new spacers and studs; now sterring wheel vibrates
 

2011 Touring Sport

I took some Stillen 20mm DRS Spacers and Replacement Studs (rear) and 15mm DRS (for the front)to a shop to be installed. Noticed that running at and over 65 mph I have a vibration in the steering wheel that was not noticable prior to getting the spacers and studs installed. Ran on them for ~50 miles and took it back to to the shop to torque again. And still over 65 mph I get a vibrating feel on the steering wheel. Any ideas? maybe take it to get a front alighment?

Sounds to me like either the studs or spacer weren't seated correctly. Also, try removing the wheels completely (not just retorquing the bolts) and reseating it on the spacer hub.

does the stillen spacers have a hubcentric lip? if not, it's not compatible with the stock oem wheels...

spacers suck. I had this problem with my ichibas. i have h&r's now. still a tiny bit of vibration, but I can live with it. Can't wait to get some rims.

The Stillen is actually the H&R so yes it has the lip built in on the 15mm and larger.

oh i see... hummmm... hope that lip didnt crack off. :icon14:

It will eventually ... but I doubt it has if just installed. Wouldn't hurt to put the wheels off and check everything over.

I never had any vibration with my 20mm H&Rs

I have a vibration problem after installing Ichiba 15 mm spacers on my stock Nismo rims. These were the replaceable extended stud version. I am looking into it right now, but will take probably them off. And yes these where hub-centric.

hub ring might be defective... I had a customer who had the same problem, he then replaced the hub ring and even though they looked exactly the same it fixed the problem...

Save your money. An alignment won't fix this issue.

:iagree:

yah too bad on the H&R's they're one piece... ichiba/kics yes. H&R / Eibachs no.

Thanks everyone; I took the car to get the alignment. Here's the results:

Front Intital Final Spec min, Spec max
Caster L 5.2 5.1 4.4 - 5.9
Caster R 5.1 5.0 4.4 - 5.9
Camber L -1.1 -1.1 -1.4 - .01
Camber R -1.3 -1.3 -1.4 - .01
Toe L 0.07 0.04 0.02 - 0.05
Toe R 0.14 0.03 0.02 - 0.05
Toe Total 0.21 0.07 0.05 - 0.11

Rear Intital Final Spec min, Spec max
Camber L -2.5 -2.0 -2.2 - -1.2
Camber R -2.3 -1.8 -2.2 - -1.2
Toe L 0.32 0.09 0.04 - 0.11
Toe R 0.15 0.09 0.04 - 0.11
Toe Total 0.47 0.18 0.09 - 0.21
Thust Angle 0.1 0.0

All Secondary Angles are perfect initial and final.

Does the car still vibrate after the alignment?

I have was stuck in traffic from the shop to home and couldn't get the car up to 65+. Tomorrow morning I'll update.

but if I were to make a bet it would be that it does fix it.

Otherwise the shop wants me to get the tires balanced. (no cost)

I didn't know you weren't happy with your spacers? I'm dying to have one, but with those vibrations issues :shakes head:. I'm in the process of buying a new set of hubcentric wheels to eliminate the gaps. Pretty soon hopefully with some drops :tup:

Well, no change after the alignment even though some numbers were pretty off spec.

Today I'll take it to get balanced to see if that fixes the wheel and gas pedal vibration after 65mph.

When the steering whee vibrates after a spacer install, the issue isn't the alignment or the balance. The problem is the spacer install.

:iagree:

yea something's not jiving, i will say that i've heard (slightly) warped spacers can cause issues

Even if the balance helps a bit, its only masking the original problem. Unless of course, there was a balance problem to begin with. I believe in this case there wasn't. Right?

at least he can rule out the wheel/tires being okay i guess.

Might as well change the oil at this point. Just to make sure.

Well, just returned from a nice long ride following the balancing. No noticable vibration and I was having fun again driving, not noticing the speedometer!
The front left was 1 ounce off.
I'm back to being happy.
If doing the alignment and balancing is masking the problem, what could be the issues to look for after the next 1000 miles?
If the vibration comes back, and today's drive was just a dream, would removing the front spacers and going back to stock in the front, keeping the 20mm in the rear be the next step in troubleshooting?

what the hell is going on with you guys getting vibrations from spacers, not just the OP but others. If they have hubcentric rings or built in rings you should get nothing of the sort. I ran rear spacers of 3 different sizes, twice with no hubcentric rings and I never ever got vibrations. Adding spacers would not cause your Z to be out of alignment either.

You dont really need hubcentric rings unless you plan on going over 120 mph on a regular basis, its just recommended you have them to be safe...and I do recommend them.

Zerafian - do you have front spacers too?

so the weight fell off while they were doing the install? perhaps they bumped the weight on your caliper when they removed the wheel from the car.

anyway good to hear your wheels are balanced and vibration is fixed. :tup:
that's not a mask, should be permanent then.

The weights on my race wheels come off all the time. Damn sticky back material on those low profile weights starts to melt at high temperatures.

dang.... :eekdance:

I had 3 different sets of spacers, all gave me vibration issues above 60mph.

I changed to my weds and it still shakes a little, even with perfectly balanced wheels and OE tires.

One thing I did notice with the spacers is that they are really sensitive to how you bolt them on, and how much your torque them to. I did my spacers in the proper cross pattern and torqued them (with the car in the air) to 110ft/lbs.

Once I did that, the vibration went away until about 80mph.

I have yet to get my car aligned though... >_<

hummmm.... ive had spacers on several of my cars including my current G and Z (while using stock wheels). no virbration. these are built-in stud type. ive tried them all... H&R, Eibach, Kics, Ichiba. none had vibration issues. ichiba has craftsmanship issue but that's another story...

none of my stud replacement types had vibration either.

I just want to toss it out there that I finally googled "spacers and wheel vibration" and the most talked about solution is a wheel balance.
I think.

Just for a quick check, take the front spacers off and remount the rims. If the vibration goes away, its not a balance issue. This is how I found out my spacers were causing my vibration.

Does anyone have/had vibration when hard braking from 65mph after installing spacers?

A vibration while braking is a brake rotor that is not true,more than likely it was caused by the lug nuts not being evenly tightened.

And to answer your question no I have not.

you getting vibration?? talk to lou cause I didnt have any

Yeah slight vibration while braking but don't really have any vibration at high speeds. I wanted to see if anyone was experiencing it before I bugged Lou about it. I'll give him a call next couple days see what he says.

:iagree: :shakes head:

hi. i just installed a set of ichiba spacers V2 20mm rear and V1 15mm front and i now have a slight vibration at 70-75mph... the mechanic that installed them was a certified master mechanic and is also the GT-R mechanic from my dealer. any suggestions on what i should do?