Last couple days were a struggle. Let me explain why. There's two things that were eating at me. 1. Trying to figure out direction for my suspension components and 2. not knowing enough about suspension components. Clearly one impacts the other.
I'll lead off with this. Originally I had thought that Front Upper Control arms had controlled all camber settings. WRONG. That one thing along was having a great impact on direction for my future not purchased wheels.
The ideal wheel for my Z would be this: 18" (cheaper rubber and a tad lighter), little meat on the side wall, some wheel lip and a large front wheel contact patch for handling. Not a deal breaker of the car is staggered or square. I only expect to get one Michigan season, late spring - early fall, out of a set of rubber before a new set is put on.
The yearly rubber thing is a reason why 18's were a bit more appealing. Ok, so that is figured out.
Then I have been eyeballing NISMO Rays Club Sports. I've seen them in person and they are the wheel for me. Ok, so now I know what wheel I like... how to make that work with an aggressive wheel. I have the adjustability (remember, I thought I only needed Front Upper Control Arms)... I know I want something wide... Why not 18" 10.5 +22. In my head, I've seen people run 20mm spacers with OE wheels and since that offset pushes the wheel out I could run the wider wheel. Win win right? Apparently not. I'll need some sort of adjustment to camber (provided by a shock change).
To top all that off, I'm internally struggling using the AMS Front Upper Control Arm because... well... it's not SPL and I don't like not using top tier parts. This week I've been tossing around ideas on how to get my K-member bushings changed, Upper control arms and lower control arms completed with SPL. Additionally I've been considering Voodoo steering knuckle whole package which would go against needing some of the SPL parts.
Want to know where I landed as of last night?
I drew a line in the sand. Enough is enough and that is a crazy rabbit hole to fall in. Leave the AMS Upper control arm. Run the stock wheels, shock (just put those in anyway) and don't change the whole thing out to SPL. Most importantly... Make the parts bin run!
Now why would I post all this? It's important to know what kind of holes you can fall into during a build. Some are acceptable: cheap shock change , wheel bearings and brakes (safety item shouldn't be glossed over). Some are not acceptable: SPL everything before it runs. Although, I will say the later is very very appealing... some of us really do have some sort of budget constraints (albeit flexible).
Was it worth the read for you? I hope so. That's just a small window into my world. Worrying about details I don't need to.
EDIT --
A bit of backstory about the AMS parts. A Great Lakes Z Member won the parts back in 2013 at a Zdayz raffle. I bought them for like 100 bucks or so because he has a z33. He made some money and I had some suspension components that I may or may not use. They have been in my basement since 2014, when I bought them from him. With that said, I didn't go out and splurge on AMS for my Z. This is just something I'm getting out of the house and I'm hoping that the newer urethane bushings will be a net benefit over the next year of driving.
The AMS upper control arm is heavier than OE... I really don't like that. So... that's a con.
