Sorry to post yet another suspension thread, but I have absorbed all I can from the last 10 years of being a board member.

My '06 G35 currently has over 160K miles on it, consisting of occasional track days, lots of mountain roads (hundreds of Deal's Gap runs), and mostly driving around town and on the interstate to get to more interesting places to drive or ride.

I have been relatively happy with the stock setup (my car has the red shocks and struts) front are 56110-AM614/AM615. It's not awesome - especially the rear under high loads, but it works well enough for me. If I could change anything I would probably go to a higher rate rear spring with stiffer rear shocks, but I don't want to change anything - just refresh.

I am perfectly happy with the ride of the car as is, the only suspension pieces I have replaced were the compression arms about 6 years ago, and that was proactive - the ones I pulled out were fine. The car has never had an alignment and the tires still wear evenly.

I have some clunking in the front now when driving across grass lots, etc., that sounds like either the upper strut mounts or sway bar end links.

I run Michelin Pilot Super Sports in 245/45R18 on the stock rims, so they are fairly compliant. I need new tires (12K out of the last set - YAY) and figured I would do the shocks/struts while I had the wheels off.

I put together the minimum parts list from an online infiniti reseller and I end up at about $1,200 for the OE shocks/struts/mounts, sway bar end links, etc.

The Tokico D9's looked interesting, but they appear to be EOL, so I am looking at OEM, Bilstein HD and maybe Tokico HP's. I would like to not be any softer than stock, and I plan to keep the stock springs. This is primarily a weekend car for me, but I do drive it alot.

Am I missing some awesome option? Since I am happy enough with the OEM parts, should I just stick with them? Even with all the miles on it, the car is fairly neutral and easy to handle. I bought this car new and don't really notice much difference in the front, the rear has definitely become sloppier, hitting the bump stops with mid-corner dips and bumps. The brakes, on the other hand, have been so great.

If there is a less expensive option that will be as good as stock, I'm all for it. For all I know this car may only have another year in it. I'm looking at 1K for tires and over 1K for shocks and struts for a car that doesn't have much value.

And some action shots showing the awesome body roll control.

Thanks!

 

Love me some TOTD. I would recommend OEM if you enjoy everyday performance, but if you are looking for an upgrade a Tokico may be in your future. Possibly the Hotchkis sways too. Blue dream (forum mod) could


Offer great recommendations.

Attachment 177661

 

Hi, the attachment didn't work. Maybe Blue Dream will chime in. I've read so much about spring rates and suspension setup for lowered sedans and coupes, but I can't seem to find good info for '05-'06 sedans w/ the sport package.

I wouldn't mind if the car was lowered slightly, but not more than a few tenths of an inch.

 

IMHO, the best handling susupension setup I've had on the G sedan was the Tokico D-Specs with Tein S-Techs both for the 350Z. Not only was the ride more comfy than the sport suspension on my IS, it just felt better and worked much better than the coilovers I've been through.

If anything, when it comes to spring rates, the only thing we as drivers need to worry about is that the springs are balanced to the struts, which can be felt through whether the ride is overly bumpy or bouncy. If your suspension is balanced, your car will handle turns much more like a rollercoaster (as much as that setup allows). BTW, none of the coils I've had got the balance as well as the Tociko/Tein setup. Add some sway bars and adjustable tie rods, and your sedan will feel amazing.

 

I'll second what dofu says. While the stock suspension is pretty good out of the box the car only needs a couple of simple suspension changes to really change it's handling/performance dynamics. First and most important is to change the sways, now!! I will repeat this until I'm blue in the face that this is the number one, hands down best bang for the buck mod we can do to our cars. They completely change how the car performs and after you've done them you'll wonder why they didn't get installed the first week you owned your car.

Second are the shocks/springs but you have to be careful that whatever combo you choose will play nice together. This is one of the reasons coilovers are very popular aside from the lowering/dampening capabilities. Get the right combo like dofu mentioned and you're gold. The adjustable end links would be down the list a bit for me but still a nice to have item.

OP if you think the car handles well now do these mods and prepare to have your mind blown. Plus sways, shocks and springs will all come in under $1K provided you do the labor yourself.

 

Yea, I guess the endlinks shouldn't be in my suggestions. Overall, the endlinks along with a slight rake seems to give a little more oversteer. While I love a balanced ride, a little oversteer is fun as hell. If I really wanted to cut every corner perfectly, I would have bought a FWD.

And I wouldn't say all coilovers are good. Most of them have been crap made from the same manufacturer, sent out with different names and colors. Do your research and if you see coilovers for under $1000, you really need to question its quality. But that's not to say that all expensive coilovers are going to be great. I've dealt with too many crap car parts and coilovers were one of the worst, right up there with cheap knockoff wheels. Seeing people on this forum bash crap wheels but find crap coilovers acceptable and actually suggest them just kills me as much as a ricer promoting his rice on the forums bothers the rest of you.

But that's just my personal opinion based on what I have seen and experienced.

 

Yeah, I'm really not looking for coilovers. If there is a better performing shock for similar money to the OEM red shocks I currently have, I'm all for it. Better would be better handling - especially in quick transitions, with minimal ride quality sacrifice. I'm happy with the balance of the car, it is pretty easy to transition from under to neutral to oversteer and back with the throttle using the combination of OEM suspension and the Pilot PS2's and now the Super Sports (Conti Extreme DW was one extreme or the other - either ripping the sidewalls off the front or out of control) I'm not a drifter, I like to hang the back out occasionally, but I generally want it to stay in line and not have to point the front of the car into oncoming traffic or off the track if I screw up.

