Holy Lord was that a pain in the butt!!! I've swapped out over 20 different sets of springs on Maximas plus some Hondas and this was by far the hardest suspension thing I've done and considred scrapping everything while in the process of the work. Damn you multi-link front suspensions!! I tried following the DIY suspension directions, but that wasn't happening unless I were to compress the hell out of the front springs while they were on the car. I screwed around with trying to compress the springs a good bit, but I was getting no where. The lower shock ear just didn't want to come up over the lower arm and the shocks are very stiff even if I were to compress the springs a lot. Definitely not something I could do by myself unless I had two extra arm growing out of my torso. I must have messed around with shock assembly that for over an hour. I looked up at the upper control arm and said "who's you're daddy?". I unbolted the upper arm and the strut assembly was easily freed because the entire suspension falls away. Make sure to give the assembly some support because you don't want to put undo stress on the steering arm. I swapped on the coupe springs and started messing around with the reinstall. Yeah, that's fun. I mounted up the control arm, which isn't easy and required a little help from a second jack under the lower arm. After that was done, it was on to the shock assembly. No matter what you do, getting the upper shock hat to line up with the upper three chassis holes was a bear even after installing everything the way it came off. I had to loosen the top shock nut a good bit, compress the springs, then orient the upper hat while orienting the the lower ear in the correct position. This is the order I figured out worked best:

1) Slide the shock assembly in.
2) Reinstall the upper control arm
3) Compress the springs a bit and orient the upper hat and lower ear to the corresponding holes.
4) Slide the lower bolt through the ear and lower control arm and bolt down
5) jack up the lower arm and slide the upper hat through the chassis and bolt down the three nuts.
6) remove the spring compressors
7) Connect the endlink
8) Reattach the speed sensor loom and brake line to the shock assembly
9) Torque everything to spec
10) pray for no rattles, clunks, pings

I consider myself pretty DIY savvy and this was quite a job especially for one person. In the end, I took me 4 hours. Now I could probably do it in about 2.5 hours, but I never want to do it again. I'm going to have to get a new jack too because my standard floor jack doesn't have the reach under to lift the front center of the car. That's okay though because I always wanted a new professional style jack.

As for the drop, it's exactly what I hoped for. 0.60" drop in the front for a total gap of 1.9". This evens out the front end to closely match the stock rear 1.6" rear gap. With me in the car (185lbs), the gaps drop to 1.4"F/1.3" rear or what many ricers rather to as just under a 2 finger gap. The ride quality is the same and possibly better due to the slightly lower front spring rate of the coupe though all in my head most likely.

I know, many will ask "why" so much work for so little gain. I choose not to go with the springs in the rear because I wanted a more even ride and I didn't go with the 350Z springs because I wanted to maintain the best ride quality while getting a slight drop. I've had multiple spring set ups on my 96 Maxima and once you go over 1", the ride quality seems to diminish greatly plus you loose over 1" of wheel travel. I've ridden in a sedan with 350Z springs/shocks and it was a bit too bouncy for me plus the rear camber becomes an issue. I plan on the Aero bumper in the near future which will "visually" lower the front end another 1.2".

 

These car's are actually very easy. The how to I wrote that is on G-owners.com need's to be rewritten, their is a much easier way to do the front suspension.

1.crack wheel lug nuts
2.pop hood crack all 6 upper shock mount nuts, spin them until they are flush with the top of the bolts, but don't take them off
3. Jack either the front end up of just one side, pull off tire on the side you'll be working on.
4. Remove nut off lower shock mount.
5. Remove nut off sway bar end link
6. Pull that cotter pin out of nut at the end of the upper control arm, crack that nut, do not remove it.
7. place floor jack under suspension just below lower shock mount and jack up the suspension until you are able to pull the sway bar end link bolt out the the suspension control arm.
8. Release jack and now pull bolt out of bottom of shock
9. remove nut on stud holding brake line to shock
10. Push speed sensor line off shock in both location
11. So you don't get a suprise, make sure jack is under suspension with a slight amount of upwards pressure. Remove nut that you pulled the cotter pin out of on the upper control arm. You may have to use something to free the control arm, when you succed the suspension will basically fall apart somewhat. Lower jack.
12. push shock off of lower suspension.
13. While holding shock/spring assembly, stand up and us one hand to carefully remove each nut off the upper shock mount and place them where you CANNOT forget them.
14. carefully guide shock/spring out of car, watching out for the speed sensor line.


Upper shock mount alignment.
When reinstalling, it is important as you back off the spring compressor to make sure you keep the upper shock mount oriented so that when you go to install the assembly that the bottom of the shock is turned so it can bolt up the the lower suspension. Simply keep it lined up as you release the spring off the spring compressor and you will then reinstall the shock/spring in the reverse order as above.

 

Sounds very similiar to the way I did, but your way sounds a bit easier to work with. I avoided the control arm nut and cotter pin because I was unsure if I needed a separator and technically you're suppose to replace the cotter pin after you've removed it though none of us do Just like anything, there's a learning curve. It took me 2.5 hours to do the passenger side and about 1.5 hours to do the driver's side after figuring out a plan of attack. You're way would probably knock 30 minutes out of the mix total. I'll remember that next time.

 

Yup, I helped my friend installed his Tein Basics on his coupe and we removed the cotter pin and undid the upper control arm. Definitely made the job easier. Only if I had known to do that when I installed my 350Z suspension by myself. Took me a total of about 5 hours for all 4 corners.

 

hahaha. I undid the a-arm the first time cause I didn't have a spare cotter pin, but by the 3rd time I was like what the heck and just broke off the pin and put in my
custombent pin. I'll replace it with a real one next time I take the wheel off.

Anyway, that along with compressing the strut while on the car did the trick for me.
No more than 50min each side for me taking my time using just handtools.

 

Pics of the drop with just coupe springs in the front:

 

Looks good. I just finished the install of the front coupe springs on my sedan yesterday. I went ahead and threw on my sways as well. This car is friggin nutz in the twisties now! This is how the car should have come fron the factory.