I'm not too knowledgable about cars, but I do know what goes where and I can usually put stuff in myself. What I don't know is what exactly does modifying the suspension do to the car. I am buying one of those rear strut bars from eric96ser and im told it stiffens the rear end. Thats good but what other parts are out there to mod my susp. and what do they do, any order in which I should perform the mods. Any help is helpful
It depends how much money you have to spend and when. If you're willing to spend enough, the best bang for the buck would be to get some KYB AGX adjustable struts (~$389) and Ground Control coilovers to go with them (~$399?). And please, for god's sake, don't just go out and get lowering springs without getting the struts first.
For the lesser money options at this point, I would say get front and rear strut tower bars, I'm not sure how much that rear one is, but you can get a front for ~$30-40. Also, get at least the rear sway bar with polyurethene bushings. I got one from and SE-R owner for $40, but you can go even better and get an N-tec (or Nu-tech is it?) or suspension techniques rear sway bar.
Do you still have the stock wheels? If not, it's probably worth saving up for something new. For cheap see if you can get some B13 or B14 SE-R wheels and some nice tires. For about $700 you can do what I did and get some Konig Traffik's (15x6 16lbs) with tires mounted and balanced and delivered to your door from one of those online places like discount tires direct. I'm sure you can find your own wheels you like though.
I know I'm forgetting stuff, so let's wait and see what I didn't mention.
For handling, start with bigger wheels and tires, but try not to go over 16"...the wheels get really heavy and hurt acceleration and unsprung weight.
Next, get bigger sway bars. Suspension Tecniques works fine, if you can locate an Nu-Tech adjustable rear bar, even better.
Third, get good struts. As Adam mentioned, the KYB AGX are good, though I thought them too stiff for stock SE-R springs. Avoid the Tokico Blues, they blow seals yearly...at least they used to. Supposedly, they were recently being redesigned with higher damping rates and presumably better seals.
Strut tower braces are good in theory but I couldn't detect any benefit from my $tillen front STB. They certainly can't hurt and are relatively inexpensive. I did notice an improvement with the N-Tech (not Nu-Tech) lower control arm brace. $tillen offers one for the B-14, it should work on a B13.
Avoid any spring with more than one inch drop with standard length struts. The Sentra just doesn't have the wheel travel to stay off the bump stops with shorter springs. You can get more drop by going with Motivational coil-overs and Ground Control camber/caster plates. This combo could be worth 2" on the street as long as you go with stiffer springs. Eibach makes a large of assortment of spring rates to fit coil-over apps. One nice thing about stiffer springs is that sway bars work better.
To echo Adam though, you must decide what you want to achieve and how much money you can afford to throw at it. Basically, speed costs money, how fast can you afford to go? If cost is a major issue, just put a stock SE-R suspension under your car. I was satisfied with it for five years.
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Bruce in Houston
'94 Nissan Sentra SE-R w/ $tuff, converting to ITA
'98 Suzuki Bandit 1200S w/ $tuff
'02 Dodge Dakota SLT 4-dr tow beast, stock!
Last edited by bahearn : Jul 19th, 2002 at 03:37 PM.
You could also get the Energy Suspension polyurethene bushing master kit (with everything) for the sentra (~$119), but the installation would be a super bitch from what I hear. And yeah, with those GC coilovers you should get the camber plates too (~S235 maybe?)
What is the B13 suspension type called? How is it compared to the suspension on the Civic's, Prelude's, Accord's, Integra GSR's, Integra Type-R's, Celica's, and those other compareable cars? I'm just curious because some people say Honda's have the best handling but then I see SE-R's and Sentra's going up against Camaro's, Firebirds, and those popular sports cars on the track....
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Dan
1992 Nissan SE-R
2001 MR2 Spyder
B13s have strut suspension. Hondas typically use A-arm suspension in the front. Detroit calls it a double-wishbone. G20 uses A-arm up front.
Struts work okay and can be made to handle well but there is a performance penalty when the shock is also used to locate the upper suspension point, to wit, stiction in the strut shaft as it slides in and out of the strut housing. Motorcycles have the same problem with their forks. Shocks are easier to design in that there's no consideration for shear loads on the shaft that a strut would see. Struts DO have two less pivot points than a double-wishbone, though, and commensurately less friction from bushings. Finally, shocks have been around nearly a century while struts have been used for less than half that in cars.
I think it's suspension geometry and light weight that allow SE-Rs to race competitively. I'll have more data on that next year when I start racing ITS. Civics do very well, too, they're just hampered by rather small engines.
__________________
Bruce in Houston
'94 Nissan Sentra SE-R w/ $tuff, converting to ITA
'98 Suzuki Bandit 1200S w/ $tuff
'02 Dodge Dakota SLT 4-dr tow beast, stock!
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