Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

OK, well, in that case, the suspension specialist is either a moron, or you aren't understanding what he was trying to tell you.

Nismo arms are not really different than stock arms. Both are fixed geometry. I don't know if the Nismo ones are a little shorter than the stockers (or perhaps even a little longer) or the same length, but....if you swap from stock to Nismo, whatever happens to one side will happen to the other side. It will not cause it to steer left or right.

That is unless you have adjustable bushes in your stockers, and they happen to be adjusted to dial out some bent chassis shenanigans. But, if that were the case, you'd just put adjustables in the Nismo arms anyway, because Nismo arms are essentially just expensive stock arms.

And doing a wheel alignment is just a weekly thing in my world. I have had the suspension apart so many times this year that I've lost count and just about worn out a torque wrench. I'm out in the shed right now cutting up some alloy section and making bases for my new stringline setup. Got to make new swivel plates next, then I'm good to do toe properly, as well as camber and bump steer.

21 minutes ago, GTSBoy said:

OK, well, in that case, the suspension specialist is either a moron, or you aren't understanding what he was trying to tell you.

Nismo arms are not really different than stock arms. Both are fixed geometry. I don't know if the Nismo ones are a little shorter than the stockers (or perhaps even a little longer) or the same length, but....if you swap from stock to Nismo, whatever happens to one side will happen to the other side. It will not cause it to steer left or right.

That is unless you have adjustable bushes in your stockers, and they happen to be adjusted to dial out some bent chassis shenanigans. But, if that were the case, you'd just put adjustables in the Nismo arms anyway, because Nismo arms are essentially just expensive stock arms.

And doing a wheel alignment is just a weekly thing in my world. I have had the suspension apart so many times this year that I've lost count and just about worn out a torque wrench. I'm out in the shed right now cutting up some alloy section and making bases for my new stringline setup. Got to make new swivel plates next, then I'm good to do toe properly, as well as camber and bump steer.

To clarify, I meant nismo bushes, not control arms (don't even think that's a thing for my car). So the suspension specialist said, if I buy those nismo bushes which are perfectly centered it will cause my car to veer in one direction. Whereas he said the current offset bushes that I have were put in on purpose to fix that issue.

This will be my third wheel alignment if I put these bushes in lol. My chassis is straight, all my rails are clean.

Yeah, you don't need camber bushes on stock arms to make a car drive straight unless it's got another problem. F'rigsample, slide the thing into a kerb, bend the front subframe mounts a little....subframe is now twisted, shifted or otherwise in the wrong spot...and you need to do funky stuff with the wheel alignment to get it to drive straight. Maybe a little more caster on one side, or a little more camber.

FWIW, I can have my camber off side to side by a half a degree or more, and either way, so more one side, or more on the other, and the car doesn't really want to pull to one side. It will definitely ride road camber differently, and want to track uphill (ie, towards the centreline when on the LHS of a normal crowned piece of road, like it should) or want to roll downhill (which it really shouldn't). But on fairly flat road surfaces, like the middle of a 3 or 4 lane motorway, a half a degree either way doesn't make a lot of difference. I sometimes do quite a few miles with my wheel alignment messed up, because I don't always get a chance to set it right again after a serious dismantling, before I have to drive it to work again. Like, a whole week's worth of daily shuffle.

22 minutes ago, GTSBoy said:

Yeah, you don't need camber bushes on stock arms to make a car drive straight unless it's got another problem. F'rigsample, slide the thing into a kerb, bend the front subframe mounts a little....subframe is now twisted, shifted or otherwise in the wrong spot...and you need to do funky stuff with the wheel alignment to get it to drive straight. Maybe a little more caster on one side, or a little more camber.

