I have some really bad wheel hop. Horrible vibration/ hopping on the front end. Both off the line and on the 1-2 shift. I know this is not normal.

After doing a search, it can supposedly be eliminated by new/es motor mounts, the jclaw traction bars, new struts and springs. The effectiveness with wheel hop elimination on each varies from thread to thread. Different people claim different things, so the results are somewhat scattered.

I have illuminas with all new bushings and such with some high quality yokohama avs. The jclaw traction bars sound pretty good, but I am worried that they would make the ride harsh as hell, and one person reported that thay would hit the control arm when going over a bump.

I am thinking that replacing the motor mounts on the cross member might be the ticket. Since this car was originally an auto, it has the different mounts. Are they softer than the manual mounts? Will switching to the manual mounts solve my problem?

Sometimes I get the wheel hop off the line, but sometimes I dont. I dont know why... maybe the times I dont get it is when I have revved it up more. I dont know if that makes any sense or not. I ALWAYS get it on the 1-2 shift. I will break traction, but I just get the dammed wheel hop... no bark. Is there something possibly wrong with my technique? Or is it those crappy auto motor mounts.

I know that the wheel hop is not normal because my friend with a 96 I30 5spd gets absolutely none. Smooth burn outs off the line and can bark 2nd with ease too. We are equal as far as performance and suspension too. He has manual motor mounts with 140K on them.

Any advise appreciated.

Thanks!

 

definitely try the ES motor mounts...the install can be a pain though....not the actual installation itself (its quite simple) but to find someone to press them out...most shops in my area don't have a large enough adaptor to press out my old motor mounts...I finally found a shop after 1hr of driving door to door...they charged me $35....

with full cattmang exhaust and intake...coupled to a 6spd tranny with the VQ's mighty tq...all I get is wheelspin with slight hop....I do have coilovers and 245 wide tires helping the motor mounts keep the wheel hop to a minimal

 

Hey i30ds i finished installing poly filled mounts sunday and they are a real good way to get wrid of most wheel hop, depending on launch. here's what i found:

THE 5-SPEED AND AUTOMATIC MOUNTS ARE EXACTLY THE SAME ON 95-99's

my auto is sitting on 5-speed mounts. however my auto front mount was electric. so i just unplugged the connector.

the car feels better during shifts, there is less of a jerk, and accelerates better from start. the turns feel a little different the little slop that was there before is gone, and the steering wheel feels tighter..(but maybe just me?) AND there is NO vibration from the poly mounts at idle that some cars get. and as a comparison my old mounts are in very good condition with 85K miles, but the difference is definitely noticeable with the poly filled mounts - McMaster Carr 80A

 

Sounds like some manual motor mounts with ES inserts is the way to go. Over all from what I have seen, the vast majority say that it elminited most if not all the wheel hop. Only a few say that they still have wheel even with the ES mounts, and that is probably because they have bad suspension or tires.

 

i30ds, from lots of recent experience, I found the JClaw traction bars would solve all my wheel-hop issues. My car is a '99 GXE auto, running dual-stage NX and 10-inch BFG DR 16s, or 8-inch BFG DR 15s, depending. The car has about 43K - bought it new - so suspension isn't worn out.

At the start of this season, I was trying to launch with a 100-shot, and got terrible noises from the front. Turns out that both front 10-inch DRs were pulling into the wheel wells and rubbing on the body! Scufffed the plastic liners and polished some body metal in the wheel well..... launching with other combinations of nitrous and tires gave lots of torque-steer and wheel-hop. I now believe the lower control-arm bushings couldn't handle the applied power, and would deform under load.

I bought and installed the Jbars, and the car launches perfectly - no hop or wheel-judder at the strip, and the car drives and corners much better. I can now launch and steer the car at the same time. Burnouts are perfect, too.

Ended the year - and my second engine this season - with a 13.61 and 13.62 ET at 102MPH. This was with a 50-shot on launch and adding a 75-shot after shifting into second with the Infinity VLSD automatic. Going to 50-shot plus 100-shot has fried the valves in two engines, so the third motor and a new custom-built Edge torque converter goes in next week.

The Jbars made all the difference, and they are easy to install on a 5-spd. An automatic takes some tube-bending to clear the transmission. With 225x50x16 BFG TA/Gforce tires all around on the street, I get some tire rub on the bars at right and left lock, but no other noises. The 10-inch 255x50x16 DRs are harder to corner with - they are kinda wide. It takes 10 minutes to remove the bars after the initial installation.

Sorry for the long post, but like I said earlier, I've had lots of recent experience with wheel hop, and the Jbars work jest fine on my Max.

 

Swap to RWD. It worked for me.

 

What about general ride quality? Did the traction bars make the front end harsh as hell? We have really sh!tty roads here in denver... about as bad as detroit. I also heard they can bang around and make a god awful amount racket. DId you get any of that??

I mean if the whole piont is to stop the control arm from moving, I would imagine that the rie quality would suffer greatly.

 

Believe me, I cant wait for the day when I can lay down some rubber to the rear wheels.

Goodbye wheel hop. Goodbye torque steer. Goodbye understeer.

 

There was something else that crossed my mind. Since I really have not been driving around manual in this car for a long time, I only have a few experiences of this.

From what I can recall, the wheel hop has happened when the tires were really cold... like less than a few miles of driving. The times it has not happened, is when the car had been driving for more than 15 miles.

Would cold tires increase the hop? My friend said he always waits for at least 10-15 miles of driving before dropping the clutch.

 

you get used to it but i get it less now with the VLSD.

 

I noticed no changes in ride, with Tokico Illuminas struts and springs installed. The Jbars are held firmly at the front pivot and the control arm mount. You can't shake them or rattle them manually - I tried. The universal swivel joint at both ends of each bar is a real piece of work - full range of motion but no rattle or shake. If you install correctly, each bar is tight at both ends. We don't have major damage to streets locally, but have lots of potholes and cracks.

The Jbars apparently keep the control arms from moving back and forth in their bushings, but allow normal motion and travel for the wheels. When my DRs first pulled into the body (and polished the metal at two places), under the wheel wells, I really thought I broke something major under there - that made one H*ll of a loud noise on launch.

I don't know what else to add to this - the Jbars are a great solution to my 4th Gen. front suspension, and except for my DRs rubbing at right and left lock, nothing bad happens during normal driving.

I kid you not, the Max drives better with the Jbars - and I can do burnouts with the 10-inch DRs and easily steer the car at the same time. Before this, the car went where it wanted to go. Steering was a two-handed job - I often got sore hands from hanging on the the steering wheel so hard. The only thing I ever raced that was worse was my '63 Econoline van with a dual-quad Boss 302 mounted in the back - and that was because the front wheels weren't on the ground much.... ( Ah, glory days )..

 

Zack, are you getting bad wheel hop too? Eric doesnt get any all... unless he is on a sh!tty road or his tires are cold. I am gonna have him try and do it in my car with the tires warmed up on a good section of road to see if it really is those crappy auto tranny mounts. I mean there must be some reason why nissan put different non electronically controlled mounts on.

 

Thanks for the reply on the ride quality. Looks like I will be getting a set along with some es inserts for some manual motor mounts too. After that I should not get any horrible wheel hop.