Hijacker's Money-Ain't-No-Thing Build

General discussion forum about the 240sx, and a great place to introduce yourself to the board!
User avatar
Hijacker
Posts: 15759
Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2003 4:57 am
Car: '92 240sx Convertible
'94 F-150
Location: Fredericksburg, VA

Post

So, my update isn't nearly as large as I was hoping. A friend of mine is parting his hatch out and I was going to cut his floor boards out to add to the pile of parts going on the vert. That way I can replace my rotting rockers and get a solid floor back under the car for the eventual rollbar. That didn't quite come to fruition this weekend, but once he's ready to send the shell to the scrapper, I can take the saw to it then.

However, I did get some coilovers from him this weekend. BC Racing type BR. Not the KWs I plan on getting, but they'll let me run the GKTech knuckles. I have them on the car, just no pictures yet. I'll snap some tomorrow when there's light.

But for now, here's the coils.

Image


User avatar
Hijacker
Posts: 15759
Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2003 4:57 am
Car: '92 240sx Convertible
'94 F-150
Location: Fredericksburg, VA

Post

Spacers came in today so I can fit my front wheels properly and get rid of the tiny rub I have between the coil and tire.

Also, my shipment of Neo Synthetic wheel bearing grease came in, so I repacked the front 5 lug hubs. This stuff is awesome!

Image

Image
-Gotta start by removing the top (outboard) inner race.

Image
-Came out like buttah!

Image
-Look at that old waxy grease. This hub has never seen use, so the grease looks thick. I took apart my used hubs to repack them, and they were definitely going to need a regreasing eventually. The grease had thinned out substantially.

Image
-The next thing to come out is the lower (inboard) inner race. This one is pretty easy since you get full access to it's top. Just gotta prop the hub on something to support the outside of the bearing since the race has a wide dust shield pressed on.

Image
-The balls are held in by a plastic cage. There are two styles that I've encountered so far. This one has a simpler cage in it, which I like a lot. The older hubs I have use a cage that has more fragile bits on it that could potentially snap off. Just gotta be careful when you're popping the balls out. The good thing with the newer style hubs is that once one ball is out, the cage falls down and the rest fall out. The other interesting thing about the update is that there is one more ball bearing per set of bearings. The old ones have 11 (22 per hub) and the newer ones have 12 (24 per hub).

Image
-Wash rinse repeat until all the balls on the race are out. The cage comes out pretty easily. On the newer hubs it just came right out with no muss or fuss. The older cage is a slight bit larger, and requires a minimal amount of force to come out. Just turn it 90 degrees and pull gently.

Image
-My what dirty balls I have!

Repeat for the lower set of ball bearings. These guys are a bit livelier. They kept wanting to jump out and skitter across my work surface. Once the balls are out, the cage can be turned 90 and removed through the outboard side. This one is much larger than the outboard cage, and requires a bit more "negotiation" to get out. Still need to be careful so as not to break any of the fingers on the cage.

Image
-All the ball bearings are removed and I turned the cage slightly to pull it out of the outboard side.

Image
-Turned a full 90 degrees and pulled out through the top.

Image
-All that grease, getting ready to be cleaned off.

I wiped everything down next to get the thick parts of the grease off. Makes it a little easier for my detergent to cut the remaining film.

Image
-Saved so they can't run away from me.

Image
-Wiped as much grease out as possible.

Image
-Next I filled up my sink with some dish detergent and water to remove the remaining grease. Cleaning the cages is a chore, and I found a toothbrush works fine until it gets loaded up with grease. Being careful with a paper towel seemed to be the most effective way of dealing with it. Wash everything off and rinse it all thoroughly. Then dry everything to prevent any excess moisture from being trapped next to the metal parts before you apply grease.

Image
-A proctologist in training? Big globs of grease are best. There is literally no such thing as too much grease when you start this process.

Image
-Filled in the bearing channels of the outer race.

Image
-Thoroughly coated the inboard cage and put it back in. It's beast to try and get it as far through as possible till part of it is poking out the inboard hole before trying to rotate it back into position. I found that trying to rotate it too shallow led to it locking into the outboard bearing channel.

Image
-Put a huge glop of grease in the palm of your hand and roll the bearing around in it till it's thoroughly coated.

Image
-A thick coat!

