aztecred92

I'm not speaking out because of ego. I'm speaking up from my personal experience. 98sr20ve's observations have lead him to think differently. That's his experience and it has been shared by others. No where do I deny that. I merely stated that my observations as well as well as those of a few others is different. Since this is a forum (an assembly, meeting place, etc., for the discussion of questions of public interest), it seems that these differences should be known to others. Anyone who reads this can make their own decision based on the experiences of several as opposed to that of just one.

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aztecred92
L I V E S T R O N G
'92 SE-R
'85 MR2

 

Shawn B

Nope, no new bushings except the Superpro caster bushings. All old, 170K mile OEM bushings. Just left them as is.

The OEM bushings are not available as seperate units. You want a control arm bushing? Cool, buy a whole new OEM control arm. Nissan sucks on that one. I probably would have bought new OEM bushing at any sort of reasonable pricing if, repeat IF, they were available.

Works great on my Daily Driver. No track, autocross, nothing. I just drive the piss out of it daily on Houstons hideously bad roads.

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2004 Tahoe, stock and fully loaded.
'93 Classic - R.I.P. 2007 My mechanical companion. Operation Resuscitation underway....

* The best offense is a good psychosis. *

specalk

i agree, its like once someone said something on fourms, its like law and everyone repeats it, then people who have never had them on there cars will be like o no it will bind. For some reasion ive had mine and no side effects

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93 SE-R
87 Hardbody 4x4 V6 SE
05 zuma

92nissannx

I just got Progress Rear Sway Bars from Brad at http://www.neverenoughauto.com/
Shipping was fast and he's easy to work with. He's on eBay also. They're still in the box unopened until I have time.

98sr20ve

You don't even have to believe what I say. All you need to do is take the rear wheel off the car an look at the rear suspension and what the direction of travel of the two lower links and the forward link want to do. You can visualize the binding that is going to occur if you stiffen up all the links. I guess I get in the same argument with people over suspension travel. "Sure lowering springs/gc set low/etc work great with AGX's". Then I go challenge people to just measure how much actual travel they have. They never do because they don't want to know that they made a mistake. They would rather live in denial. I also talk with people all the time about suspension stuff. They tell me privately that "I made a mistake by purchasing X" but on the forum total silence about that product. No one wants to admit they made a mistake when the purchase/do something. Every notice everyone loves every new mod that comes out? BTW, I never said to not use ES stuff. I said it's just not worth the hassel on a DD. If you do use it don't use all of them and make sure you grease them all the time. Hence my suggestion of putting on grease fittings. That is also a PITA but once done is a real hassel saver. BTW, my front ES bushings are soo bad on the 240 that if I tighten down the bolt holding on my lower control arm to tightly I can feel the car start binding. Too loose and I can feel the toe changes at the wheel during braking. Most people notice the suspension getting stiffer and they think it's better. "You know, stiffer is better". Everyone knows that . If thats the case then how come a totally metal sperical bearing car can ride better then a full ES setup. It's all in the reduction of binding. Binding ES bushings actually "Feel" like extra spring rate in the back of the car to some people.

Nope, I am replacing them with sperical.

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Steve

06 G35 6MT

sinistersntra91

if you grease the rear es bushings with marine chassis grease you will have no binding issues, I have had my whole kit in for three years and everything moves freely, I just installed Hypercos and there are no problems in moving anything what so ever, unlike back when I had my stock bushings I couldnt move anything. I will say this though, in my opinion installing the ES bushing set on my car was by far the most tideous, and hardest thing I have had to install in my car hands down. Just make sure you have a small propane plumbers soldering torch on hand and get use to the smell of burnt rubber........

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My Rides:
95 Nissan 240SX SE - Project Car
06 Nissan Frontier SE Crew Cab 4x4 - DD/Toy
92 Nissan NX2000 - The Car That Never Leaves The Garage

detse-r

does anyone have a list of the spherical bearings, i would need to do my suspension? sizes and amounts. i was going to get a es kit, but the spherical bearings sound like a better idea. i work in an machine shop, so i can get them at cost also.