FWIW, I can have my camber off side to side by a half a degree or more, and either way, so more one side, or more on the other, and the car doesn't really want to pull to one side. It will definitely ride road camber differently, and want to track uphill (ie, towards the centreline when on the LHS of a normal crowned piece of road, like it should) or want to roll downhill (which it really shouldn't). But on fairly flat road surfaces, like the middle of a 3 or 4 lane motorway, a half a degree either way doesn't make a lot of difference. I sometimes do quite a few miles with my wheel alignment messed up, because I don't always get a chance to set it right again after a serious dismantling, before I have to drive it to work again. Like, a whole week's worth of daily shuffle.

Ok sounds good, thanks for your help. Hopefully if I end up changing it to the nismo bushes I don't get that veering issue. I don't think there's a point in lubing up these bushes again. Weird that it it makes just as much noise with all the grease inside it versus without grease prior to removal. Bizarre.

Edited by silviaz
10 minutes ago, GTSBoy said:

Could be the other bushes. The inners.

Maybe but doubt it, when I jacked it up it was creaking in the j arm again. The inners are all good, I inspected them. Remember that also it did fix the problem but temporarily.

Edited by silviaz

@GTSBoy I found the issue (sort of) when I took apart the bushing again, it was completely dry inside! When I experimented with it, all the grease would push out when I would compress the bushings. I wonder if this has anything to do with me putting in the poly bush first on both sides and then pushing in the metal barrel. Maybe I should have put in the metal barrel first then the rubber bushings so the spread pattern is different.

 

It's fixed (for now).

Edited by silviaz

Just install a grease nipple into the centre of the outer steel of the FUCA. Make sure the bushes aren't long enough to touch each other underneath that nipple. Cut a few mm off each if need be. Then you can push grease in there while it is all assembled.

That was the very first thing I did (to all 4 ends) of the FUCAs on my 32 when I put Whiteline adjustable bushes into them. They would squeeze the grease out real fast, and I could squeeze it back in faster.

42 minutes ago, GTSBoy said:

Just install a grease nipple into the centre of the outer steel of the FUCA. Make sure the bushes aren't long enough to touch each other underneath that nipple. Cut a few mm off each if need be. Then you can push grease in there while it is all assembled.

That was the very first thing I did (to all 4 ends) of the FUCAs on my 32 when I put Whiteline adjustable bushes into them. They would squeeze the grease out real fast, and I could squeeze it back in faster.

Don't think that can fit in physically. Are you referring to this? image.thumb.png.cbc75e301f1e52f6e2ed5a682d4ee6b7.png

 

If it happens again, I'm going to get the nismo ones.

Yes, those exactly, either angled, or straight ones.

I just dug one of my f**ked up old stock arms out of the crap box. 2 views, showing nipples added in places where they were accessible while installed at both ends of the arm, without clashing with anything else on the car (ie the upright, the inner guard, etc). Circled in red.

image.thumb.png.944022372dcf2af6be50429152a4a9b5.pngimage.thumb.png.7a333112a307d5fd9c54481ba5a81218.png

Edited by GTSBoy
  • Like 1
1 hour ago, GTSBoy said:

Yes, those exactly, either angled, or straight ones.

I just dug one of my f**ked up old stock arms out of the crap box. 2 views, showing nipples added in places where they were accessible while installed at both ends of the arm, without clashing with anything else on the car (ie the upright, the inner guard, etc). Circled in red.

image.thumb.png.944022372dcf2af6be50429152a4a9b5.pngimage.thumb.png.7a333112a307d5fd9c54481ba5a81218.png

Ah ok, thanks for that.