Image
-Snap it back in place. The first few are pretty easily put in as the cage moves a bit. The last few will give you a satisfying pop when they fall in place. Double check that all the parts are seated and wipe a bit more grease on the exposed balls. The top was a bit more problematic. On the older hubs, the cage snapped into place with the first few ball bearings and made the rest easy to get in place. The newer hub's cage refused to stay in place, and it wasn't until the last ball bearing went in did it stay in place.

Image
-All ball bearings accounted for and back in place! Next I coated the inside of the inner races and tapped them back in place.

I rebuilt my 5 lugs AND my S14 4 lugs that are going to tide me over for the time being on my GKTech knuckles.

User avatar
m tr4nch
Posts: 1308
Joined: Fri Jul 23, 2004 8:57 pm
Car: RS13, Z31, P11
Location: Eatontown, NJ

Post

great info man. i still have my new front hubs sitting here, would you recommend i do the grease change? doesn't seem that hard to do. is there a significant difference between the oem grease and the neo synthetic?

User avatar
Hijacker
Posts: 15759
Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2003 4:57 am
Car: '92 240sx Convertible
'94 F-150
Location: Fredericksburg, VA

Post

The factory grease seems fine if you plan on leaving most things stock and just daily driving the car. I picked up the HP800 on recommendation from Dave Coleman at MotoIQ. The HP800 has a high temp resistance of 800 degrees
fahrenheit. You can use any high performance grease you want. The HP800 definitely has a high viscosity and I don't see it channeling out of the bearing over time like OE does. The old hubs I had had about 3/4 or less the grease of the new unused hubs. My plans are to get some track time in at VIR and the new track going up 15 minutes from my house, Dominion Raceway. With the StopTech kit, I know I'll be dumping more heat into the whole front assembly, I figured a bit of preventative maintenance is a good thing.

I need to decide if I want to rebuild my rear wheel bearings or get new rear bearings to have that whole 0 mileage vibe I'm trying to go for. The ones I have look low mileage, so I'm leaning on repacking them instead.

User avatar
Hijacker
Posts: 15759
Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2003 4:57 am
Car: '92 240sx Convertible
'94 F-150
Location: Fredericksburg, VA

Post

Another minor update today.

During my shakedown ride with the coilovers, I noticed a bit of rub between the passenger tire and the coil spring. So I ordered some 1/4" spacers from the local drag shop. Now everything's rolling right.

Image
-Not a huge fan of this design, but it's a universal deal and it was available immediately. I'll put on something a bit more fit to the model later. Probably a hair thinner too. These equate to 6.5mm, and I'd prefer something around a 5mm for the thread engagement on the lug studs.

Image
-She's riding about where I had her with the KYB and Tein S-Tech combo. The spacers put the outboard side fairly close to the fender, but I don't think I'll have any rubbing issues.

Image
-This strut was giving me a huge headache to get out. The knuckle bolts are completely seized and refuse to move. I tried penetrating oil, heat, air tools, long a** breaker bars and got nothing. In fact, the bolt head was twisting while the exposed threads weren't, so I knew I'd be breaking the bolt head off before I got the thing to come out.

Image
-I even put it in my 12 ton press and the bolt end started to deform instead of popping out. Thankfully, I had extra knuckles and new control arms sitting on the shelf. Took a bit longer than expected, but the car is on the ground.

User avatar
pepesilvia
Posts: 584
Joined: Tue Feb 21, 2012 8:15 pm
Car: 96 S14
Location: New Jersey :(

Post

Hijacker wrote: Image
-My what dirty balls I have!
:rotfl I can't believe that made me laugh. i'm so immature :facepalm:

User avatar
m tr4nch
Posts: 1308
Joined: Fri Jul 23, 2004 8:57 pm
Car: RS13, Z31, P11
Location: Eatontown, NJ

Post

Hijacker wrote:The factory grease seems fine if you plan on leaving most things stock and just daily driving the car. I picked up the HP800 on recommendation from Dave Coleman at MotoIQ. The HP800 has a high temp resistance of 800 degrees
fahrenheit. You can use any high performance grease you want. The HP800 definitely has a high viscosity and I don't see it channeling out of the bearing over time like OE does. The old hubs I had had about 3/4 or less the grease of the new unused hubs. My plans are to get some track time in at VIR and the new track going up 15 minutes from my house, Dominion Raceway. With the StopTech kit, I know I'll be dumping more heat into the whole front assembly, I figured a bit of preventative maintenance is a good thing.

