HAHAHAH!
I lost the battery cover on my Mitutoyo calipers too.... But electrical tape works better than blue tape.

 

wow I ran these on my 5th gen years ago and sold them to GHASE in NY.
Never realized they were AGX until now since im building my suspension for a 6th gen.

 

So....when can we place an order for the bottom mounts?

 

The first prototype wasn't good enough so it is being redesigned. Also Mark from OEM is out of the office until June 1st, so that is holding things up. We wll see how things go and if the 2nd prototype is better.

Trust me it has been a very fustrating couple of weeks with all this suspension stuff. I've got projects going for adjustable LCAs, bumpsteer adjustable outer tie rods, adjustable spherical end links, and these camber/caster plates all up in the air right now at various states. The transmisison and Koni struts need to be rebuilt and I can't give up the space in the garage as my buddy needs an engine swap on his '02 Maxima.

Not to mention my car has to be ready in August for several track events with all this new suspension stuff dialed in. I may not have time to shake down test everything the way I want to and just wing it at Watkins Glen.

 

i wish you started making these like 2 years ago...

 

Talked to Mark earlier today and its another 2 ~ 3 weeks for the new mount design. It will be more similar to the Stillen mount and more complex than what he tried on the first prototype.

He ported over what "worked" with the Sentras he has built mounts for; but we were not impressed. Either the Sentra guys don't care about noise/ride quality, or don't notice it, or they just ignore all these problems in light of cheap parts. Regardless this wasn't up to our standards and not something we would put our reputations behind.

 

Any updates?

 

Yes I talked to Mark and has a second bottom mount prototype ready and will be shipping it to Sergofast sometime this week or early next week. It is more of a Stillen copy now but it has caster adjustment.

Not sure whats up with the top mount plates. I'm in a crunch for getting my coilovers ready for the track events I have planned. I may have Mark make me a set of upper spring mounts as an upgrade for the Stillen plates to eliminate the plastic stock strut bearing, use Torrington strut bearings, and to make the camber plates coaxial with the springs.

 

These are the newer designed ones. Will have to check fitment and see how they work.

 

Perhaps I'm missing something, but why does the mount use two bearings (ball joint and OE plastic thrust bearing) to allow for strut/spring rotation?

 

Along the axis parallel to the strut, I think the stock plastic strut bearing takes the longitudinal forces and the pillow ball takes the lateral ones. In other words, the plastic bearing takes the weight of the car, and the pillow ball keeps the strut in the right position.

How is this project coming, btw? Did the second prototype of the bottom mount fit? Was a set of rear mounts ever received with the proper pillow ball size?

 

Why not allow the ball (spherical) joint to take the car's weight? Since a reducer between the shock shaft is ball joint is already used, up-sizing the ball to handle the load shouldn't be much of an issue. This would remove some complexity and and a failure/maintenance point.

 

Exactly.

If you use just a spherical bearing it gets worn out. I heard some camber plate makers tried that a while back and it didn't work out with long term use.

No idea, haven't heard from Mark at OEM or from Paul (Sergofast) in a while even though I've sent emails asking for any progress. Think this project is going to be on hold for a while.

I am having my friend make me aluminum spring hats that will hold the 2.5" coilover springs and couple into the Stillen plate where the stock plastic bushing goes. I will use Torrington needle bearings on the springs to take over the job of the strut bearing. This way the Stillen plates will become coaxial and it will get rid of the squishy stock strut bearing.

 

This is surprising since the spherical experiences the same loads as the plastic 'thrust bearing' as they are in parallel. But since others do it with strut top mounts then there must be a reason for it. The rotation must cause accelerate wear, since the spherical joint can take the corner weight (loads).

 

That's unfortunate, but summer is a busy time. Maybe I'll email OEM also to try to show him we have some serious interest in these front mounts.

 

I dont think the spherical bearing would turn easy enough under weight. I think the spring would bind when turning then unload causing noises.

 

It will allow steering as the spherical will rotate, plus others do it but typically don't recommend them for extend road use.

This is what I was thinking for the Maxima, but with a 'spacer' to connect the spherical to the upper spring perch:



I'll stop cluttering up this thread now.

 

The strut bearings also reduce the amount of stiction on the spring/strut assembly. If you have ever tried to adjust ride height on a Maxima equipped with GCs with bad plastic strut bearings you would know what im talking about. The bearings help the spring rotate in the assembly and prevent bind when cornering

Good news is that Mark is still into this project and is sending me a bottom mount plate to test fit.

Bad news is that I don't know what happened with Sergofast I sent him some emails and PMs. He hasn't logged onto the org in a few weeks either.

 

Updates:

I've test fitted the bottom mount set for regular springs and it should work well. Had Mark make about half a dozen small changes to the design.