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92 se-r u12 bb, ceramic coated gti-r manifold and j-pipe, gt28rs, 3" ext w/apex n1, greddy bov, 6x3x28 fmic, 480 injectors, safc, and more! still working out he bugs

sh1ft

^what he said

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2lng2nin

98sr20ve

Just use aurora or similar. Someone like NOPI I think makes replacement links that have bearings on both ends. MPG9999 posted some pictures a while back.

gEE805

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HEY ALBERT PANZIE!!!! all i gotta say is....
15.135 @ 92.63mph and 15.318 @ 93.82mph...nuff said..no rhymes needed here to poet your a** haha


dJ gNO cYDZ.................. RIP DJ SPEEDY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

MegaSoreAss

I recently purchased a B13 and intend to put the complete set of ES busings on the car. I have an 1995 G20t that I changed all the bushings and the result was tremendous. Now, I don't know about the B13 suspension arrangment other than by reading and looking at diagrams, but I can't imagine that Nissan designed a suspension with such a serious defect in it. I also can't imagine that the car would be rated amongst the top ten cars in the world during its production years and yet have a seriously flawed suspension.

Also, if the suspension is flawed and necessarily binds when in use, then everyone should have the same problem. Of course, a number of members say that they have installed the bushings, presumably drive their cars and report no suspension problems.

So, I would like a definitive answer on this problem. Is the binding a symptom of some other problem that the bushings in some instances exaggerate? Or is the common opinion that the Nissan B13 suspension is improperly designed?

Mega

specalk

i think it could be a nothern thing with all the snow and salt it could affect it, but im in orlando and my current car has had it on there for about a year and no problems and my last se-r had them on for 3 years with no problem, but they was installed by the same guy, just lube them up well

FastNX

The B13's suspension geometry could not be much worse. The cars came equipped with wide wheels and tires (for the time), stiffer springs and thicker sway bars than similar cars, which made them stand out from the pack and masked some of the problems. Once you start swapping these items out, the advantage over other cars disappears, and the deficiencies become more obvious.

Suspension travel is the issue people talk about most, but it is only one of many problems faced by the B13 chassis. Rear bind, front and rear geometry problems are big drawbacks.

My brother (Fast200SX) and I re-engineered the front suspension on our race NX, now it walks away from the other B-series Nissans in the corners. This winter we are going to further tweak the front end and re-enginner the rear to eliminate some of these issues.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words (black NX)



This post may seem off topic, but my point is yes, the B13's suspension has its flaws. Yes, they can be fixed, most of the solutions are at great cost, with the exception of castor bushings. The solution is to choose parts that optimize handling by keeping the suspension out of the range where its performace begins to suffer ie stiff, not too low springs.

My opinion for bushings: Superpro/Whiteline front castor bushings, leave the rears stock to start. The front bushings are simple to install and add much-needed castor, which adds dynamic camber, helping to increase front grip and reduce outside tire wear as well as reducing axle bind issues. After upgrading the struts and springs (with a proper setup ie hypercoils and Konis or a quality coilover setup), and you still think the rear is sloppy, replace the rear parallel link bushings with ES units, following the procedure that allows you to grease them periodically. Consider replacing the front trailing arm bushing with a stock unit, as a new Nissan unit will have less slop than an old, worn out one. Using an ES unit here will increase bind, and drastically increase rear bump steer. Even if the suspension is moving freely, it is still bump steering, and making rear handling worse, whether you realize it or not. Be warned though, replacing the rar bushings can be an enormous pain, and should only be done if the aforementioned suspension modifications have been done and do not provide satisfactory results.

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Shawn B

Please re-read all of 98sr20ve's posts. Then read the one posted by FastNX.

Notice these two gentlemen agree on the issues?

Take their wisdom as definitive on your answers.

