Long story short...I replaced everything on the front of my 2003 coupe:

LCA's (with Whitelines installed)
Inner & outer tie rods
Steering linkage
Lower ball joints
Compression rods (with Whitelines installed)
UCA's (Kinetix)
(It should be noted that I also have 350z springs.)

Got it aligned to factory specs and everything was golden. Then I started hearing a "thumping" noise...sounded very similar to what you would imagine a loose bolt would sound like when the threads are catching on a piece of metal. Jacked the car and pulled the tires thinking maybe I missed a bolt or something came loose.

Once I jacked the car up and pulled the tire off (driver's side), I immediately saw the problem. Seems the joint on the Kinetix arm is rubbing the inner fender (plastic liner and metal)...so much so that it's already caused the boot to rip. Joint hitting the inner fender will definitely cause a "thump thump thump"!

Has anyone else run into this problem? If so, how did you alleviate it? After searching, I came across one thread on the 350z site and the only solution I found was "massage" (aka beat) the inner fender to accommodate the new A-arm length. Anyone have any ideas/suggestions/experience with this before I resort to calling Kinetix? Thanks in advance for any input!

PS: If you have Kinetix arms and haven't experienced this (that you know of), it would probably be worth 30 seconds of your time to poke your head under each fender and check your clearance.

 

I have them and haven't experienced this. I do remember being under my car with the alignment tech and seeing how close it was and wondering if it would happen. How low are you? I'm on eibach pro kit, so I've probably got a milder drop.

 

I have the same ones. Ur solution is less low

 

Yep I emailed Kinetix and asked what was the farthest they could be adjusted out and they said

Max adjustment is actually when the ball-joint comes in contact with the inner fender. Because you can't go beyond the inner fender, you can't run out of threads. You need to back the ball-joint up within 1/8-1/4" from rubbing the inner fender.

Jason
Kinetix Racing

Good news is the boots are only $3, the bad news is you need a special tool to install them

 

Thanks for the input guys!

Does this not defeat the whole purpose of having these arms? Once they are adjusted so that they no longer hit/rub, then I'll be out of alignment again right???

 

Your right but they still claim to have to have the most adjustment. 1.5 degrees of positive adj and 1.5 degrees of negative adj from stock. Your gonna have to run some negative camber if you wanna run a low G/Z. Right now I'm at 1.3" drop front and 1.6" drop rear and I'm in specs with Kinetix front upper arms and spc rear kit. I have some BC coilovers that I will be installing in the next few weeks to get more low. I'll let you know where my specs end up and how low.

 

The thing is I'm not really that low. Driver's side fender opening is 26.25" from center to ground. I'm only running stock 350z springs.

 

That's weird because I'm at 25 1/2" in the front and here are my specs. My ball joint just barely rubs the inner fender enough to tear the boots tho.

 

What compression rod bushings are you running, Shawn?

 

You're only running Z springs? They should not be rubbing the ball joint boots..

 

At the time of the alignment I was on the original oem comps. Since then I have installed some mevos and haven't re-aligned yet. Will do that when I install the coilovers right shortly

 

I also figure on being around -2 degree with coilovers but what do I know lol

 

I'm surprised your caster is that good with stock bushings in the comp rod. If you went poly it would be a bit better tho. PolyOllyoxenfree

 

And here were the measurements before the Kinetix arms.

 

Let's see I got some poly in my Kinetix upper arms and for some reason I installed a set of poly sway bushing. Don't ask I was chasing a front end squeak that turned out to be a squeaky hood hahaha

Oh and I changed the comp rods because of the dreaded knock.