What kind of drop do you think 350Z Sportlines on an '03 Sedan would make??

The specs on the springs are - 1.2" for the 350Z...

From what I understand, 350Z springs will lower the car -1"

Should I expect -2.2" ??

P.S. Yes, I know it it low....my last car was down about 3" on 17's. I am probably going to go with 19's...but I would like it with no gap.

Any insight would be great...

 

Yeah, expect somewhere around a -2" drop. You'll probably want to buy the necessary hardware for adjusting camber and toe as well if you want to maximize your tire life as much as possible.

 

With such a significant drop, wouldn't you be faced with the possibility of bump oversteer, or can a good set of struts eliminate that possibility?

 

i think it's too low. it'll look nice, but the ride will suffer.

 

Agreed. With that much lost suspension travel the ride isn't going to be too kind to the rear end. Plus if these are going on stock shocks, they'll probably blow sooner rather than later.

 

Assuming that they were mated to 350z D-Specs, how would the ride hold up then?

 

I'm sure it would last a while, but the ride will always be more harsh...

I have have similar setups at about -3" on other cars (intrax super sport w/ tokico illuminas 5-way) & (ground control coilovers w/ KYB AGX 4-way) I rode that way for about 4 years each with no problems.

 

Thanks for the heads up. I am currently dropped about 1.8F and 1.6R, but am looking to go lower when I install my 19's this weekend.

I am not worried about harshness of the ride, but I am worried that instead of increasing the handling dynamics, by dropping the roll center so low it will actually detriment the handling. I am basically afraid that the suspension won't have anywhere near enough range with this setup...

Comments?

 

As far as what kind of suspension travel you are going to have...I can't answer that question, maybe others can. It is really the underlying problem with the whole setup.

I have given this a lot of thought, because on my old Prelude I was looking for a way to keep the ride height the same (read: how low it was), and still have decent suspension travel.

The car was lowered about 3", had front and rear strut tower braces, front and rear sway bars, adjustable shocks, front and rear under-braces.

The bottom line: it was TOO stiff, it did not have enough body roll. The ATTS in the transmission help to minimize the FWD understeer some, but with little body roll, the car handled very well, but it would not oversteer into hard corners very well, the whole thing just wanted to hop around like a big skate board.

I looked into shocks made for lowering, different lower control arms (which would have moved the whole shock/spring assembly down, but ultimately, you can't have a shock with more travel than length.

So for as low as I wanted the car, no shock could provide enough travel using stock mounting points. The lower you perch the spring on the shock, the lower the car gets, but the less travel you get, and vice-versa.

This crude picture shows this (don't laugh at my 5 min. sketch)



This whole story above describes your potential problem, and mine, as the car gets lower.

The old car: (as an example)




I'm sure some others may have a little insight.

 

I'm sure the ride would be better since you could adjust the rebound and compression to match the springs as best as possible. I'm also sure the D-specs would last longer than the stock shocks as well. But how good and how long, not sure.

IMO if I really wanted to drop the car low, read 2"+, then I would look into a good set of coilovers that allows seperate adjustment of spring preload and shock body length. That way you can maintain your suspension travel even with a low drop.

 

I heard the Tein Basics (although rebound and compression not adjustable), are very good coilovers, but when I looked at their website, the maximum rear drop is 1.4"- not low enough!

You should also take a look at the Espelir GT springs for a 350z. They have aggresive spring rates that look much better than the Sportlines.

 

Yeah, I agree that the Bascis are good coilovers if you just wnat to plug and play. The spring rates are good and the dampening is set pretty well. This is based on driving experience on a friends coupe wiht the Basics. Too bad they drop the sedan too low for my tastes. For you it's the opposite!

 

I think that they have a minimum drop of 0.7" which seems like it would work well for your needs.

 

If the rear Tein basic dampner (shock) has enough stroke range to allow you to go lower. Absolutely nothing would stop you from installing Eibach ESS springs in the rear to get the rear drop range you want and they only cost $100 for a pair. They match the oem rear spring in diameter and are sold in spring rate increment's of 25lbs from 125lbs to over 700lbs and they are sold in different length's too. http://www.nerace.com/miva/merchant....egory_Code=EIB

Then again you can alway's cut 3/4" off your oem upper rear spring seats.

I would not touch Espelir springs, progressive compromise on performance and at the limit behavior.

 

I have never heard of the Eibach ESS, but they sound like an interesting alternative.

Gsedan35, if you can help me with one more thing; I can't figure out which spring height/diameter, or spring rate for that matter I need.

What spring rates would you recommend for a firm (yet not overly harsh) ride? My Tein S.Tech's are too soft (I know part of this is because I have OEM shocks, but I would certainly mate the ESS with a set of D-Spec's). I am also looking for approximately 2.2"F and 1.9"R drop over OEM- basically more of a drop than my S.Tech's have given me (1.8"F/1.5"R).

This seems to be all of the available spring choices: http://www.nerace.com/miva/merchant....egory_Code=EIB

This will hopefully end my quest for that perfect setup... Thanks!