Wandering Stagea

[fcruz3r]

Ummm, it doesnt seem completely normal to me.

I dont believe my Stagea (S1 , Jan 97) suffers from what you desribe.

Doesnt wander, doesnt track offcentre, and I still havent had a wheel alignment done to it yet.

Mods: Bilstein shocks, standard springs, 360mm ride height all round (centre of wheel to arch), 17inch R34 GTT wheels with 235/45 tyres, and Whiteline 'pineapples'. Whiteline front caster kit not yet fitted.

Im honestly very happy with the handling, I mean its no Lambo but for what the Stagea is its great - as we all well know. Albeit Im a careful driver, I havent come across your described problem in my car (have with a Pulsar N15 hatch tho!!! long story....)

It'll be wear & tear on a particlar item I guess. Has you car got signs of accident damage? Have you replaced all the undercarrage bushes, etc? What condition are your tyres in? Is your current suspension old/new, installed properly? etc etc...... power steeing fluid/lines, steering rack, plenty of things to go thru.

Id had enough of the mucking around with our kittedout N15 hatch, that was a nightmare in regards to wandering characteristics and we never got it properly sorted in the end. Oh, and the 3 clutches in 20thou kms! Was in Hot 4s tho on the backpage, so that was good for a laugh.

Best of luck with it, would be good to get different opinions from different workshops perhaps, time permitting. Maybe take out the hicas and put in the lock bar? Cant be of much help tho, sorry.

my stag is a 97 S1 ..running 17*8 with 235/45's ...tien s-techs with factory shocks ..it doesnt handle near as good as an STi but i can run 120km/h on the freeway without any drama when changing lanes ...potholes dont throw the steering off that much...but thats prolly due to the lighter rims. i haven't done the alignments yet as tyre wear seems pretty even with a slight negative camber on the rear and straight line travel is still pretty good....however hearing what u guys said...im definately having second thoughts about switching to coilovers

[Stinky Rooster]

I gotta say that my S1 is without a doubt the nicest handling wagon I have ever owned / driven - mind you, i am comparing it to a 92 EB, a 79 HZ and a 78 TD Cortina .

I am running 17x8 / 225 on all 4 corners and it sticks to the road like poop on a babies blanket.

All stock too. I can't comment on tyre wear as they are all new and I have only owned it for 2 weeks.

I was gonna ask about the castor kit, but I think I will wait until it looks like it will need it

[oxford1327]

at this stage there isn't much left umder the car that isn't new it has in the last 12 months had all of the following fitted/ done.

custom adjustable konis and springs 30%stiffer than stock.

adjustable upper camber arms and traction arms in the rear.

upper camber adjusters and caster kit in the front all nolathane(this week)

selby adjustable swaybar in front and a whiteline adjustable one in the rear.

looking at getting rear camber kits from whiteline in next 2 weeks to get rid of "squeaky" camber arms in rear.

tires are regularly rotated too.

there doesn't appear to be any accident damage present underneath that we can see.

neither of the racks appear to be leaking any fluid or look to be loose in any way.

so we are thinking it may be a similar thing to some of the hondas that had 4wheel steer that when you align them you are sposed to have a special plug on the rear rack so it holds it dead centre?

as it may be pullin the rears around a tad when gettin it on the hoist etc... i dunno the alignment guys are ringin the maker of the alignment machine a swell as nissan to see what they reckon?????

[Sydneykid]

When you say “wander”, do you mean high speed stability, as in you have to keep adding minor corrections to keep it straight? Or do you mean tram lining, where it follows the grooves worn in the road?

I can’t see anything major wrong with the wheel alignment, minor fiddling really. May not fix the problem, but worth trying.

Front

Camber it has 0.04 degrees more negative on the left, not worth worrying about

It has toe out 0.3 mm, I would aim for zero toe.

It has 0.14 degrees more caster on the left front, that’s not usually enough to counteract the road camber (to the gutter), I would try for 0.25 more on the left than the right.

Rear

It has total toe out 0.3 mm, I would aim for 1 mm of toe in each side

There is a very slight toe difference side to side, +0.05 RHS and -0.02 RHS. May be worthwhile trying.

Camber looks OK, now that they have adjusted it.

Some questions to ask while you are there;

Did they zero the HICAS when they did the rear alignment?

Have they checked the front and rear steering rack free play?

What I have noticed with my Stagea is that it is sensitive to tyres and tyre pressure. It will tram line rather badly when the tyres are worn or the pressures too low. GTR’s are much the same. It is much more noticeable with the wider R33GTR wheels (17 x 9) and 245/40/17 tyres than it was with the standard wheels and 225/50/16 tyres. As usual tyres with square shoulders are noticeably worse then those with rounded shoulders. A little more camber usually works to alleviate tram lining due to square shoulders

But that’s all tram lining stuff, mine doesn’t wander at speed, it tracks dead straight. It doesn’t drift to the left either. It has similar alignment specs to yours.

Cheers

[oxford1327]

mine is basically at any speed if you let the wheel go it will swing left on left camber road, and likewise if road is cambered to right it just swings off the road, it i sn't a violent pull but more like you have to keep hand weight on the wheel at all times or you would end up in the bush.

i will offer your suggestions to the guys and see what they say as at this point i have printed off pretty much the entire stagea suspenders thread that you have a lot of posts in and they are running off that for settings etc...

it would be nice if it was tramlining cos at least it might stay on the road when i let the wheel go

[oxford1327]

also how do you mean "zero the hicas" where and how is this done????

and the rack does not seem to have any play that we can establish as i have never seen the thing move at a standstill or does it only work at speed???

[AlexCim]

I wouldnt think that thats anything to worry about.

Mine does 100% the same thing, is 100% spot on the alignment settings, is almost brand new suspension bits.

One thing I did notice though, is Stagea steering is very very light when compared to my Camry.

[oxford1327]

hey SK.

i was wondering if you could clarify about "zeroing" the hicas is this an electronic adjustment or merely a mechanical change on ther rack itself?

if you could pm me would be awesome so i can try and get this thing sorted ASAP.

cheers oxford