Nismo Z Suspension: All Nismo 370Z Owners Check Here FIRST!

Night Fury

When I bought my 2010 Nismo I was aware of this issue and asked the dealership to make sure that mine had had them removed before delivery. I was told that they had checked and that my car did not have the widgets. Great, so away I go. A couple of weeks later I decided to double check, parked at an angle over a driveway slope, turned the wheels all the way to free up room to look and reach in, ran my finger up and down the suspension coils and found nothing. Happy I didn't have them I continued on my merry way.

16 months and 20,000 miles later I replaced my tires and dropped it into my local dealer (not where I bought it) for an alignment job. When I went back to pick it up the service manager had four widgets sitting on his desk and asked me if I new what they were, of course I did.

Those things are installed all the way in the back of the coils and almost impossible to see or feel unless you actually get under the car.

The hard edge of the suspension is now gone and my car is a little less prone to lateral 'skipping' when pushing her hard through winding mountain corners. On the downside I now have to be a lot more careful when negotiating dips, parking garage ramps, etc...

A cautionary tale, do not rely on your dealer or service center to know WTF they're doing when it comes to your Nizzie.

Dooble

Thanks for the heads up.. I have 3 of them on each side also.

Joe Go

I have'em in both of my front springs too!

johncy2000

I will be checking for this tonight.

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bobburk

Sure enough, removed 4 spacers this morning...

Rusty

There is 3 per spring. Make sure you get the one in the back. Sometimes, the dealer only removes the one in the front, that they can see.

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SilverGhost

look what i found after reading this thread....ouch

Cuban Z

How long were they on there?

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dkoebel

I called my dealership who knew exactly what these are and said they are OEM and should stay on the car unless I track it and want a more aggressive ride. Personal choice - but since I think my 2013 Nismo is stiff and hard enough of a ride already, will take his advise and leave like it is - also save tires. Anyone have any other insights re this?

ChrisSlicks

The exact opposite is true. By leaving them on you have a ride of steel, effectively almost zero suspension travel. For a more compliant ride they should be removed. I wouldn't track the car with them on either, would be unsafe.

Per Nissan vehicle delivery instructions they are to be removed on all vehicles, but some dealers can't read very well.

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YzGyz

Yupper, remove those things. The ride is so much better. Your dealer is BS! By leaving those on, you would loose a lot more tire/road contact every time you hit some kind of bump both big and small. You might be thinking, "why are sports car's shocks to stiff then? It feels like I'm sitting on a rock!" When the car's "weight is on the suspension, you want it stiff so you have less body roll and and you can feel the road better so you can control the car better. Take a toy matchbox car with those simple wheels on that rod. Put that car on a flat surface and gently lift the car off the surface. You wont feel the weight of the car not shifting off the wheel slowly but you will feel and see the the car almost simultaneously loose contact off the surface at the same time. It's basically a brick. Now get yourself a good RC car. One that cost lets say $80+. Do that same thig you did to the matchbox. As you lift slowly and releasing the weight off the suspension, you will see that some of the weight is still left on the wheels just to about till you lift the wheel off the surface. Those thing wont let your springs on to extend when your car's weight is lifted off the wheels (when you hit a bump). Less extension = less contact time. Less wheel contact = less control of vehicle. This is why it's so hard to design good shocks. It's tough designing springs that are will provide a smooth ride yet stiff enough to keep the body from rolling left and right during a turn, and yet be able to have the compliance to keep surface contact. I'm just restating the above in simple terms with example to clarify.

on a side note, my new to me nismo with 16,xxx mile had these on them. DOH!!! I have only driven ~30 miles and thought it was extremely weird that my car was rougher than my bros Mustang Shelby. The other thing that was bother me what that every time my car put it's weight back on the wheel after a moderate size bump, the care would somewhat steer itself into whatever direction. I would then have to readjust my trajectory to get to where I was going.

Lets just say the 1st owner is a DOUCH BAG that don't know jack about sports cars.



One for each side.

YzGyz

Rusty

Take them out ASP! They are only there for shipping the car. Keeps from damaging the front bumper when they unload it. Your dealershit needs to read the instructions. Once removed. Your Nismo WILL ride a lot nicer.

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Night Fury

Wow! That is staggeringly bad advice from your dealer. What dealer is this? Because that advice is wrong on so many levels that I'm not sure I'd be comfortable having them service my car.

The suspension widgets are NOT OEM parts. The widgets were designed to solve a problem at the factory and at the ports of having the nose scrape on the ramps of the transporters. The widgets reduce the front suspension travel by about 75%. These widgets were only installed on Nismos as it was only the Nismo with it's longer lower front splitter that had a scraping problem at the ports.

Dealers who handle any significant volume of Nismos are usually wise to the widget issue but often miss one of three widgets that are installed on each coil spring, the one on the back side can be hard to see and feel and is often missed. Other dealers, especially those who special order for customers, but don't typically stock the Nismos often have no idea they are there.

You should definitely remove the widgets if you have them. Your ride will be smoother, quieter and safer. Stiff suspension is great for road holding, but those widgets aren't stiffening the suspension, they're completely negating it.

When I removed my hidden "back of the coil" widgets I noticed a significant reduction in lateral skipping on tight corners, particularly on uneven or broken surfaces. I do now have to be much more careful navigating dips and steep ramps though. You will start to chew up your chin guard once the widgets are out, but hey, that's what it's there for.

dkoebel

Thanks for the advice everyone. It's the Nissan dealership in Grapevine TX. Others I have called basically said they know nothing about the widgets and for me to bring the car in to have "looked at". So,not real comfortable with any of them to take them all off. How hard is it to do it yourself if jack up, take off wheels one at a time, and do it myself?

ChrisSlicks

It's 5 minutes a side, and most of that would be jacking the car up. Don't need to take the wheels off, just jack it up, turn the wheel to lock and reach it there and rip the suckers off. With the suspension unloaded they should be easy to remove.

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