Thread: So I'm oficially in desperate need of some suspension advice.

I know Irish mikes, but they're way back where I used to live. The only way I would drive all the way down there is if I had a reason to head up to UCF.

After a while of searching I couldn't find the stock weight distribution of any B14 cars. =/

Tire on stock 200SX SER B14

195/55/15 gives you a tire dia of 23.44

( tire dia )23.44 - 15 ( rim dia ) = 8.44 of tire on both sides

8.44 / 2 = 4.22

This means you rim to road thickness is 4.22 inches




These are the tires you have considered

225/50/17 tires give you a dia of 25.86 ( On car now ) 4.43 tire to raod clearance

225/45/17 tires give you a dia of 24.97 ( This Size comes on a 04-07 Subaru STI ) 4.0 tore to road clearance

225/40/17 tires give you a dia of 24.09


Bellow are the tires that come on the 3.5L Maxima 2004

245/45/18 tires give you a dia of 26.68 ( SE Maxima ) 4.34 tire to road clearance

225/55/17 tires give you a dia of 26.74 ( SL Maxima ) 4.87 tire to road clearance

Now as you know the SE is the sport handling model and as we know less tire to road clearance will make the car handle better but give you a more harsh ride. ( way over exagerated as I am sure you dont here people in Maxima SEs complaining about this.



First off here is my opinion on your tire option of 225/50/17. This tire option is way off. If you look at the Maxima you will notice a heavier car can have more side wall to eat up the extra weight of the car going over bumps. The Maxima is about 500 pounds heavier than your car. Less weigh on your car can have less tire to road clearance while and having the same driver comfort.

I would go with

235/40/18 gives you a tire dia of 25.40 = tire to road clearance of 3.70

This tire would have way better handling characteristics and better 1/4 mile tracktion. Kumho Exta MX $135 each. I would get the Brigstone Potenza RE01R, best tire I ever had, I had these on my STI, but at $245 can be a little scary on the pocket.


If your car understeers then you have some choices you can do to get this fixed.

1. run a tire that is stickier up front. ( less skidding in front )
2. run higher tire presures out back. ( will induce tire slipage out back to neutralize car )
3. run stiffer springs out back
4. run a swaybar or larger sway bar on the back


Thats all I got.

Thanks for your input, Miko. Here's my take on some of the things you've mentioned.

My tires, in general have about the same sidewall thickness as stock. Quite honestly, I'm not sure but a Stock Sentra might understeer LESS (although I am basing my problems off an already stiff suspension, so I could be wrong). The extra sidewall causes excessive lateral movement in the car in relation to the road contact. I may consider lower profiles next time, like 225/45 or 225/40.

I don't want to go with 18s, 17s are already too big for me and the only 16's that clear my brakes are no longer in production. I wish for 16s, because I want to take my car to the strip from time to time and I need slicks.

Anyhow, I disagree a little about the higher tire pressure. In a straight line, lower tire pressure increases your footprint, but in corners, your tire rolls over itself onto the sidewall causing LESS traction. Increasing my rear tire pressure would only cause them to grip more, unless I went to a ridiculously high pressure and blew them up like a balloon.

Right now, here are the options on my list:
Smaller tires (to lower the car)
sandbag the engine bay to see if it's more of a traction issue than a weight distru. issue.
sandbag the trunk to see if it is a weight distru. issue
Ikea brace behind the rear seats.
Weld my current Progress Suspension sway bar (make it a double sway bar).
Bend the rear beam

My biggest fear is not that there's too much or too little weight in the front, but that the weight is way too far off the ground. Either because the engine is a V6, or because the car is set too high, or such.

As far as the tire presure is conserned you are off alittle.

Lets start off by saying we are not talking about straight line so remove that, we are talking road racing /autocross/

If your car understeers raising the tire in the back will give you less rolling resistnce. This is a fact.

This is what Subaru guys do to get their cars to handle better as they love to understeer also. This is a tried an proven method. Worked well with me and my STI. This also works very with my SER.

This is also taught at autocross racing schools for setting up yor cars for diffrent situations.

Next a stock SER tire has to much side wall for spirited driving like going around corners.

Lets look at 2 diffrent tires.

195/55/15 tire dia 23.44 ( 4.22 inches from rim to road )
205/40/17 tire dia 23.44 ( 3.22 inches from rim to road )

Stiffer side wall means better handling.

Lastly if you go down on the over all size of your tire the car will just spin tires all the time limiting forward traciton for 1/4 mile runs and coming out of slow speed corners on the track.

The best thing is t o go up to a 18 in rim and go with the lower profile. If you go to the lower profile with the 17 inch rim you will cause more problems than you have now.


Please explain to me why 18 inch rim will be to much for your car. The larger rim will do nothing but make the car handle better, there are no negative effects.

i heard kyb/agx makes a good street racing suspension setup

+1 on the rear tire pressure. I've raised the rear tire pressure to help with rotation, since I have the stock rear sway. IIRC i found 5psi more in the rear worked well on that track, that day.

I remember seeing a figure of 67/33 for a 95 B14 SE-R. I want to say it was Road & Track. I think at one point Edmunds.com used to have this info too, but it appears to have disappeared.

I have no problem believing it though. My car had over 65% of its weight on the front wheels in TT trim (no interior rear of the driver's seat, no gutting, no ballast, 4 point roll bar). You could feel the car rotating around the dashboard on the track.

I just noticed your name here was the same as your sig on NF. That and you spent most of your time in the suspension section.

Hey guys, slight update.

First off, my apologies, I read off the wrong tire sitting in my garage, lol. It's 215/45-17. My bad.

Secondly, I softened the front dampers, It did feel better for most of the drive, but then I met a bend (something most of you would take at about 60), and nothing but tire squealing drama. As I approach the bend, I always get the feeling like I'm going to crank the wheel and the car's going to continue in a straight line.

I'm trying to figure out where I can go weigh my car, but I'm just about ready to just grab some bags of sand and put them in various parts of the car and see where I need to redistribute some of the weight.

BTW, I'm working on ideas for a rear "IKEA" brace. Although it's probably not going to be a straight sheet of metal. I'm either going to weld a brace from some rectangular steel stock, or I'm going to get some steel rod and attach some ball-joint ends, either way, it's going to be something like the following behind my rear seats:

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