The only standing issue is adjusting caster will be tricky for guys with stock style springs. There isn't alot of room to get a wrench to adjust caster cause of the large springs, but it is possible to adjust caster. Generally you would set caster only once, so that it is equal on both sides with the most positive caster you can get.

As far as us coil over folks.





Mark is working on getting a coil over bottom mount set to me this coming week. Next weekend I will test fit and get the car aligned on the 9th. Then to Watkins Glen on the 15th...

If they work good at Watkins with my driving and track tires they will work really good for street use.

So people who want bottom mount plates for stock style springs or coil over springs Mark will have them ready in another week or two.

I will make another thread with these plates when everything is all said and done.

 

I thought this might be a problem.

Regardless, this is still a pretty big advancement in the suspension situation for the maxima. Thanks for putting the time in with Mark to get these mounts R&D'ed. Now that a great deal of adjustability had been introduced to the static camber setting, the problem introduced by lowering the car with the stock LCAs needs to be worked out to get decent dynamic camber, but I hear you've got something up your sleeve for this too.

 

You want room for positive caster adjustment? You got it!

If you need more negative camber or positive caster you can open up the holes in the strut towers. These will provide way more adjustment than 99.9% of this forum needs.

The plate is now plated steel instead of aluminum to give it some more strength. Weight shouldn't be that much more cause of the material trimmed off to give the plate room for positive caster.

The nut in the center will be made of steel, that is just a prototype aluminum nut.

I will be getting this set by Friday or Saturday and will report back with my results.

 

Looks delectible!!
K, noob question. You talk about lower, and upper, they are both used in conjuction on the top of the "tower" (spring/strut), correct?
And will these be a regularly available product? I want these, but I also want to get my coilovers first

 

That's for bottom mount, right?

I would kill to get these on before the auto-x season is over....

Any word on the beam bending?

 

These are the bottom mount style, for stock style lowering springs or they can be used with coil overs. Let Mark know when ordering your plates.

The top mount plates are on hold, it will require a lot more R&D and Mark wants to sell some of these bottom mount sets first. If there is enough interest I might make a trip down to FL next year and we will work on a top mount prototype for hard core coil over use.

As it stands these will work for 95% of people on here. I am settling on a bottom mount set for this year because of the upcoming track events and the crappy Stillen plates have to go. Worry not I will try to work on a top mount design in the near future. Even if it is a one off set from OEM I will have top mounts someday.

Beam bending is on hold as well. I am working on getting the most grip out of the front tires this year. The rear tires never cease gripping the road, you will get more from improving front geometery and increasing front grip. Plans for the rear beam are to convert to an adjustable Panhard setup and a jig to bend the beam. Check back with me some time in 2011...

 

We are getting there...

Should have these in my hands on the weekend for testing and getting the car aligned next week.

 

Those look awesome. What price was set for the bottom mounts for stock springs? Are they available now?

 

Ill be buying some of these!

 

Not sure on pricing, I got a set at discount for helping out. But I've had to pay USPS a couple of times to ship stuff down to OEM, so its a fair trade off IMO.

Bottom mount plates were supposed to be Sergofast's prototype and I was going to prototype the top mount plates. I don't know what happened to Paul and I have not heard from him since the beginning of July. I hope he is alright.

I will post install pics sometime this weekend and if all goes well on Monday I am getting my car aligned.

 

Ugh where to begin, what a long weekend with almost no sleep. Got hurt a few weeks ago and couldn't wrench without severe pain until this Friday. Had to put the car together so I could get the car corner balanced/aligned this morning.

Anyways on with the show...






True coaxial mounts that allow free articulation of the plate independent of the spring. Along with rotational bearings on the upper part of the cone shaped part and on the bottom of the spring. The car turns SO fast and smooth, there is almost no binding when cornering. It is stange the car feels like it has had the turning radius reduced.




Driver side with the plates installed, maximum caster setting and around -1.0 negative camber.



Passenger side with the plate installed, maximum postive caster setting. Had to cut the plate to clear that metal part with the bolts in it to get max positive caster.





I might do a little more cutting but was able to get max caster the way it is.



Plate installed on the driver side.

Now as always onto the problems....

These plates along with the helper springs/couplers take up space and make the car sit higher, as such at the lowest setting on the GC adjusters I can only get 1.5" of drop from the stock ride height.



You WILL NEED helper springs to keep the plates together with coil over springs. These plates will be noisy over every bump if you do not use helper springs. The bump stops might help keep the parts together but the helper springs really do help and the coil overs ride so quietly.



You can see the camber adjustment slides, I had to grind the crap out of them to make it work. I will chalk this up to it being a prototype and that they made it for me in a few days.