I need to decide if I want to rebuild my rear wheel bearings or get new rear bearings to have that whole 0 mileage vibe I'm trying to go for. The ones I have look low mileage, so I'm leaning on repacking them instead.
ah okay, thanks for the info. i'll probably just be dd'ing with the occasional spirited drive, for now at least. i'm sure oem would be fine then.

User avatar
splintercell
Posts: 1742
Joined: Sat Mar 19, 2005 1:28 pm
Car: 1989 Nissan 240sx HB
1991 Nissan Silvia
Location: Virginia

Post

damn we will have to meet up soon...glad your settled in. There is finally another 240 owner within a 30 mile range :)

User avatar
Hijacker
Posts: 15759
Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2003 4:57 am
Car: '92 240sx Convertible
'94 F-150
Location: Fredericksburg, VA

Post

You got my number, shoot me a text sometime soon!

Not much has been going on with the car lately. I did get around to learning auto-CAD enough to draft up the bearing shells I want to have done up for the RLCAs.

Image
-There will be two different sized pieces to the shell. The center point of the bushing is off center of the LCA's housing, and I want to preserve that. It's only a few millimeters, but if I'm drafting these from scratch, why not? One size is 22.43mm and the other is 17.57mm. Adds up to the 40.0mm width of the whole race.

Image
-Also drafted up some misalignment spacers that will span the 50mm bracket.

Hopefully, I'll be able to use our school's 3D printer and do up a prototype first to ensure fitment before sending these off to a local machine shop to mill them. I plan on the shells being 6061 and the misalignment spacers to be 7075. Since most companies use the same general dimensions for their sphericals, I can fit a few different brands, but I'm leaning on a set of FK size 8 sphericals.

Not sure what I want to do about the front LCA. I don't want to run anything urethane since the front arm does have articulation other than straight up and down. Delrin's out because of that as well. I could make a bearing case, but I"ve heard horror stories about that as well. That leaves hard rubber, which I think the only viable source is Megan (although the long wait for Nismo stuff isn't out of the question either). I think I'll try to press out the old bushing on my bent LCA in the near future and take some measurements and see what I can fab up.

User avatar
2_Liter_Turbo
Posts: 2980
Joined: Sat Jan 24, 2004 10:41 am
Car: _________________
'96 S14 Coupe: SR20VET
'90 R32 TH1 GTR: RB26DETT
'92 S13 Fastback: SR20DET
'11 V36 Sedan: VQ25HR
'06 GMT800 2500HD: LBZ Duramax
Location: DFW, Texas
Contact:

Post

Looks good so far man! In for the updates, lol.

User avatar
Hijacker
Posts: 15759
Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2003 4:57 am
Car: '92 240sx Convertible
'94 F-150
Location: Fredericksburg, VA

Post

I've been batting around what I want to do for my front LCAs. One of the members at Nissan Road Racing has a little how-to on modifying the cheap china arms to accept quality bearings. My only major issue is that he reams the knuckle to accept a GM ball joint taper. I don't want to ream my fancy new GKTech uprights, so I'm looking at designing a drop in ball joint stud to fit a -12 sized spherical bearing.

Image
-This little piece will use an M14 nut on both ends to hold it in place, and it's sized to match the dimensions of the factory S13 ball joint in taper and overall length. I was looking at other pieces, like the old SPL ones for their out of production arms, and the stud is pretty long, dropping the LCA for some RC correction. But with the GKTech knuckles, I'm already looking at a good amount of correction, and dropping the ball joint pivot any more could run into clearance issues with the inside of the wheel.

Overall, though, by the time I get to the point that I might consider going this route, GKTech will have released their FLCAs, and for the price I'd spend on junk arms, bearings, rod ends, custom machined parts, powder coating, etc, I'd probably save money just buying a proper engineered set right off the bat.

There's still some adjustments and refinements to be had on these studs, though. And if I get a hold of the dimensions of an S14 stud (only the taper should be different, but you never know), I could easily tweak this design to fit both tapers.

User avatar
Hijacker
Posts: 15759
Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2003 4:57 am
Car: '92 240sx Convertible
'94 F-150
Location: Fredericksburg, VA

Post

I got tired of tripping over my J30 subframe, so I went ahead and prepared it for the chopping block. I wanted the reinforcements from the tension rod mounting towers to go on my S14 subframe and the rear exhaust hanger to better locate for the S13 exhaust.

Image
-These were before a coat of rustoleum to keep them from getting too bad while I wait to weld them onto my subframe. That's going to have to wait since I don't have a 240V outlet to run my Miller right now, or if I can bug someone with a working welder to get these welded on. After that, it'll be time to burn out the bushings and send the whole assembly to powdercoat.

