Thats all well and good, and If I was wanting to sell something like that then thats a similar promo to what you would say but .....
C'mon...
You really think the subframe moves after its clamped in place ?
It might if the tires were solid and the suspension had no springs and you hit it really hard....
90% of that video is not really telling the truth ...

Once the subframe is bolted into position, and the alignment is done , then thats it , that becomes the home position for all the geometry, I agree that if you remove it and reinstall it if you dont have some way to relocate it in the same position it would bugger up the origianl settings, but you would realign and start again...
To say some of those claims are stretching the truth is an understatement

 

Perhaps, but I think you should reserve judgment until you try them for yourself. I'm not a race driver like some of you out there, but heck I could tell the difference.

 

You really miss the point there GT-R Glenn. I've had this fitted to my R34 too and the difference was instantly evident.

It's not so much that the subframe moves around it's that it never lines up dead straight with the chassis in the first place. Even if you get your alignment done the geometry will always be at an angle, therefore not squared up properly. Ever seen geometry print outs? Ever wondered why L/R readings are different. This misalignment might be the culprit, along with wear and lot of other reasons. It's just a simple way to add more accuracy to the whole feel of the car. If you value feel and responsiveness and like to get the best out of a precisely set up geometry then this is one mod that's worth doing. In fact manufacturers should all be using collars like these in the first place!

 

thats a nice idea.. but holy crap theyre expensive for some little bits of aluminium

 

engineering and machine time: they ain't cheap!

 

Are they reusable?

 

Looks like a very good idea as long as everything is within an acceptable tolerance on the car you're fitting these too. If the tolerances for the body are on the + side in terms of positioning in x and y and the holes on the subframes and chassis members on the - side of positioning in x and y then I can't see how these would fit as the tolerance has been dramatically reduced, and if they just about do then they'll put a lot of force on welds and the like if they're forced.

I do like the idea though, I'm just talking from the point of view of car assembly. The tolerances aren't for assembly ease as the marriage of chassis and body these days are controlled by a camera system or by using location pins which are in datum points on opposite sides of the body, the gaps that are referred to in the video are there to make up for the manufacturing discrepancies within the parts and the body when manufactured in body in white. If these discrepancies are present and you try using one of these collars, the parts just aren't going to fit.

I certainly would like to try these out and experience the difference first hand as the video evidence looks very positive!

Thanks for posting about them Aki, I'm glad they work for you too! :thumbsup:

 

Hang on 250USD (almost) EACH? or per set?

We have a whole host of CnC lathes, im sure we can produce these way cheaper that 250 a set ?! it is just a compressed collar, i think for each set you need maybe 5-6 dimensions to make them fit. They do work, the guys in the Subaru community have been doing similar "locking" collars for the rear ends for a long time.

 

Its ok I understand what they are saying, Im also saying most of it is twaddle ...

Oh, like my first post....nothings changed

I wonder what the angle difference in lets say 1mm across a 700mm chassis rail is ...

 

Hmm if your offset in the front and offset in the back, would be pretty hard to Square up, no matter how much you tweek the alignment Geometry, unless you knew how much off set there was to begin with at the base. Tis not very expensive if you ask me, especially for those who have street legal race cars, how much did you spend to get there, and you balk at 40,000JPY, not a true entusiast.

 

Hey guys,

Well look - all I'm doing is letting people know about this product which has only been made available for our cars recently, and ASFAIK in Japan only. Figured some of you would like to know what the latest developments in the world of GTR tuning are (and welcome too, as everyone else seems to be intent on introducing new stuff for the R35 only...). A worthy option to think about if you're as obssessed with your car as I am.

Reuseable - probably - Dino do you know?

Cost - yes. Even the guys at Spoon told me that their customers are usually a bit surprised at the price for something so small - but they asked me to reserve judgment until I drove the car, and then consider whether 40,000 yen (total for front AND rear) was worth the difference in feel.

My personal conclusion is - 40,000 yen is CHEAP for the difference (at least it is here in Japan). 40,000 yen is not even 2 performance tires here in Japan. And won't even get you one Rays forged wheel. A couple of dinners in Tokyo, maybe.

To put things into perspective, the Nismo Performance Dampers which I recently installed, and also improved the feel of the car (but with the added drawback of losing my front towing hooks) cost 100,000 yen. I can't see them either when I'm driving...

