The first step was to free up the brake rotors, and remove them. If 've got to replace them anyway, I might as well get them out of the way while I work on the control arms and shocks.
Next up, I pulled the upper control arms, and replaced them with the Megan Racing units I mentioned in an earlier post. This I was hoping that the removal of these would give me enough room to get the shocks out, but alas, it was not to be. I'd have to detach the lower arm that attaches to the shock to get it out. When I installed them, i set them to maximum negative camber. That should ensure the wheels don't hit the fenders when i put the car down on them, and it'll tell me just how much camber I can actually get.
When I removed the top bolts for the struts on the driver's side, I found that one of the holes has been notched quite aggressively. At least an inch long. Awesome. I don't know why anything surprises me on this car any more. One day, I'll have some metal added back to that, but the gigantic washer appears to be holding fine, and there's two more bolts holding it in place that are just fine.
Getting the lower arm to swing away was a bit tricky, as the bolts were of course stuck. some clever use of my floor jack on one side, and some aggressive kicking on the other freed them both up.. only to find the pocket where the control arm attaches on the passenger side is actually bent. Probably dragged it on a curb. It appears the mount point is fine, and in the right place, but the ears on it are bent back a little. With some aggressive pounding, i got the arm out, but it'll put up a fight every time I need to do that. Once I can get it on a lift, I may have to go at it with a dead blow and try to straighten that ear out a little.
With the shocks free, I can start disassembling them. First thing was to free the springs so they don't lunge at my face like so many house cats before them. Here's where it gets a bit interesting on the front. When i measured the springs on the car, i measured them at a little below 6.5", assumed they had loaded about a half inch of pre-load and ordered 7" 1200 lb/in springs. Once I broke them free, and started turning the preload adjuster.. it kept turning.. and turning.. and turning.
When i finally freed the spring, it was over 8" long. The previous owner (who from now on will now be referred to as "previous idiot") had dialed in over 1.5" of preload on the front springs. WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU DO THAT? Droop travel? fuck that noise. Let's just ride at full extension ALL THE TIME. /Sigh. The 7 inch springs will work fine, and a quick hit with the impact gun gets the tops off. I didn't measure the front travel like I did for the rears because honestly, I can't take much more in the bad news department today. But side to side they appear to be closer than the back ones.
Like the rears, I set the initial height to be as high as it will go to make sure it won't damage anything. To figure this out, I had to spin the lower mount off so I can measure just how far the threading goes and how much I'll have to feed back onto the shocks. It's spinning these things off I make another discovery about just how cheap Stance shocks are.
The lower mounts are the same for either side, but they need to orient opposite directions for the brake lines, ABS wires, etc.. are you ready for the cheap flag? THEY DIDN'T EVEN BOTHER TO CHANGE WHICH SIDE THE STICKERS ARE ON. Passenger side? branding sticker is visible. Driver's side? it has to face inwards. period.
Anyway, the threads are 2" into the lower mount, so i thread them back on to that engagement point, and hand tighten the spring perches so that they're just tight enough to keep the spring in place. BECAUSE DROOP TRAVEL, MOTHER FUCKER. Not that there will be much of that with 1200 lb/in springs and no tenders, but it's nice to not completely eliminate the possibility of it.
After reinstalling the struts, I took the liberty of hucking the plastic engine cover in the corner. Doesn't serve a purpose besides making things look pretty, weighing more, and getting in the way of any emergency services in grid.
with the struts back on, I installed the fresh front rotors to rid myself of that under braking vibration I was getting, as well as the Hawk HPS pads. I opted for something milder than the HP+ I used on the WRX, as the rotors on the HR 350z are gigantic and I felt something with that much initial bite would be hard to modulate.
Finally, I installed the Hotchkis front swaybar, but left it disconnected. I'd need to sort out my ride heights before I installed and zeroed out the preload on the adjustable sway bar end links i purchased.At this point, I still need to reinstall the exhaust, but Karl has been getting punchy about getting his garage space back. It's time for the moment of truth. It's time to put the wheels on and put it on the ground.I basically replicated Brian Peters' wheel setup, so i was quite confident it would fit, but there's always that moment where it's tension as you put the spacers and wheels on.Wheels mounted, i put the car down on the ground. No major catastrophes so far, time to back it out of the garage to re-orient it.
[caption id="attachment_121" align="aligncenter" width="300"]
It's back on the ground![/caption][caption id="attachment_122" align="aligncenter" width="300"]
But Christ is it riding high..[/caption]It was loud as hell without it's muffler , but it moves around under it's own power.
With that, I spent the rest of the night tidying up the garage enough to get Karl his parking space back, and enjoying a good night's rest.
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