http://www.sr20-forum.com/overkill-e...-business.html

and another one bites the dust....

I emailed Mark tonight and the email bounced back as a non-existing user.

 

sr20forum has banned/blacklisted him. thats pretty serious, especially on that forum. They are all about people taking initiative and producing/creating parts for their cult classic cars. :/

I really feel bad for introducing OEM/Mark to the maxima community. To anyone out there that was screwed by mark, i extend my deepest apologies.

WARNING!!!! DO NOT BUY FROM OEM!!! FAULTY POUR CRAFTSMANSHIP AND HORENDOUS CUSTOMER SERVICE (NONE)!!! THEY DONT STAND BY THEIR PRODUCT AND IT IS UNSAFE FOR ANY USE STREET OR TRACK. PRODUCT MADE IN SOMEONES GARAGE AND NO REAL ENGINEERING IS INTRODUCED OTHER THAN US TRYING IT OUT....IT FAILING...OEM KEEPING OUR MONEY!!! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!!

 

I got my plates but haven't installed them because my car is down for the winter with a busted transmission. What did your 2nd gen plates look like? It sounds like I should not install these, should I try and get money back through paypal even though I received the product?

 

I will not disagree that the product we received is not perfect. What I will say, however, is that I have been using my second generation plates on the road since November. I must have about 8000 miles on them. The only real problem I have with them is the speherical bearing on the left side is making some nosie. It's a creaking probably having something to do with not all spherical bearings being load rated in the axial direction. I plan on using NHBB spehrical bearings (ABT10) as replacements when I re-do the suspension for spring.

 

Something like this?
Bearing

Like I said, I haven't installed the gen 2s yet, would you recommend that I go ahead and buy these bearings to replace the ones that came in the kit?

So what problems are other people having with the redesigned mounts? Is the fit off or have they broken again?

 

Exactly like that. From my research, New Hampshire Ball Bearing is the best.

Honestly, to save yourself the trouble down the road, I would install the superior spherical bearings from NHBB from the get go. If you don't, you'll need to completely tear down the strut/spring assembly to change them down the road. And that is a PITA (at least for stock style springs).

 

thanks for the link! i've been looking for some bearings for my stillen camber plates and those 3/4" ones seem to match up with my measurements perfectly.

 

Do you know if the link I put up the right size for stock-style springs?

 

Here are the dimensions as measured from a bearing included with the OEM plates which I bought for Eibach stock size springs. Refer to this diagram.

B - 0.625"
D - 1.1875
W - 0.625
T - 0.500

These measurement match the ABT10 perfectly. So to answer your question, yes, the link you posted is the bearing you would want.

 

Do you know if anyone else has had problems with the stock bearings? I have no idea what you're talking about when you mention axial loads, but just generally speaking, why do you believe the NHBB bearings are better?

 

Spherical bearings are usually only meant to take a load perpendicular to the hole in them. In the case of the front mounts, this would mean side to side, and front to back when viewing the mount from above. An axial load would be one that is in the direction of the axis of the hole, as in an up and down load in the case of the front mounts. This up and down load is the weight of the car. So whenever you go over a bump, you are loading the spherical bearing axially.

When I first broke my mount, I took off the cater/camber plates and noticed a significant amount of play had developed in the bearings. When I fisrt installed them the ball was nice and tight, but now I could clearly feel play in them. Now, looking at the rev 2 mounts, I can see on my drivers side where the ball is making direct contact with the housing, and not the Teflon liner. This is only going the exacerbate the play and cause additional wear to the bearing.

All spherical bearings are not made equally. I have no proof of this but it is my belief that the sphereical bearings supplied with the mounts are not of the quality of the NHBB bearings because of price. If NHBB bearings had been used, they would acount for 1/3 of the entire price of the mounts. Seeing how Mark opted for aluminum, twice, for the material of the slides citing the price of machining steel as the motivating factor, I cannot believe he would have used the most expensive top-of-the-line spherical bearings.