Image
-I also zero-ed in a good design for the front ball joint stud in the event I decide not to use my factory FLCAs. Right now, I'm leaning heavily towards the GKTech FLCAs in S14 length and if I decide I don't want to run their ball joint stud, these would make a great replacement milled out of chromoly.

User avatar
Hijacker
Posts: 15759
Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2003 4:57 am
Car: '92 240sx Convertible
'94 F-150
Location: Fredericksburg, VA

Post

Merry Christmas! My present was a new set of SPL RUCAs for the rebuild.

Image

Image
-I love their welds!

Image
-Seriously, some of the best quality craftsmanship I've seen in a while.

Image
-The jam nut was installed really tight and required some air tools to loosen up. Not that I was complaining about an excuse to fire up the compressor. Big a** nut, too. Took my 36mm axle nut socket to fit it.

I've got them set out to 12-1/8" right now (factory length). I'm debating on installing them now or later. If I do now, I'll probably order some new rod ends for when it's time to strip and rebuild everything later.

In other news, GKTech settled on a design and price for their FLCAs.

Image
-They're S14 length at 365mm, which is prefect since I wanted to space my track out front a bit more. GKTech's also selling extended length of 390mm for those wanting to really get your camber and track width on. The price is ridiculously cheap too, $280 + shipping from Oz, and they take QA-1 bearings, so they're easily rebuildable when the bearings fail.

User avatar
2_Liter_Turbo
Posts: 2980
Joined: Sat Jan 24, 2004 10:41 am
Car: _________________
'96 S14 Coupe: SR20VET
'90 R32 TH1 GTR: RB26DETT
'92 S13 Fastback: SR20DET
'11 V36 Sedan: VQ25HR
'06 GMT800 2500HD: LBZ Duramax
Location: DFW, Texas
Contact:

Post

Very nice!

User avatar
m tr4nch
Posts: 1308
Joined: Fri Jul 23, 2004 8:57 pm
Car: RS13, Z31, P11
Location: Eatontown, NJ

Post

those spl arms look top notch. and wow gktech has a lot of cool stuff too, i'm looking at their tie rod ends hmm..

User avatar
Hijacker
Posts: 15759
Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2003 4:57 am
Car: '92 240sx Convertible
'94 F-150
Location: Fredericksburg, VA

Post

I want the GKtech tie rod ends. They come with dust boots!

Should have some updates soon. Hopefully going to my friend's this weekend to chop up his hatch and bring home the floors and rails.

User avatar
Hijacker
Posts: 15759
Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2003 4:57 am
Car: '92 240sx Convertible
'94 F-150
Location: Fredericksburg, VA

Post

A friend of mine, Josh, had to go through the painful process of parting his S13 hatch after he was rear ended last year. His loss is my gain? He took very nice care of his car when he repainted it, and his floor boards are in much better shape than mine. So, he let me come down to his place and hack it apart with the sawzall so I could take the floors, rockers, and parts of the frame. Winning!

Josh had already hacked the nose off to prove to the DMV he no longer intended to keep it as a road fairing car, so we picked up where he left off. The interior needed to be gutted, the rear subframe had to be dropped, the gas tank needed to be removed, and the fuel lines pulled before we could take the cutters to the unibody.

Image
-Pulling the dash was pretty easy since he had already pulled a lot of the little trim and the steering column when he dropped the front crossmember to cut off the nose.

Image
-Space was tight in his garage, so we hung a bunch of stuff, like this immaculate uncracked dash pad!

Image
-It didn't take long to finish gutting the seatbelts, door panels, headliner, HVAC, and wiring before we deemed the interior finished.

Image
-We started piling parts outside and I made the comment that it looked like a car was rising from the ground at this stage,

Image
-We weren't sure if we could get the quarter glass out intact, so we covered them with duct tape just in case they shattered. And they shattered. Easily. The windscreen was a different story. After pulling the trim and cutting as much sealant away as we could, we fed a cable through the sealant and sawed away like some limberjacks until we cut all the way around and were able to get the glass out in one piece. Hooray for no more shards of safety glass!

Image
-The subframe was a b**** and a half. Josh had aluminum bushings and the thing refused to come down easily. We ended up cramming a scissor jack between the body and the subframe to get it started. After that, it was a few sledge hammer hits from falling out. The gas tank didn't give us any hassle aside from piddling all over.