This thread we are in is also referenced in this thread:

http://www.sr20forum.com/showthread.php?t=170794

Reading that thread, you will find that these suspension issues were being discussed in Sport Compact Car Magazine way back in July, 2000.

420sxDET

Anyone know the diameter of the bushing for the rear lower arms? I was looking through the spherical bushing catalog, and I was wondering which one would fit. Thanks

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"A couple of Nissan Sr20's will pull a premium one week before race wars." (Johnny Tran, fast and furious) LOL

MegaSoreAss

My first reading of this very informative thread is that es bushings are an excellent upgrade. Some problems arise with soft springs, too much drop and improper length shocks and struts. It does not indicate that the suspension itself is in some way a flawed design, although at some points it talks about poor geometry but does not make clear just what the poor geometry is.

Of course, I have not re-read the thread nor studied it carefully, so I may be missing the important part about suspension binding, but it seems that the suspension works properly and is simply lumbered with the problem of inadequate suspension travel with some shock and spring combinations.

I will re-read and see if the problem becomes clear to me.

Mega

FastNX

I would not necessarily say Nissan has a poor suspension design. I would say it works well when the geometry is in the stock location, where Nissan intended it, and when you change anything in the suspension, it all goes to crap.

There are dozens of threads about this. Basically when you lower the car more than an inch or so, the car LOSES negative camber as it rolls. What that means is the more the car rolls, the less grip it has, especially in the front end. Bump steer is also a big issue. When the suspension rolls, the wheels toe out. This problem get worse when the car is lowered.

Figure 1. Notice the inside wheel gains negative camber as it unloads. The outside wheel is losing negative camber, although it is more difficult to see in this picture. Think about how little of the contact patch each tire is using compared to if the outside wheel gained negative camber and the outside wheel lost negative camber (the contact patches would remain very close to perpendicular to the ground)





Figure 2. A well set up racecar. Notice the negative camber on the outside wheel. This is good.



What it boils down to is the more you lower the car, the more your alignment goes for a crap when you take a corner.

Your G20 isn't so bad. It has adouble wishbone front suspension which keeps gaining negative camber with roll (a good thing) as you lower it. Bump steer is still an issue though.

Correcting the geometry is a pain, and uses heim joints, which aren't really practical for the street. It took my brother and I about $1500 and 50 hours of fabrication to correct the front end geometry. The heim joints need to be replaced every so often at a cost of about $200. The best thing you can do is not lower the car much and run stiff spring rates.

Why do people not talk about these things? It's pretty complicated. It's hard to fix. Not many people know about it. It's the kind of prep that goes into a Speed World Challenge racecars, a lot of the regional roadracing guys don't even know. There is one guy we race against, he has a B15 Sentra with a fully built SR20 motor that makes about 180 at the wheels. He can't keep front tires on the thing, tire temperatures are well into the 200s and his tires last about 1 hour. On our racecar, the front tires last 3+ hours, the temps are in the 170s and we are several seconds a lap ahead of him with a similar engine.

SE-R_Dan

OK, so I already replaced all my rear bushings with the ES kit and the rear is stiff as hell. Up until yesterday I hadn't heard about the binding issue. Now I know what the problem is and I want to fix it. What are my options? It sounds like:

1. Buy new trailing arms from Nissan in order to get the rubber bushing back. $$$
2. Source new rubber bushings for the front (frame) end of the trailing arm. It is currently unknown where to find these.
3. Replace the ES bushings in my trailing arms with spherical bearings. I think I'm reading that this will resolve the problem as well, but I'm not sure I follow.

Are there any other options?

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1993 NX2000 - D2s., ES Bushings, SSAC header, Hotshot CAI, VRS Exhaust, lots o' chassis braces.

1999 Infiniti G20T BB SR20DET
FMIC, Blitz BOV, 3" Exhaust, JIC SA-1 Coilovers. GTi-R manifold/T28, 3" DP, 3000 lbs. of entry-level luxury