 

Well look - all I'm doing is letting people know about this product which has only been made available for our cars recently, and ASFAIK in Japan only. Figured some of you would like to know what the latest developments in the world of GTR tuning are (and welcome too, as everyone else seems to be intent on introducing new stuff for the R35 only...). A worthy option to think about if you're as obssessed with your car as I am.

Thanks for this Aki :thumbsup: :clap:

I'm always happy to hear about something new developed for our cars, especially in times where everybody goes nuts about the R35. Think we all can happy that at least some companies still do some developement for our cars. And if they are really as good as you say I'm sure they are well woth the money

Guess I'll drop Miguel an e-mail to get me a set of these

Cheers,

Leo

 

Hey all - for those who are only interested in big power or otherwise making your cars go faster in a straight line, then don't bother to continue reading.

Glen should have stopped here

 

Yeah I agree, for those that don't value feel as much as they do boost and power then I can understand why this must seem trivial.

As far as I know the built in spacer part of the collars deforms as it's sandwiched between the subframe and chassis. Depending on how much it deforms will probably allow you to figure out if they are reusable or not.

 

...Still $680nzd?

 

Thanks Leo!

If you do get them, would be nice to get your objective feedback. Could be that Dino and I have been drinking too much radioactive water since March 11, LOL.

Aki

 

Will do :thumbsup:

But could be hard to tell cause I also have some Cusco adjustable tension rods and some KTS adjustable upper arms to go on the car, which I'm sure will also make some difference :nervous:

Do you need to get your car realigned after installing the rigid collars???

Cheers,

Leo

 

I just finished rebuilding the gearbox on my wife's Honda Jazz. Honda's have a lot of play in the subframe bolts compared to a Skyline.

I do like the idea but they will be a corrosion nightmare on salty UK roads.

 

Interesting idea. Wouldn't be difficult to get some reasonably priced collars made locally. Wonder what grade of aluminium they use...looks like plasticine grade according to the video !

Must admit, corrosion would worry me too. The subframe bolts often seize as it is.
Bonkers Japanese prices as usual.

 

There selling, your buying.

I'm with Glenn.

 

Ive never even seen an alignment machine that can see 1/100th of a degree...
so a 1mm / 700mm width = .00142 °
Im sure some people will swear they are fantastic, and thats fine and if they think they can feel an improvement, thats fine too.

 

Debate team in high school, huh Glenn

 

Assuming they do stop movement, it is only lateral movement between the subframe bolts and the oversized holes in the bushes (properly torqued up they won't move laterally anyway, but heh, so what ) They then go to show how a lateral stiffening of the union apparently reduces suspension spring / damper vertical movement over bumps. All credibility is then lost, for me. Sounds a lovely margin for CNC machined soft alloy bobbins though. Good luck to them, makes a change from magnets around the fuel line.

 

Maybe the concept is being taken the wrong way. Think of it like this It solidifies a weak point were the metal is suseptable to flex, yea the sub is bolted, and the body is not sliding in its position, but its flexing at the points of torque somewhat like a spring. These collars provide a more solid base by filling the gap, and allows the enegy created by the road to be dispersed more unifomly through the frame, Im sure the degree of off set that is eliminated in the alignment is a by product, redistrubting the enegery created by the car moving up and down like a spring at the torquing points is what the real job of this mod is. Its a more solid mating of the platforms hence the car aint bouncing at its core something that bushings and coilovers cant fix.

Its Physics, the redirection of energy.

 

It's *ollocks, the redirection of wealth, Spoon's way, IMHO

 

If the join between the subframe and the car body requires a piece aluminium alloy to increase the surface area of contact, then there is not enough tensile energy on the bolt.

It all seems like a con to me. What about the contact patch bewteen the bolt head and the underside of the subframe?

 

LOL.

 

Most of the "pitch" in the vid is bollocks.

 

LOL you guys make me laugh... all this analysis from behind the keyboard is impressive! Seriously though, my analysis from behind the wheel shows that either my fingers are either now 10X more sensitive (radiation in the air?), or that these things work.

But yeah the video sucks -maybe there's a reason they use a Prius to demonstrate (these guys are Honda tuners...). And yes my post sounded like an advert (thanks Miguel for pointing that out) so my apologies if I came across that way.

And yes, if 40,000 yen is too much for you, then it's not a high priority item - I'd spend the money elsewhere on something more basic for sure.