Image
-With all the extraneous crap removed, I started on proving to Josh convertibles are better than hatches. The roof came off easily, and we set it over the firewall for a little counter balance since the car was so a** heavy and kept wanting to rock backwards off the jack stands.

Image
-It took a while and quite a few beers but we finally were able to chew through the frame rails in the back with a combination of the sawzall and cutoff wheel. For future reference, if you need to tear through the frame steel, a fire and rescue blade is preferred over the bi-metal blades. Wish I had known that before we started. Could have saved us an hour or so of nibbling at the frames.

Image
-The finished product! Good floor boards, good rocker panels, and good frame rails. This will be a better starting point than my patch worked floor boards and extra rust. I'll plan on replacing a lot of the convertible reinforcements with DOM tubing that's gusseted to the unibody.

Image
-Sprayed the edges with some rust inhibitor, loaded it up in the utility trailer, and prepared for the drive home.

Image
-Now where the hell am I gonna put this thing for the next foreseeable future??

Image
-Also took my S14 subframe with the J30 reinforcements and had them welded on since Josh had a working welder. Now I'll burn the bushings out and send it to JGT for powdercoating.

User avatar
m tr4nch
Posts: 1308
Joined: Fri Jul 23, 2004 8:57 pm
Car: RS13, Z31, P11
Location: Eatontown, NJ

Post

i hate seeing s13's being cut up :frown: but if it was not saveable then i'm glad you're using it to save yours :)
shame, looks like it was pretty clean too.

User avatar
Hijacker
Posts: 15759
Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2003 4:57 am
Car: '92 240sx Convertible
'94 F-150
Location: Fredericksburg, VA

Post

It was really clean :( He was rear ended at 45 MPH. We thought it was just a little bumper damage, got a hatch and bumper for it, pulled the sheet metal on the rear face back to flush and slapped it together. Somewhere, the frame was twisted and it started to crack the windshield. That's when he decided to part it out.

User avatar
4g6387
Posts: 29
Joined: Wed Jan 08, 2014 10:15 am
Car: 92 240sx SE
Location: North Carolina

Post

Very nice build thread. Glad to see someone look so much into suspension and not just trying to make ridiculous amounts of power that cant be put to use.

User avatar
Flicktitty
Posts: 4252
Joined: Tue Sep 21, 2004 11:56 am
Car: 1989 Nissan 240sx 2JZ-GTE Swapped
1994 Toyota Supra
2019 Lexus GX460
1992 Lexus SC400

Post

Build looks pretty good!

Interested in seeing the S14 subframe with the J30 additons and see how it works for ya.

User avatar
Hijacker
Posts: 15759
Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2003 4:57 am
Car: '92 240sx Convertible
'94 F-150
Location: Fredericksburg, VA

Post

The tower reinforcements for the tension rod fit really well and I like the look. I'm tempted to reinforce between the tie rod pickups as I've heard that can be a place of flexing, but I'll probably just let it roll as it is. I want to get it to JGT sooner than later so I can ensure the newly welded areas don't rust on me. Good news, too. I should be able to finish mapping up the S14 rear subframe soon in my drafting programs, which will allow me to generalize some anti-squat values and roll center positions.

User avatar
Flicktitty
Posts: 4252
Joined: Tue Sep 21, 2004 11:56 am
Car: 1989 Nissan 240sx 2JZ-GTE Swapped
1994 Toyota Supra
2019 Lexus GX460
1992 Lexus SC400

Post

With doing the S14 rear subframe you gain like 5mm on each side correct? So if you had a +35 wheel it would now be a +30 (in terms of fitment) or am i backwards on that?

User avatar
Hijacker
Posts: 15759
Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2003 4:57 am
Car: '92 240sx Convertible
'94 F-150
Location: Fredericksburg, VA

Post

You do gain 5mm or track width. It does shove the wheels outwards 5mm, so it would in essence make the wheels fit like a +30 to the fender. The big deal with it is the reduced anti-squat, which gains you rear wheel grip under acceleration. S13 subframes tend to lift the rear end under accel, causing a loss of traction. It's also why they slide so easily. A lot of guys at NRR have commented on the difference in driving feel and it's night and day different. My only worry is that since I have to run offset bushings to make it fit, that will prevent me from staying in Street Modified with the SCCA.

