A&Q about 350Z
Q:
It is not an alignment problem. Excessive camber and toe is achieved through the use of a double lower ball joint design. Look at how the tire moves when you turn the wheel and how the inside of the tire is moved by the design. The inside of the tire gets eaten off when you go around corners. it makes for a great cornering cra but the tires suffer as a result. having tires with a tread wera rating of 140 only made the tire wear problem worse now that you have tires with 180 or better tread wear ratings you are doing much better.
A:
I have an '04 Enthusiast. Had front tire feathering at 7500 miles. The dealer got me the replacement tires with the new tread design and alignment with new specs. Have 15000 + miles on the replacement tires and no problemos.
Note that the stock tires have a very low treadwear rating regardless of anything else. about 25000 miles is the most I think you can realistically get. Some people get a bit more or less depending on how aggressively they take the twisties.
A:
uh dude you are refering to "feathering".
Feathering is acceptable sports car design.
This suspension suffers from "cupping". Cupping is caused by:
1) bent or worn suspension components.
2) worn shocks
3) extremely poor suspension design / geometry......
NNA runs this site!!!
A:
Or double lower ball joints. Nissan has 14 patents on this design and as such they are the only ones out there with this problem. Yes, there are other manufactures out there with similar designs. But, with the soft compound of the original tires they do the cupping thing. No big deal if you want to drop $500 every ten-thousand miles. But, I bought a different treadwear rating and the cupping is minimal. I can live with it because the car corners great.
A:
Does this subject ever stop?
A:
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04.- P.WHITE-TOURING-AT.
1953 MGTD
BROWN FENDERS/CREAM BODY.
W/BROOKLAND RACING SCREENS.
Dixieland
A:
Basically, Nissan's new suspensions have problems. My moms G35 sedan has the same feathering issues as the 350Z. G35 coupes are the same way. as vonsudderth stated, Nissan has a new suspension design that handles remarkably well, but is very hard on tires.
I want to know if anybody has tried experimenting with different toe settings or if aftermarket springs may help the feathering issue...
"My 2003 with 21k miles on it, running Hankook K104's since new. Has no cupping because I have a good alignments done and I do rotate the tires front to rear and side to side."
well, with radials you should not move the tires from side to side, only front to back or back to front on the same side. even when the car is "aligned properly" according to Nissan's spec, feathering still happens.
plus, with your tires, you CANT move them from one side to the other because they have a directional tread on them, and a right side tire will not go on the left side of the car. If you did this, the tread would be on the road backwards and we'll see how long they last backwards.
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1985 300ZX n/a
A:
Yes you can and should rotate SIDE to SIDE but when you do this you also need to have the tire dismounted, flipped and remounted. Most are not doing this so you only get half the treadlife out of them. Any car that has lots of neg camber running directional tires needs to have the tires rotated this way.
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Derek Smith
2003 350Z LS Enthusiast
1972 240Z L28 w/ Tripples
A:
My car has lots of negative camber but doesn't wear unevenly as long as i rotate them front to rear periodically. My car has more negative camber than a 350Z with the stock suspension, especially in the rear.
on most sports cars the front tires are supposed to lean into a turn, giving the inner tire a lot of positive camber, which should balance wear out as long as they are rotated front to back regularly.
I guess I wasn't thinking about actually removing the tires from the wheels in order to rotate them. You can do it this way, but I don't think its necessary. Z31's are notorious for the amount of negative camber in the rear, but my tires wear fine.
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1985 300ZX n/a
A:
i don't believe you can use 4 rear sized rims and tires either... i believe i asked this and even with aftermarket people on this forum stated that should you go larger you should still need a 245 in the front and 275 in the rear... i guess this true because of the factory standard offset... 245 in the rear and 225 in the front... unless you have a base model that has no VDC because that was the problem. When i bought my Z i bought it off the work lift at Nissan. they were having to get a new VDC relay, because the VDC was not acting properly. With VDC on i could not go more than 35 MPH before the car detected slip and cut power to the rear wheels... this being because someone knew about the cupping issue and thought that they should rotate the tires... probably not knowing that they were two different sizes... so i acctually had the rears on the front and the fronts on the rear... so only after they installed the relay did i notice this and have them fix it too before i took it, so i don't know if the relay was really bad or it was just the bass ackwards tires...
not to mention i am also missing a tire pressure sensor... i mean how on God's green earth do you simply LOSE a pressure sensor? or did my previous owner somehow break it??? and replace it with a cheap rubber valve stem??? how stupid... at least the Z runs good...
Either way i don't find that the cupping is a serious issue that just eats my conscience up to the point that i am flustered with the car, simple routine maintenance will deter the effects enough to make the delightful handling and overall performance worth while.
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Chrome Silver '03 Touring -MT-
C.F. Nismo Wing
Shorty Antenna (Stolen!!! Thanks alot!)
Kicker Solo Baric L7 1200w
I don't think, I know...
