I go to school at UB… so I’m In Buffalo besides breaks. I would love to bring it in and have you take a look. I haven’t bought coils or springs yet because I’m waiting on finding someone who can make the arms.
(I’m waiting on someone who can get custom Fortune coils w/ arms for me but that’s a long story… he has a custom set on his FX and was supposed to get us a group buy but because it was only 8-12 people they didn’t do it, so he has the prototype/only set)
If that falls through or I don’t hear from him, I’ll probably just buy the BC coils and do custom camber arms.
Where is your shop located? I have finals next week but can maybe stop by quickly.
Here’s more info in another thread on the FX forum: http://www.infinitiscene.com/forum/threads/12732-Camber-correction-for-dropped-2nd-Gens
quotes:
“09 FX35 AWD with Eibachs. This is the best they could get after I had them on for a month the drop was about 1.1” by my measurements.
Front
FL Camber -1.28 ( Front Camber Spec range -1.08 to 0.41 )
FR Camber -1.27
FL Toe 0.08 ( Front Toe Spec Range 0.04 to 0.11 )
FR Toe 0.08
Rear
RL Camber -2.27 ( Rear Camber Spec Range -1.66 to -0.67 )
RR Camber -2.69
RL Toe 0.16 ( Rear Toe Spec Range 0.00 to 0.23 )
RR Toe 0.16"
“you have to realize that factory geometry will increase camber as the suspension compresses, BUT should also realize that this camber curve is NOT linear, meaning the more it compresses the more it cambers, increasing compression-camber ratio the lower it gets… what this means is that just by lowering the static ride height you are also increasing the camber curve, just because you are lowered means that you will wind up with additional negative camber as the body rolls, that, combined with too much initial negative camber is not such a good thing… a track car? maybe, but a car that you want to see 30k miles or more out of tires, then no… not good… & lets not forget that up until now were only talking about 1” drop… it will get progressively worse as the drop goes lower…"
here are PICTURES OF THE SUSPENSION
http://www.infinitiscene.com/forum/threads/12732-Camber-correction-for-dropped-2nd-Gens?p=244993#post244993
http://www.infinitiscene.com/forum/threads/12732-Camber-correction-for-dropped-2nd-Gens?p=245011#post245011
"the first gen FX uses a McPherson strut design in the front, no upper control arm. it can be lowered just about all the way down without affecting the camber all that much in the front, which is why you really don’t see any first gens with alignment issues in the front, only the rear, even slammed… the second gen Fx uses a double wishbone suspension in the front,
now the double wishbone front suspension is without a doubt better than the McPherson strut setup which is why the new FX in stock form handles much better than the first gen in stock form, the front steering and suspension geometry is better on the second gen BUT when it comes to lowering this is where the issues come in to play.
in my opinion the fronts need a solution just as much as the rears on the second gen. Nissan designed the front suspension geometry to function as designed at a specific ride height of stock, which is really a fixed parameter as far as Nissan is concerned, so much so that they don’t even offer ANY kind of adjustment at all to compensate for variations in static ride height… any lowering will cause the wheel to start to camber in, the lower it goes the more the wheel will camber in.
there is one more thing to be aware of… because the front is now using a double wishbone suspension, this design causes the wheel to camber in more as the suspension is lowered or compressed. this is what makes the second gen handle better than the first… this design allows Nissan to spec less initial static camber at vehicle ride height, yet when the vehicle rolls through a hard turn the outside wheel will compress the suspension and add camber to the outside wheels… the first gen can’t do this and instead the first gen is dialed in with a bit more static camber, because it will NOT increase as the body rolls… what this means in the end is that if you wind up with extra negative camber at the new lowered ride height this is bad because as the vehicle rolls through a turn it will STILL add even more negative camber to that, AND because the suspension is now already partially into it’s downward slope at the new lowered ride height this means that the ramp up, or amount of camber added (the camber curve) as the suspension is compressed more is even lower, in other words stock suspension may add say .2* of negative camber per inch compression from it’s initial static ride height, but this ramp is generally progressive, meaning that the lower it goes the more negative is added per inch of compression… so while the first inch or travel may add .2* the second inch may add .3* and the third inch may add another .4*, so if you lowered the fx 2" then at that new static ride height the first inch of compression will now add .4* instead of .2* and so on… these numbers I’ve picked are purely for illustrative purposes and are not to be considered as the actual values as I have not spent the time to fully model the suspension design but this is generally how it works. in layman’s terms what this means is that at a new lower static ride height the suspension geometry will add even MORE camber as the suspension is compressed that it would at the stock ride height, making too much initial negative camber even that much more of an issue…
… haven’t really experimented with one enough to know what can be done, but best case scenario is that one of the control arm mounting points can be altered to become adjustable. this is almost always the best solution, but unfortunately in many cases this will involve cutting and modifying the vehicle structure itself. if I had a second gen personally my plan would be to lower it to where I want it, then modify the mounting points to suit
this isn’t such a good aftermarket solution though, an aftermarket solution would have to be engineered to bolt on without altering the vehicle structure. this may require aftermarket arms with the adjustments built into the arms themselves, keeping the whole thing as a bolt on. that’s not to say that a simpler bracket or spacer setup isn’t possible, it may be. it also may be possible to press either the upper or lower control arm bushings out and match them up to a suitable cam type adjustable bushing. maybe a spacer shim would have to be machined to allow a smaller cam type adjustable bushing to fit one of the arms… there are a few possibilities, just up to whoever is going to do the actual R&D to develop a solution"
these are out for the G/Z (among others)
http://www.kinetixracing.com/kinetix_07up_350Z_G35_370Z_G37_front_and_rear_camber_traction_package.aspx
it’s arguable they can be modified to “work”
ones for Lexis IS that are similar to what we need:
http://www.infinitiscene.com/forum/threads/12732-Camber-correction-for-dropped-2nd-Gens?p=340104#post340104
Hope this helps