User avatar
4g6387
Posts: 29
Joined: Wed Jan 08, 2014 10:15 am
Car: 92 240sx SE
Location: North Carolina

Post

Hijacker wrote:You do gain 5mm or track width. It does shove the wheels outwards 5mm, so it would in essence make the wheels fit like a +30 to the fender. The big deal with it is the reduced anti-squat, which gains you rear wheel grip under acceleration. S13 subframes tend to lift the rear end under accel, causing a loss of traction. It's also why they slide so easily. A lot of guys at NRR have commented on the difference in driving feel and it's night and day different. My only worry is that since I have to run offset bushings to make it fit, that will prevent me from staying in Street Modified with the SCCA.
Is there anyway to just tighten up the rear end on the S13 to keep it SCCA legal? I.e. solid, poly bushings, welding, maybe some weight allocation, like the battery, fuse panels? Maybe some bracing of the frame with a trunk bar or a rear under brace, or a custom made bar welded to the frame on either side to take away frame flex under load?

User avatar
Hijacker
Posts: 15759
Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2003 4:57 am
Car: '92 240sx Convertible
'94 F-150
Location: Fredericksburg, VA

Post

The issue is that street mod rules specifically state you cannot run offset bushings for the subframe. The rationale is to prevent changes to wheelbase. In this case, I'm caught because the spirit of the rule and the literal meaning of the rule aren't completely aligned. Some guys who do the swap keep the rubber bushings in and just stretch the bushings the 5mm to fit, but since I want to have my subframe cleaned and powdercoated, I can't retain the factory rubber bushings.

User avatar
4g6387
Posts: 29
Joined: Wed Jan 08, 2014 10:15 am
Car: 92 240sx SE
Location: North Carolina

Post

Hijacker wrote:The issue is that street mod rules specifically state you cannot run offset bushings for the subframe. The rationale is to prevent changes to wheelbase. In this case, I'm caught because the spirit of the rule and the literal meaning of the rule aren't completely aligned. Some guys who do the swap keep the rubber bushings in and just stretch the bushings the 5mm to fit, but since I want to have my subframe cleaned and powdercoated, I can't retain the factory rubber bushings.
But to keep the rear from lifting can't you still do some of the things I mentioned? Adding weight in the trunk area will help keep some lift down. And the rear subframe bolts to the chassis correct? If so then essentially you are trying to keep the chassis from bowing under pressure. Any kind of bracing to keep the rear from "bowing" will help lift. Any kind of bar that would tie the top mounting points together and keep them rigid should help. "Bowing" is really just the mounting points getting closer together which gives you the lift feeling. If you tied the left and right sides together on the front and rear of the subframe where it bolts to the car you've essentially stiffened the frame of the car and the subframe itself without modifying the subframe. A simple cross bar made of 1/4in" steel and drilled to fit the mounting bolts for the subframe is really all that would be needed to do this, given you have enough space on the mounting bolts to do this.

User avatar
Hijacker
Posts: 15759
Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2003 4:57 am
Car: '92 240sx Convertible
'94 F-150
Location: Fredericksburg, VA

Post

It's not a pressure issue or a weighting issue. It's just the physics of the design. What ends up happening is that invisible lever arms formed by the control arm pickups load up the suspension arms under hard accel, forcing them to increase the wheel rate. This in turn forces the suspension to rise. Think of it as this: for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. The force of the acceleration wants to push the car down. By adopting certain angles in suspension design, you can take advantage of that and the reactionary forces will lift the car instead of being wasted. Anti-squat is well utilized on solid axle 4 and 5 link cars. They literally lift the cars so much it forces the tires down into the pavement for added traction. In 240s, we produce just enough lift to shift the weight off the rear, causing the rear to lose some traction. By lowering the A/S value, you can increase mechanical grip when accelerating through turns.

User avatar
4g6387
Posts: 29
Joined: Wed Jan 08, 2014 10:15 am
Car: 92 240sx SE
Location: North Carolina

Post

I understand that. My question is, what is the actual subframe doing? For the suspension to load up like that and push up into the car the subframe and connecting pieces have to be bowing in or something is giving in, correct? This is more or less what I was thinking.

Image

User avatar
Hijacker
Posts: 15759
Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2003 4:57 am
Car: '92 240sx Convertible
'94 F-150
Location: Fredericksburg, VA

Post

Nothing is bowing or giving to cause what happens to happens. Its just the way force vectors work. When you see people reinforcing the subframe like that, they're trying to keep any flex from creeping in allowing the geometry to shift under load. If i was building a purpose built race car, that level of reinforcement would be a good idea.


Return to “240sx General Discussion”