G50: Maximum Neg. Camber To Stop Wear On Rear Tires.

[sdkhalsa]

94' Q with about 98K on it. I have just finished replacing the upper control arms all the way around and I have found that it is necessary to adjust the rear camber to the maximum negative setting, about -1.7 degrees, to obtain an even wear pattern on the tires, otherwise the outside edge is being worn down excessively. There is no cross pattern to indicate any toe-in problem. There is no obvious looseness in the suspension or indication of wear in the suspension components. Any ideas?

[elwesso]

you gotta have major toe in probles if your roasing the outside edge.....

have you had an alignment?

[Jeff Williams]

What did you do to adjust the camber?

[elwesso]

the rear camber is slightly adjustable... maybe by about a degree

[maxnix]

Wheels and tire sizes? Hunter alignment print out?

[sdkhalsa]

There was no adjustment on the fronts; the rears were adjusted with the cams on the the rear upper links. I am due for an allignment, as I was holding off till completing the upper link work. Will report back as soon as this is done. Do not suspect serious toe in problem as the handling is good and there is no cross tread wear pattern.

[JohnPa]

I just had my alignment (90 Q45t) on a Hunter machine and the mechanic thought that the adjustable links from a 300ZX of the same vintage would work on my Q. I'm interested because he says that the rear tires will wear unevenly at the current static setting.

If it will work, I know that Stillen makes such an adjustable link, but does anyone else to your knowledge? As long as I'm at it, does anyone besides Stillen make an adjustable front link for the Q?

Many thanks..................John

[Jeff Williams]

John, it appears that any adjustable link for the 1990 to 1996 300ZX will work on our 1990-1996 Q45 as well.

I bought adjustable links, to make my care more positive, because the tires wear a little more on the inside. I am also puting on some California Custom springs, that will lower the car about an inch or so.

Worn tension rods and upper links are the culprits on the front. The kingpin and lower ball joint could be a problem, as well. Sagging springs can put the car too negative, as well.

When I was driving around with a bent control arm, the front was positive and toed in. That put some wear on the outer edge of the front tires for a few hundred miles. Other than adjustable links or something being bent, I have no idea how somebody got a positive camber on the Q.

[Q45tech]

Always look for shims in the upper link mounting bracket/bolts---common cheap way for body shops to cover up damage. Each 1/8" is ~~1 degree.

Not changing shocks every 60k can cause some weird tire wear patterns especially on rear.

[sdkhalsa]

JohnPa:What was the nature of the wear pattern on rear tires at the static setting? What was the setting?

By the way, replaced the front radial arm bushings. The reason for changing the upper arms was that very recently all of the tires, particularly the fronts, started to show very heavy wear on the outer edges, even though could not detect any looseness in links. My thought was that each of the suspension components had a small amount of wear allowing a bounce into the positive camber range.

[elwesso]

I just had my alignment (90 Q45t) on a Hunter machine and the mechanic thought that the adjustable links from a 300ZX of the same vintage would work on my Q. I'm interested because he says that the rear tires will wear unevenly at the current static setting.

If it will work, I know that Stillen makes such an adjustable link, but does anyone else to your knowledge? As long as I'm at it, does anyone besides Stillen make an adjustable front link for the Q?

Many thanks..................John

I run the SPL rear adjustable links on my Q Stealin is for the weak!!

[JohnPa]

John, it appears that any adjustable link for the 1990 to 1996 300ZX will work on our 1990-1996 Q45 as well.

I bought adjustable links, to make my care more positive, because the tires wear a little more on the inside. I am also puting on some California Custom springs, that will lower the car about an inch or so.

Worn tension rods and upper links are the culprits on the front. The kingpin and lower ball joint could be a problem, as well. Sagging springs can put the car too negative, as well.

Jeff, my front links and tension rods are new, but I didn't replace the ball joints or king pin assemblies. Still, the camber is off front and rear. Did you replace both the front and rear upper links with adjustables? Where did you get them?

ps. I was in on the group purchase of the California Custom springs, but I'm reluctant to make the switch because of ride quality. Let us know how yours work out.

Thanks.......John

[JohnPa]

Regarding the wear pattern

JohnPa:What was the nature of the wear pattern on rear tires at the static setting? What was the setting?

