To add to your statement. I've been working on cars for 16 years and though steering and suspension is not my forte, it was here in 2021 and I believe you pointed it out about scrub radius. A radius I've heard before but never really cared to research one that suddenly explains the hows and whys.

If you think about it 90% of folks who lower cars don't clock bushings and either go with a offset closer to 0 or spacers and dont matter what they do they kill their suspension over time/ car doesnt drive the same/ unfixable tire wear and all of these angles show the why.
Kind of funny because after so long my OCD was almost in the accepting stage on how things just are and the reality was that I was wrong. The cool part is that so are 90% of folks that do this as well

Also boomer, If your stock suspension lasted 100k modified, replacing these wont give you another 100k. More like it will last in the range of mileage you put since the new setup. So if you added suspension upgrades at 75k and they crapped out at 100k. New bushings might last you between 20k-30k which is BS to me. That's 2 maybe 3 years of driving and not something I would like to do again.

 

Yes, I have been cursed with seeing what goes on in terms of making engineering decisions on a car.

Any mass produced car is designed to work in a staggering amount of situations.

So whenever I modify, my brain goes into listing all the concerns I'll need to address and their individual weighted effects on the specific situation I plan to use the car in.

For a daily driver, its especially difficult. Because I live in a place that can be like the arctic one day...and like the tropics the next. As well as traveling to different places, etc etc etc. Its why I barely modify (or don't modify) my DD's.

Even my "hobby" cars are modded very conservatively, in extremely pointed/specific ways to make them work.

I'm boring asf, bruv. I'm like buzz killington.

The upside? I usually don't run into issues lol. Or at least I have some idea on the necessary adjustments to cure said issues.

 

I think I've seen you mention to clock the bushings when lowering suspension before, and it makes sense.
Also, if I were to replace the ball joints, which I believe are the bushings in question for clocking, I'd replace with OEM equal control arms with bushings already in them. Or do even the OEM aftermarket parts still not last as long as true factory OEM parts?

 

I LOL every time someone thinks they can just slam the car and improve it's handling. Why didn't the OEM think of this?

 

Hey man, to each their own. If anything you're being smarter than most people in reality, because a lot of us (myself included) just want their cars to look and sound better than stock. Reliability being in the back of our minds lol or at least not what we're most worried about.

 

Ball joints don't need clocking. They're bearings...so they can orient themselves.

Bushings are the rubber peices that are bonded to the ends of shocks or suspension arms.

As the suspension goes through its bump/rebound cycle, those bushings have no choice but to twist.

Clocking them means that you set them to be NOT twisted at static ride height. When the car is sitting on even pavement, the bushings are not twisting.

Again...when you move the suspension, the bushings have to twist.

The bushing is designed to twist within a range of movement.

If the bushing is always pre-twisted at ride height because they're not clocked properly....they're going to over weaken, and tear over time. They'll also going to over-extend their range of motion when you hit bumps or the suspension rebounds.

Here. this may help...

 

Ahh that makes sense. I thought Infiniti had bushings in the ball joints too, but they're bearings..? That's interesting. I mean it makes sense because of their needed functionality, but I didn't know they were actual bearings.
That makes sense about the actual bushings too. I thought the shafts going into the bushings could twist inside but if that was the case they wouldn't need clocked... So that explanation helped me understand that a lot better.

 

Yep. All ball joints and tie rods are a type of bearing. They're a ball that floats on some sort of race.

Some cars use bearings in place of bushings too.

Infinti uses a ton of bonded rubber. The rear suspension only has 1 ball joint on the UCA. The rest of the 7 million arms back there are on twisting rubber bushings.

To answer your question about OEM vs aftermarket parts...

In short, 99.9% of aftermarket parts are inferior as compared to factory. Modern genuine factory parts are as good as its going to get. Anything that's even equivalent to a factory part is going to cost a LOT more than a factory part.