Well, I don't think you know either
A:
I posted this before but for those who missed it. Had the car aligned at an alignment shop near where I live. I had them set the front toe to "0" drove it 2500 mi and noticed alittle ware on the inside. After a 50 mi dirve I measured the temp of the tire tread. Starting from the inside I had a 15 deg F delta across the tread from inside to outside. This meant to me that the inside, which was hotter had more friction than the outside of the tire hence the ware. Now for the good part. I jacked up the car and rotated the tie-rods 1/4 turn or 90 deg to add more toe-in. I haven't a clue what the setting is now but when I measured the temp across the tire it's within 2-3 deg F so I figure the ware has stopped or at least slowed down. The car drives fine and the wheel is straight. I'm going to leave it like this for awhile and see if it's fixed. If not no big deal, the tires were being worn out prematurely anyway. I do feel better now that the temps are uniform. Also the pressures from front to rear run about the same.
Any comments are welcome.
A:
yeperra wrote:
> I posted this before but for those who missed it. Had the car
> aligned at an alignment shop near where I live. I had them set
> the front toe to "0" drove it 2500 mi and noticed alittle ware
> on the inside. After a 50 mi dirve I measured the temp of the
> tire tread. Starting from the inside I had a 15 deg F delta
> across the tread from inside to outside. This meant to me that
> the inside, which was hotter had more friction than the outside
> of the tire hence the ware. Now for the good part. I jacked up
> the car and rotated the tie-rods 1/4 turn or 90 deg to add more
> toe-in. I haven't a clue what the setting is now but when I
> measured the temp across the tire it's within 2-3 deg F so I
> figure the ware has stopped or at least slowed down. The car
> drives fine and the wheel is straight. I'm going to leave it
> like this for awhile and see if it's fixed. If not no big deal,
> the tires were being worn out prematurely anyway. I do feel
> better now that the temps are uniform. Also the pressures from
> front to rear run about the same.
>
> Any comments are welcome.
Usually you want a little toe-in for stability and even wear. It can be a bit difficult to keep the car straight with 0 toe-in. Now if you're a hardcore street racer and you want the absolute best cornering possible, then a slight amount of toe-out will usually help your handling, but it also makes the steering EXTREMELY sensitive and difficult to drive straight unless you have stone-steady hands.
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1985 300ZX n/a
A:
I never felt any difference with the way the car drove. It drives just fine now. I wish someone could tell me how much toe-in is equal to 90 deg rotation of each tie rod. I tried to measure it with a tape measure but with it jacked the readings are all wrong. I did measure about an .08 or 2mm increase but again with it jacked up I'm not sure it means anything.
A:
Yeperra:
check out this link, its about performing your own toe-in alignments on a Z31, but the process is very much the same on a 350Z or any car for that matter. With this method, and a protractor and a stick, you can easily calculate the toe-in angle against the strings.
http://www.redz31.com/pages/alignment.html
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1985 300ZX n/a
Post Edited (Nov 3, 9:46pm)
A:
yeah i noticed that too... took it to nissanand they said it was "normal"... after refusing to touch my car until i purchaced new tires because the wouldn't touch my suspension until the had new tires...
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Chrome Silver '03 Touring -MT-
C.F. Nismo Wing
Shorty Antenna (Stolen!!! Thanks alot!)
Kicker Solo Baric L7 1200w
I don't think, I know...
Well, I don't think you know either
A:
I second 1z4u2c:
85zx, while I also agree with you on the camber and the inside edge on Z31s, the 350Z (and the G35 coupe and the G35 sedan) have a flawed suspension that destroys front tires much faster than can be accounted for by negative camber.
I don't own a 350Z, but I used to sell them, and G35s as well. It is not just babiness on the part of the owners. Now I know some people have alleviated the problem significantly by adjusting their suspension, and some tire makers have even gone so far as to make special "nissan" tires for these cars.
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1985 300ZX n/a
A:
which ones phx? i haven't touched my suspension because honestly with out proper tools and atleast a competent mechanic at my side i don't want to touch it...
so i am forced to get better tires and get specs from people that have tinkered with theirs and found the best settings...
my problem is i don't want to sacrifice my handling... i Love it... it's the one performance aspect that you can't really get pulled over for... or atleast i've never heard of it...
you can get pulled over for speeding... stoping in the middle of traffic... but not taking a turn quickly... if it's safe in all aspects of a quick turn...
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Chrome Silver '03 Touring -MT-
C.F. Nismo Wing
Shorty Antenna (Stolen!!! Thanks alot!)
Kicker Solo Baric L7 1200w
I don't think, I know...
Well, I don't think you know either
A:
I'll talk to my friend, he's got a 350Z that he's done a lot of work to and he's gone about 10K miles on his tires (Kumho somethings, i'll find that out too) and they are wearing very evenly so far. He has messed with his toe settings a lot. But then I think again he has also changed out his springs and struts too.
I am working on building a contraption that will be used to acurately adjust toe settings. its basically a wood frame that you drive the car over and it will let you accurately measure current toe settings so you can play with your own settings and at least know with good accuracy what settings you're using.
I just got the materials for it today, I'll be building it probably early next week so if you're tires havent eaten themselves by then I'll post pics of the construction and use of the device as I do an alignment on my own car. Its not a 350Z but part you adjust is still the same (tie rod length) and the way you adjust it is the same.
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1985 300ZX n/a