I can't give you any help on the wear pattern because the rears only had about a 1,000 miles on them when I had the alignment re-checked because I didn't trust the local tire shop that performed the original alignment. The fronts had about 4,000 miles and were noticably worn on the inside!

Thanks for taking the time to respond...........John

[elwesso]

Am i not around anymore???

ALL 300ZX multilink things work!!!!!! Tension rods, upper links (front and rear), and so forth... ALL FROM SPL!!!!!

The ride with the cali customs is great.... trust me!

[Jeff Williams]

I wonder why Wes hasn't responded to this thread....

I bought my adjustable stuff off of eBay. If you do some research, you will see there are a few speed shops that sell stuff for the 300zx on eBay, and you can win one auction and negotiate for the rest of the parts you want.

I didn't buy adjustable upper links for the front, because my OEM upper links are brand new. I bought a spacer kit for about $50, that replaces all 8 bolts, and adds 2 bars on each side, to move the OEM upper link inner mount out to compensate for a 1" dropped spring. They were advertised to match the Eibach springs on the 300zx.

The rears are SPL or a clone, I paid about $100 for off of eBay.

I haven't installed the Cali Custom springs yet, but shoud be doing it in the up coming weekends.

[JohnPa]

Am i not around anymore???

ALL 300ZX multilink things work!!!!!! Tension rods, upper links (front and rear), and so forth... ALL FROM SPL!!!!!

The ride with the cali customs is great.... trust me!

Good to know about the springs. My car would look a lot better if it were lowered. But, help me out here, who/what is 'SPL'?

Thanks for paving the way...........John

[JohnPa]

I wonder why Wes hasn't responded to this thread....

I I bought a spacer kit for about $50, that replaces all 8 bolts, and adds 2 bars on each side, to move the OEM upper link inner mount out to compensate for a 1" dropped spring. They were advertised to match the Eibach springs on the 300zx.

Hey Jeff, where did you find the 'spacer kit'?

Thanks..............John

[elwesso]

http://www.splparts.com

Personally what I did is scour Z32 boards for lightly used Z32 stuff... its a lot more work and hassle, but i saved a ton of money.

[redmanfx]

John, it appears that any adjustable link for the 1990 to 1996 300ZX will work on our 1990-1996 Q45 as well.

and that's not all that works well either.

red

[sdkhalsa]

Do the oval shapped 300zx(90'-96') rear upper control arms fit a G50.

[elwesso]

yeah they should. are you talking the OEM ones?

[dousan_pg]

if z32 arms fit the g50 so will s13we can swap w/ z32 rucas.

z32 and s13 are nearly identical, but the z32 one is longer but w/ the adjustability factor of an aftermarket RUCA it can fit on an s13

*s13=90-94 Nissan 240sx

[sdkhalsa]

Finally got the steering squared away. After a high quality allignment, determined that the toe-in on the rear left was significantly off, +.40, whereas it should have been down close to zero. The real culprit in this affair was the caster on front left which was overly positive and causing vehicle to drift right, requiring steering correction(and lots of tire wear) to the left. Cannot give accurate figures on the left caster as I just put in adjustable radial arms, but can say that the adjustment length was probably 5/8" longer than the stock radial arm with new bushing. Moral to the story: go out and buy some adjustable radial arms if your caster is off as these could very well be causing more tire wear and handling unhappiness than worn camber arms.

Thanks everyone for your very useful ideas.

Siri

[sheadee240]

It's good that you got the car tracking straight, but caster correction will not correct excessive uneven tire wear. Excessive uneven tire wear can only be caused by incorrect camber and or toe. If you just had an allignment done, I would hope that the toe is in spec, but this depends on the technician. You need to post up your final allignment specs as you may well still have a camber issue even though your car tracks straight.

[Q45tech]

Different caster CAUSES a different camber gain [on different sides] when wheels are turned so the turning camber can be a lot different than the sitting still or going straight camber.

Why you make every parameter exactly equal so the car behaves the same turning left or right something NASCAR doesn't have to worry about.

[maxnix]

As Q45tech notes, alignment specifications change under dynamic performance.

I thought NASCAR had a couple of road courses still?

Anyway, if members think about it, everyday street demands are more encompassing than race demands which only address a smooth couple of miles with less than 10 turns and only go for a couple hundred miles, albeit at 10/10ths. A race car is usually not even a decent road car, unless you are a rich masochist.