 

1. use a different, flatter top hat for the spring perch. That will allow you to drop the car more.
hard to see in this pic, but theirs is almost flat:
http://splparts.com/store/avactis-im...oilovers_0.jpg


2. Consider using a top-mount camber plate. you gain 1-2" of clearance just by moving that stuff to the top.
(with the strut assy off the car, close and latch the hood and stick a ruler through the strut mount hole to see just how much room is up there.)

3. I forgot what 3 was.... oh yeah.. if you use a larger upper mount (with the bolt holes in it), you get a better load-bearing surface area which spreads the load across that aluminum part a bit better. it will deform less over time and off-road excursions.
you can also add a few additional bolt holes to it (in line with the ones that are already there) and move the bolts further to one end and gain more caster.

That's the way the KTS coilovers on my 240 are.
Hard to see in this shot, but you can see how far the bolts are spread apart. the holes are spaced about the same as yours are, but the bolts have 2-3 empty holes between them in this pic:
http://splparts.com/store/avactis-im...ilovers2_0.jpg


hope that helps.

 

1. I will suggest that to Mark and see what he says, think he used those gold cones as thats all he had for the prototype. For me I don't care as I only want a 0.5" ~ 1.0" drop. Guys who want to ride lower than 1.5" can get the Ksports or D2s IMO.

2. Top mount design is being considered in the future. I like that idea and will measure how much clearence the top mount plate will have.

3. Good thing you caught that, I thought it was small but figured Mark has been making these for the Sentras. It then occured to me my car is about the weight of a B14 Sentra.

The plates are probally ok on my car but I will suggest to Mark to make them wider on the production plates cause there are Maximas in the +3500 pound range that may buy these plates from OEM.

 

Mark is going to use shorter coil over spring top hats and that bearing plate is being made wider to support more load. So issues 1 & 3 are being addressed.

We would like to make a top mount coil over design but it will have to wait.

These will also be cut better for smoother camber adjustment and the caster holes are being cut to 10 mm for the proper sized bolt. The lack of smoothness he says was a prototype problem and he is sending me a replacement set of plates when these are ready.

He needs 5 people to get in on this group deal so you can contact him at mark@overkillengineeringmotorsports.com.

These will work for stock type lowering springs and for coil over springs, you must specify the springs and struts you will be using when ordering.

Stock type lowering springs are all the same diameter for the 4th gens. Also the stock, Koni yellows, Tokico, AGX KYB struts all use the same thread and pitch for the strut rod. Any other type of struts you should check before ordering.

For guys with coil overs be more aware. Coil over springs come in different sizes, 2.25" , 2.5", and 60 mm inner diameter springs. Also measure the thread and pitch for the strut rods so that the steel nut is tapped in the proper size for the struts you are using.

I also asked him to update his website so people could just buy from it directly = http://www.overkillengineeringmotors.../macapl95.html

It will be $300 for camber/caster plates for coil over use when reusing your coil over's upper spring perch and the stock plastic rotational bearing. If you have GCs already this is a cheaper option. Make sure to mention you are using the plastic bearing with coil overs. (you really shouldn't use those bearings )

It will be $310 for camber/caster plates for stock style lowering springs and the stock plastic rotational bearing.

It will be $375 for camber/caster plates for coil over use with Mark's upper spring cone adaptor with rotational bearings, these are plates that I am running with my Koni/GC setup and they are very nice.

Prices are higher than we thought it would be, but all three options are coaxial unlike the Stillen design along with caster adjustment. I was able to get around 1 degree more postive caster along with making both sides equal, its now set at 3.6 degrees.

I think ground shipping to the lower 48 is also free as well. He will take off 7% for a group buy of 5 people and 12% for 7+ people.

 

IF any 3 gens want to try coilovers, these will work for them too.
They MIGHT work for stock spring perches with minor mods to the perch as well.

 

I'm still down for a set of bottom mounts for Eibach springs. Let's get this group buy going!

 

will these caster/cambers plate work with the super pro / whiteline control arm bushings? (the ones that give a little more caster?)

 

I don't see why they wouldn't. Overall, you adjustment range might be different, but that's it.

 

thank you sir!

 

Yeah, I run those Superpro bushings and they work fine. The more positive caster the better.

I think up to +5 degrees will be ok on the 4th gens, anything more than that the front tires will start to rub into the fender plastic.

 

I'm a little confused. I emailed Mark and he said it would be $285 for the regular version and even cheaper through the group deal. He also said the design was finalized, which doesn't jive with the changes you mentioned above. How do we get this group deal going?

 

Whatever Mark says is the price, I was listing website prices. He may cut a deal on this first batch and cut some more prices the more people that buy these.