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now


  • Similar Content

  • Latest Posts

    • I did end up getting it sorted, as GTSBoy said, there was a corroded connection and wire that needed to be replaced. I ended up taking out the light assembly, giving everything a good clean and re-soldered the old joints, and it came out good.
    • Wow, thanks for your help guys 🙏. I really appreciate it. Thanks @Rezz, if i fail finding any new or used, full or partial set of original Stage carpets i will come back to you for sure 😉 Explenation is right there, i just missed it 🤦‍♂️. Thanks for pointing out. @soviet_merlin in the meantime, I received a reply from nengun, and i quote: "Thanks for your message and interest in Nengun. KG4900 is for the full set of floor mats, while KG4911 is only the Driver's Floor Mat. FR, RH means Front Right Hand Side. All the Full Set options are now discontinued. However, the Driver's Floor Mat options are still available according to the latest information available to us. We do not know what the differences would be, but if you only want the one mat, we can certainly see what we can find out for you". Interesting. It seems they still have some "new old stock" that Duncan mentioned 🤔. I wonder if they can provide any photos......And i also just realized that amayama have G4900 sets. I'm tempted too. 
    • Any update on this one? did you manage to get it fixed?    i'm having the same issue with my r34 and i believe its to do with the smart entry (keyless) control module but cant be sure without forking out to get a replacement  
    • So this being my first contribution to the SAU forums, I'd like to present and show how I had to solve probably one of the most annoying fixes on any car I've owned: replacing a speedometer (or "speedo") sensor on my newly acquired Series 1 Stagea 260RS Autech Version. I'm simply documenting how I went about to fix this issue, and as I understand it is relatively rare to happen to this generation of cars, it is a gigantic PITA so I hope this helps serve as reference to anyone else who may encounter this issue. NOTE: Although I say this is meant for the 260RS, because the gearbox/drivetrain is shared with the R33 GTR with the 5-speed manual, the application should be exactly the same. Background So after driving my new-to-me Stagea for about 1500km, one night while driving home the speedometer and odometer suddenly stopped working. No clunking noise, no indication something was broken, the speedometer would just stop reading anything and the odometer stopped going up. This is a huge worry for me, because my car is relatively low mileage (only 45k km when purchased) so although I plan to own the car for a long time, a mismatched odometer reading would be hugely detrimental to resale should the day come to sell the car. Thankfully this only occurred a mile or two from home so it wasn't extremely significant. Also, the OCD part of me would be extremely irked if the numbers that showed on my dash doesn't match the actual ageing of the car. Diagnosing I had been in communication with the well renown GTR shop in the USA, U.P.garage up near University Point in Washington state. After some back and forth they said it could be one of two things: 1) The speedometer sensor that goes into the transfer case is broken 2) The actual cluster has a component that went kaput. They said this is common in older Nissan gauge clusters and that would indicate a rebuild is necessary. As I tried to figure out if it was problem #1, I resolved problem #2 by sending my cluster over to Relentless Motorsports in Dallas, TX, whom is local to me and does cluster and ECU rebuilds. He is a one man operation who meticulously replaces every chip, resistor, capacitor, and electronic component on the PCB's on a wide variety of classic and modern cars. His specialty is Lexus and Toyota, but he came highly recommended by Erik of U.P.garage since he does the rebuilds for them on GTR clusters.  For those that don't know, on R32 and R33 GTR gearboxes, the speedometer sensor is mounted in the transfer case and is purely an analog mini "generator" (opposite of an alternator essentially). Based on the speed the sensor spins it generates an AC sine wave voltage up to 5V, and sends that via two wires up to the cluster which then interprets it via the speedometer dial. The signal does NOT go to the ECU first, the wiring goes to the cluster first then the ECU after (or so I'm told).  