I used to race both pro-level roadrace bikes and club-level dirt bikes and found that I was much faster and smoother with better, more compliant, well valved suspension and progressive springs than with the 'stiffer' suspension recommended to me by trackside tuners and vendors. I would go as far as to say that I could go faster on well controlled plush suspension than a lot of the out of the box race kit parts - with the exception of OEM, Ohlins and WP - they were pretty awesome when I could afford them, but I would still tune them to be on the plush side. I know cars are much heavier (and have more wheels), but I expect that I would prefer a well controlled plush ride.

I don't have time, money or energy to tune my street car suspension, especially since I only put about 6K a year on it, and I like to enjoy it and not work on it.

The Tokico DSP is interesting because it seems like I could set it pretty close to stock ride quality and also have better control. The Tein springs are interesting too, but I am worried about lowering the car more than just a tiny bit. It seems that with the sedan everything adds up to be much more drop than what I want. I already can almost hit the mudguards in cambered corners before the suspension bottoms (like .5 inch clearance). Does Tein have a spring set that would retain most of the current ride height?

I hadn't thought too much about sway bars. I realize right now the car has horrible roll control, but I have been afraid of messing up the balance front to rear and ending up either tail happy or lots of understeer. If you can recommend a sway bar setup that works well, I would definitely be interested. Years ago, I remember reading about breaking aftermarket sway bars, and kind of wrote the idea off.

As for the labor, I can do it myself and have the required tools. I did the same job on my FX45 a few months ago - but with all OEM parts. In its case, all the aftermarket parts were softer than the OE sport setup.

The only thing that is driving me to do this right now is a clunk when driving off road in the front end. It sounds like the top strut bearings/mounts - which is why I did the FX, when I unloaded it, the bearings fell apart. I never hear any noise on the street and handling seems to be good still. My other logic is that since I am going to have the wheels off, I might as well do it, but that's only a few minutes work. I could potentially drive this car to the grave (one or two more years?) without touching it.

 

If you look closely at your shocks, you'll notice that they're made by Tokico. So picking up some HP blues will give you OEM ride quality for a lot less than the dealer. It's amazing how much a fresh set of shocks improves things. Most people tend to wait until their blown to replace not realizing worn out is almost as bad.

I've honestly been happy with OEM 350Z springs, they lowered my coupe 3/4" and maintained the stock ride quality which I love. Looking at the spring sticky thread, every single aftermarket lowering spring is SOFTER than the stock springs. They may ride "smoother" but that comes at the expense of handling. If you want a mild drop, OEM coupe springs will lower a sedan 1/2".

Add another vote for sway bars though.

If you're not keeping the car much longer I'd just replace the shocks with Tokico HP or KYB shocks, and replace whatever is clunking (end links or ball joints) and enjoy the car a while longer.

 

I was looking at the Tokico HP Blues, but couldn't find any reference if they were similar to the standard sedan shocks or the sport parts. They specify that it will fit all sedans except AWD and coupes except Sport. I am also interested in the Bilsteins, but also can't find good info on where they fit into the lineup.

I plan to keep the car as long as it is workable, currently it is in excellent condition and I have not had to make many repairs, but realistically, and as much time as I spend near redline, what are the odds that it will make it more than a few more years - if that. I don't know if I would replace the engine. The transmission, probably. The car, while being a great car, isn't worth much.

 

Thanks to the recommendations in this thread. I have lurked often on these forums, finally signed up to say thanks to blue dream and dofu. There are so many coil overs available on jmautosports.com and other parts sites, and it is really unclear what the differences between the performance of the coilovers are. The information on these very minimal and not useful to compare products. A great example of an ecommerce automotive site is tirerack.com wit htheir detailed testing, reviews, and recommendations. I think they create transparency and that inspires companies with crappy tires to up their game. It would be great to see something similar for suspension parts, however they don't generate the revenue turnover of tires.

I bought the SKP14-AUB00 Tein S.Tech springs, Tokico DSP-7 shocks, and Hotchkiss 22413 sway bars from jmautosports.com. The shocks and springs were not the 350z parts they were the G35 parts.

I did not get anything else. Are there camber mods you think are required for alignment?

FYI white '04 G35 6MT, 91k miles
magnaflow exhaust
focus 18" rims w/ Michelin pilot super sport XL
stock rims with Bridgestone blizzaks
Mostly for regular fun day to day driving though I have done time attack and autox with it.

 

Coupe or sedan?

 

It is a sedan with MT6.

In discussing my order with JM Autosports it looks like:
The S-Tech springs will drop the front 1.9 in which requires additional hardware to keep OEM camber. I am not interested in going that low, so I switched to H.Techs, and that get's rid of needing camber changes to front but does require adjustable control arms in the back.

More investigation revealed this vehicle has the sport suspension. The sport suspension requires a different bottom mount on the shock, and the front shock max extension is longer then the D-Specs ordered, so they won't work on the car

Back to drawing board...
For the same price as the D-Specs and the Tien springs, JM recommended BC Racing coil overs, so I went with the BC Racing Coil overs. They can be setup to almost stock height so no changes to the control arm are needed and have adjustable dampening. I will likely drop it about an inch, and if I take it to the track occasionally I can tighten it up.

Thoughts...?

 

All '05-'06 6MTs have the sport suspension, right?

@OP: Did you swap out your shocks or swaybars?

 

First of all the sport suspension shocks do not have a different bottom mount on the first gen G's so you've misinformed there. Second I'm not a fan of the BC coilovers, they're just another cheap overseas brand not known for their quality but they're amazingly popular on here so there's that...........