure out the new wheel size you want and calculate the new offset so that you wont need spacers.