Problems/Roadblocks I first removed the part from the car on the underside of the transfer case (drain your transfer case fluid/ATF first, guess who found out that the hard way?), and noted the transfer case fluid was EXTREMELY black, most likely never changed on my car. When attempting to turn the gears it felt extremely gritty, as if something was binding the shaft from rotating properly. I got absolutely no voltage reading out of the sensor no matter how fast I turned the shaft. After having to reflow the solder on my AFM sensors based on another SAU guide here, I attempted to disassemble the silicone seal on the back of the sensor to see what happened inside the sensor; turns out, it basically disintegrated itself. Wonderful. Not only had the electrical components destroyed themselves, the magnetic portion on what I thought was on the shaft also chipped and was broken. Solution So solution: find a spare part right? Wrong. Nissan has long discontinued the proper sensor part number 32702-21U19, and it is no longer obtainable either through Nissan NSA or Nissan Japan. I was SOL without proper speed or mileage readings unless I figured out a way to replace this sensor. After tons of Googling and searching on SAU, I found that there IS however a sensor that looks almost exactly like the R33/260RS one: a sensor meant for the R33/R34 GTT and GTS-T with the 5 speed manual. The part number was 25010-21U00, and the body, plug, and shaft all looked exactly the same. The gear was different at the end, but knowing the sensor's gear is held on with a circlip, I figured I could just order the part and swap the gears. Cue me ordering a new part from JustJap down in Kirrawee, NSW, then waiting almost 3 weeks for shipping and customs clearing. The part finally arrives and what did I find? The freaking shaft lengths don't match. $&%* I discussed with Erik how to proceed, and figuring that I basically destroyed the sensor trying to get the shaft out of the damaged sensor from my car. we deemed it too dangerous to try and attempt to swap shafts to the correct length. I had to find a local CNC machinist to help me cut and notch down the shaft. After tons of frantic calling on a Friday afternoon, I managed to get hold of someone and he said he'd be able to do it over half a week. I sent him photos and had him take measurements to match not only the correct length and notch fitment, but also a groove to machine out to hold the retentive circlip. And the end result? *chef's kiss* Perfect. Since I didn't have pliers with me when I picked up the items, I tested the old gear and circlip on. Perfect fit. After that it was simply swapping out the plug bracket to the new sensor, mount it on the transfer case, refill with ATF/Nissan Matic Fluid D, then test out function. Thankfully with the rebuilt cluster and the new sensor, both the speedometer and odometer and now working properly!   And there you have it. About 5-6 weeks of headaches wrapped up in a 15 minute photo essay. As I was told it is rare for sensors of this generation to die so dramatically, but you never know what could go wrong with a 25+ year old car. I HOPE that no one else has to go through this problem like I did, so with my take on a solution I hope it helps others who may encounter this issue in the future. For the TL;DR: 1) Sensor breaks. 2) Find a replacement GTT/GTS-T sensor. 3) Find a CNC machinist to have you cut it down to proper specs. 4) Reinstall then pray to the JDM gods.   Hope this guide/story helps anyone else encountering this problem!
    • So this being my first contribution to the SAU forums, I'd like to present and show how I had to solve probably one of the most annoying fixes on any car I've owned: replacing a speedometer (or "speedo") sensor on my newly acquired Series 1 Stagea 260RS Autech Version. I'm simply documenting how I went about to fix this issue, and as I understand it is relatively rare to happen to this generation of cars, it is a gigantic PITA so I hope this helps serve as reference to anyone else who may encounter this issue. NOTE: Although I say this is meant for the 260RS, because the gearbox/drivetrain is shared with the R33 GTR with the 5-speed manual, the application should be exactly the same. Background So after driving my new-to-me Stagea for about 1500km, one night while driving home the speedometer and odometer suddenly stopped working. No clunking noise, no indication something was broken, the speedometer would just stop reading anything and the odometer stopped going up. This is a huge worry for me, because my car is relatively low mileage (only 45k km when purchased) so although I plan to own the car for a long time, a mismatched odometer reading would be hugely detrimental to resale should the day come to sell the car. Thankfully this only occurred a mile or two from home so it wasn't extremely significant. Also, the OCD part of me would be extremely irked if the numbers that showed on my dash doesn't match the actual ageing of the car. Diagnosing I had been in communication with the well renown GTR shop in the USA, U.P.garage up near University Point in