Even if you compare Aurora's Mil spec 10 size sphereical bearing (ANC-10T), you will find that the load ratings are only 2/3 that of the similar NHBB part (ABT10). Now if you just go on McMaster and find a 10 size bearing there, they aren't even rated for axial loads. This is why I am going to use NHBB parts when I have to replace my bearings.

 

good info ajm.

 

Sphericals also take the twisting motion in the 3rd axis when turning and as the strut angle changes. Without the stock plastic strut bearing the spherical may have to take that double duty too. I didn't think to look into quality of sphericals when I had my Stillen's rebuilt years back but instead used needle-roller bearings under the mount. Same as some GroundControl setups.

 

I've used these in the current setup I have. OEM included a small one as part of their mounts and I used a 2.5" between the bottom of the spring and the GC adjustment perch.

With the Stillen plates they use the stock plastic Nissan ones which suck. I will have to try and find a size similar to the stock plastic bearings.

 

I never thought about trying a torrington style bearing in place of the stock strut bushing. If you could eliminate the twisting motion of the spherical bearing due to steering the car, I'm sure they would last longer. They are really reasonably priced on McMaster.com

Joe, you said OEM included a small one with the mounts? Maybe this was for coil overs only?

 

Yeah the spherical has a piece of aluminum that went into the spherical and then tapered down and rested on a small Torrington bearing that was on those gold colored cones that adapt to the coil over springs.

 

This is just too weird not to share with you guys. I recieved two sphereical bearing from lamb components. I take them out of the packaging and see that they are in individual bags with the words "Nippon Miniature Bearing Co. L.T.D Tokyo, Japan" I immediately think "Lamb components, those bastards, they sent me cheap knock offs." So I take them out of the bags and notice that the tolerances are very tight. So I start to think "this is good." I grab my computer and look online only to find that Nippon bought New Hampshire Ball Bearing in 1984. But here's where it gets weird. In 1951, Nippon Miniature Bearing was founded by























NISSAN MOTOR COMPANY!

 

Does anyone else besides ajm8127 have the second gen plates on their car? I'm going to be putting mine on within the next 2 weeks and was wondering if there are any other reviews of how they're holding up.

 

Apparently there are universal camber plates for sale, you have to drill your own holes and bolt them up.

 

where

 

Ground Control sells universal plates, if your willing to grind the strut towers or cut out the strut tower tops and weld in steel plates with the proper bolt hole pattern.

I was thinking of getting GC top mount Sentra plates and have a new mounting plate machined so that it will bolt into the A32 strut towers.

 

FWIW I rebuilt my Stillen plates with bearing part # AU-PWB-12T from http://www.hrpworld.com/googlebase.c...action=product

They may not be the best but they fit perfectly.

 

I must say I have never had a single issue with the stock bearings. When I had GC I RTV'ed the bearing to the upper strut mount. It stayed in place perfectly. I have seen many smashed bearings but that is not Nissans fault.

 

They are still holding up for me. Just be careful with tightening the m8x1.25 cap screws that thread into the slides. That flange is only about 5mm thick and of course is made of aluminum so it is prone to stripping. I had to drill two of those holes out yesterday and put threaded inserts in (McMaster 97120A120). It is almost comical that the bolts themselves are a class 12.9. That like 3-4 times harder than the aluminum. So if push came to shove, the aluminum would strip long before the bolts yielded. Of course that would mean there is a giant load pulling down on the strut, which is not likely to happen.

Other than that, they are great. With the Nippon bearings, there really isn't any noise from them.

I considered Aurora bearings when I was looking for some, but went with the Nippon/NHBB ones because of what I read about them and because their stated load capacities are higher.

I reused my stock strut bearings as well. I bought torrington ones from McMaster, but realized once I got the struts apart that they would allow side to side movement of the spring hat. The aluminum collar that fits over the strut bearings and rests against the ball of the spherical bearing has a lip that fits over the strut bearing and keeps the spring hat centered relative to the shaft. I would have to get another piece machined to use the torrington bearing instead of the stock strut bearing to prevent this from happening. Bummer.

I am realizing now that I probably could have removed the top portion of the stock strut bearing and used that to keep the spring hat centered which would have allowed me to use the torrington bearing with hardened races. Oh well.