Economically speaking, and using rules of manufacturing, it doesn't make sense to have an aftermarket part thats as good as the factory part...but costs less.

 

What about aftermarket parts that claim to be of OEM quality? ie - Dorman control arms for example. Dorman claims to be equivalent to OEM.

 

They're not lol. That's the best answer I can give.

They have a pretty liberal definition of "better than or equivalent to factory parts". Its borderline lying.

They may take some irrelevant test data that surpasses some non-critical OEM function and claim their part is better.

I couldn't explain this scam to you without writing a novel.

Furthermore, a lot of these companies are just relabelers. They buy the product from (x) manufacturer. They relabel. And sell. So THEY don't even know wtf they're getting. Its insanity...like...who makes the specifications? Who's making the part? Are they buying from another relabeler?

An factory chassis part on a Japanese car can last 200-300K.

I did an expirement on my Acura before. At 176K, my factory upper control arms were still good. Wanna know how long Beck Arnley arms lasted?

5K miles. Until the ball joint was absolutely trashed. I have a youtube video somewhere....

I've had the same experiences with bushings collapsing in 2-3K miles, etc.

I would never use an aftermarket part with any semblance of confidence.

Sorry for the rant/TMI

 

Hey it's useful info to me at least. Keep ranting for all I care lol So how do you get actual OEM parts? Do you have to order from Infiniti/Nissan directly? Or find used parts with low miles?
I'm going to need new arms and ball joints at some point so rant all you want if that's what you need to do lol

 

To further solidify this point, the G37 coupe I had before my sedan had over 250k miles before the suspension needed any work done to it at all... And it wasn't even falling apart, it was just screeching like nails on a chalkboard anytime the suspension was moving...
I drove that thing like I was stolen every day between 200k and 250k miles. So even in the last chapter of its life when everything had every reason to fail, it stood up to my driving... and two autocross events

 

The safest bet is to find a Infinti/Nissan dealer with good pricing. If you search a part number on google, you'll find a link to an infinti usa parts site. You can then just click through their dealers and find someone selling at an advantageous price.

Or...buy from a reputable seller who is sourcing the parts from Nissan/Infinti and is selling them using the Nissan/Infinti part number. Z1 does this...and I'm sure other trusted shops do too.

Lower ball joints hold up the entire weight of that corner of the car (Double Wishbone suspension design). There are a ton of threads online about people breaking their aftermarket ball joints in like...no miles.

The lack of R&D at these companies is only paralleled by their lack of care.

Think about it like this. You bought your car from Infinti and you trust it to work/not kill you because they're a name with a reputation that has done their OWN rigorous testing. Their parts are known to be problem free for 200-300-400+K miles.

Beck Arnley or SPC or Dorman or whomever buys their parts from (supplier x). You'll never know who they are. And you'll never know if batch A came from (supplier Y) and batch B came from (supplier z). If the part breaks...well...you can't hold an unknown company's reputation against them...and BA/SPC are probably SOL too. Your car's damages aren't covered. And a huge failure rate is acceptable (to them).

Like...you've seen threads where people are like, "hey my Moog control arms say SPC on them". Score!

Holy crap. Moog is buying from SPC who's buying from (someone), who's buying from that guy's cousin's mom's brother's uncle's barber....whos buying it from...someone else...idk...

Like...if I told you that I'd sell you a part made by some guy who's name I don't even remember...and told you that according to this guy...the part you're buying is top notch. And even though you never heard of him, his part is designed and made better than the people who made the car in the first place. And I'm gonna sell it to you for 1/3 of what the factory part costs. Pretty sure he did some testing in his back yard, idk. Feel comfortable?

Huge difference from when/if an OEM part fails. The company would issue a recall and you would be reimbursed or compensated for time/damage.

 

Lol hey don't get me wrong. I can recklessly hotrod cars too.

Just kidding.

I'm not capable.

 

That makes sense. And no, I would not be comfortable with that at all... Alright, so I am armed with at least a little bit of knowledge on this now.