Washington state. After some back and forth they said it could be one of two things: 1) The speedometer sensor that goes into the transfer case is broken 2) The actual cluster has a component that went kaput. They said this is common in older Nissan gauge clusters and that would indicate a rebuild is necessary. As I tried to figure out if it was problem #1, I resolved problem #2 by sending my cluster over to Relentless Motorsports in Dallas, TX, whom is local to me and does cluster and ECU rebuilds. He is a one man operation who meticulously replaces every chip, resistor, capacitor, and electronic component on the PCB's on a wide variety of classic and modern cars. His specialty is Lexus and Toyota, but he came highly recommended by Erik of U.P.garage since he does the rebuilds for them on GTR clusters.  For those that don't know, on R32 and R33 GTR gearboxes, the speedometer sensor is mounted in the transfer case and is purely an analog mini "generator" (opposite of an alternator essentially). Based on the speed the sensor spins it generates an AC sine wave voltage up to 5V, and sends that via two wires up to the cluster which then interprets it via the speedometer dial. The signal does NOT go to the ECU first, the wiring goes to the cluster first then the ECU after (or so I'm told).  Problems/Roadblocks I first removed the part from the car on the underside of the transfer case (drain your transfer case fluid/ATF first, guess who found out that the hard way?), and noted the transfer case fluid was EXTREMELY black, most likely never changed on my car. When attempting to turn the gears it felt extremely gritty, as if shttps://imgur.com/6TQCG3xomething was binding the shaft from rotating properly. After having to reflow the solder on my AFM sensors based on another SAU guide here, I attempted to disassemble the silicone seal on the back of the sensor to see what happened inside the sensor; turns out, it basically disintegrated itself. Wonderful. Not only had the electrical components destroyed themselves, the magnetic portion on what I thought was on the shaft also chipped and was broken. Solution So solution: find a spare part right? Wrong. Nissan has long discontinued the proper sensor part number 32702-21U19, and it is no longer obtainable either through Nissan NSA or Nissan Japan. I was SOL without proper speed or mileage readings unless I figured out a way to replace this sensor. After tons of Googling and searching on SAU, I found that there IS however a sensor that looks almost exactly like the R33/260RS one: a sensor meant for the R33/R34 GTT and GTS-T with the 5 speed manual. The part number was 25010-21U00, and the body, plug, and shaft all looked exactly the same. The gear was different at the end, but knowing the sensor's gear is held on with a circlip, I figured I could just order the part and swap the gears. Cue me ordering a new part from JustJap down in Kirrawee, NSW, then waiting almost 3 weeks for shipping and customs clearing. The part finally arrives and what did I find? The freaking shaft lengths don't match. $&%* I discussed with Erik how to proceed, and figuring that I basically destroyed the sensor trying to get the shaft out of the damaged sensor from my car. we deemed it too dangerous to try and attempt to swap shafts to the correct length. I had to find a local CNC machinist to help me cut and notch down the shaft. After tons of frantic calling on a Friday afternoon, I managed to get hold of someone and he said he'd be able to do it over half a week. I sent him photos and had him take measurements to match not only the correct length and notch fitment, but also a groove to machine out to hold the retentive circlip. And the end result? *chef's kiss* Perfect. Since I didn't have pliers with me when I picked up the items, I tested the old gear and circlip on. Perfect fit. After that it was simply swapping out the plug bracket to the new sensor, mount it on the transfer case, refill with ATF/Nissan Matic Fluid D, then test out function. Thankfully with the rebuilt cluster and the new sensor, both the speedometer and odometer and now working properly!   And there you have it. About 5-6 weeks of headaches wrapped up in a 15 minute photo essay. As I was told it is rare for sensors of this generation to die so dramatically, but you never know what could go wrong with a 25+ year old car. I HOPE that no one else has to go through this problem like I did, so with my take on a solution I hope it helps others who may encounter this issue in the future. For the TL;DR: 1) Sensor breaks. 2) Find a replacement GTT/GTS-T sensor. 3) Find a CNC machinist to have you cut it down to proper specs. 4) Reinstall then pray to the JDM gods.   Hope this guide/story helps anyone else encountering this problem!
×
×
  • Create New...