9AM S13 Suspension Refresh
Confession: We have been making moves in silence for the last couple of weeks. The 9AM social media has had a post here and there, some story shares, but no big marketing pushes or exciting new memes. With that being said there has been a big project undergoing in the garage and that would be a complete suspension overhaul of our beloved S13! So let's talk about the who, what, when, where, and why, regarding our little touge / grip mini monster, affectionately named ‘Silvia’, and dive into some of the products we chose and what we offer here at 9AM!
“The S13 has seen some things man” (shaky old man voice). Like a tattered Vietnam vet; battle has taken its toll on the ole’ girl through the last decade and a half I have owned her. We have run what seems like tens of thousands of hours on the touge and traveled probably over 100k across California, Arizona, Nevada, etc. There has always been a thin line between the mantra “don’t fix what ain’t broke” and preventative maintenance. After all, there's an even thinner line between life and death when you are in those triple digits on mountain back roads in the middle of the night and quite frankly, I think the S13 was always “just enough” to keep the rubber down.
Times change, fads change, metal rusts, and rubber disintegrates. Fortunately for Silvia, She has an owner with a bleeding heart for her (pats myself on the back). So let's quickly flashback to some of the “new” parts we have run over a decade ago!
2012-13? The bright-colored suspension was the jam! These were a replacement pair of LCA's that (for some reason) I decided to splatter paint? IDK man, I think the theory was that the brighter your suspension the more angle it looked like you had at lock lol.
2011-12? Had to hit em' with the splattered z32's as well. Once again I have no idea what was happening, but, I will say the idea was executed well! Post-college art phase perhaps?
2011-12? With The orange splattered tie rods as well? What a time to be alive!
2013? Busted Godspeed control arms? In all fairness, I put their catalog through hell back then and I really can't hate on em'!
Anyway Let's jump forward a decade plus to modern-day; Things are smoked. What initially began with a routine brake job quickly snowballed into "well I am in here"... So let's look at the new and new-ish components installed on Silvia!
-REAR-
With the bushings completely blown out of our 30+ year-old knuckles, the ball joints toasted in our RLCAs, play in the wheel bearings, and the brakes being down to an un-lockable amount, the decision was made to essentially upgrade everything that had play or wear and tear.
KNUCKLES:
Realistically there are only a couple of key players in the aftermarket for the rear knuckle; we chose to go with the GK Tech rear drop knuckle. Realistically, GK Tech is one of the last few companies in constant development for Nissan S chassis parts and components (which we adore) and the v2 with revised kinematics is the newest available from any manufacturer. That being said, we are about 30 minutes down the road from Parts Shop Max (PBM for us old guys) here in San Diego and they make a fantastic knuckle as well. Tommy (at Parts Shop Max) has always picked up the phone for us and offers a huge wealth of knowledge being an S-chassis owner himself. Truthfully you can't go wrong with either brand and since we don't offer either here at 9AM, I can be non-biased about that.
Accompanying the GK Tech Knuckles are a pair of Techno Toy Tuning complete hub assemblies. This is a new product that filled a void in the market for us who want to remain 4lug thugs. Before their 4/5 lug hubs, you would have to order bearings and have them pressed onto your existing hubs by a machine shop (or us and kanyon in his yard a handful of times throughout the years.) The complete hub assemblies come bare with a set of lugs to choose the bolt pattern of your liking. I called and spoke with the boys over at T3 and they said the bearings are coming out of the same factory as Timken, so rest assured these should hold up extremely well.
ARMS:
As most of you know we have been rocking the SPL PARTS catalog of arms for years. SPL is a USA company that offers high-end CNC aluminum and titanium products for a variety of performance vehicles. SPL also makes the arms directly for NISMO USA, which are identical to most of the Nissan components offered on their website (although Nismo offers red anodizing). With a quick wipe down and only a single rod end needing replacing, the SPL Arms were as good as new!
For the Rear Lower control arm, we chose to keep it OEM plus with a set of GK Tech weld-in reinforcement plates and new MOOG ball joints. The bushings were replaced with Energy polyurethane some years back by Kanyon and have held up fantastically.
COILOVERS:
The Apexi Coilovers have been kickin' on the car since late 2021 when our friends at HRSPWR Industries (Karlo) got these hooked up for us! The Apexi coilovers are specifically valved for USA roads and offer fantastic handling and fine-tuning with their ride height and dampening adjustability.
BRAKES:
With our car being a grip monster, having a super cool hydro isn't the highest priority (although they do look cool!). With that being said, we installed a set of the Phase 2 Motortrend rear brake rotors and EBC Yellow pads. Over the years we have experimented with different brake setups and pad compounds and found Project Mu and EBC to be top-tier. The EBC Yellow are the only pads we have not faded in a touge run thus we stuck with what we know! *Sidenote, we may be hydro'n the car at some point soon but it's definitely low on the priority list*
BRACING:
KTS Subframe Braces are one of those "backshelf" items we picked up a couple of years ago. After thumbing through the "cool spec braces" thread on Zilvia, We hunted these down through RHD Japan. They are essentially (or likely the same) as Nismo 'Rear Member Brace' units and are now discontinued through both KTS and Nismo. They essentially brace the entire upper section of the subframe where all the arms mount (assuming this is for deflection and or flex).
GK Tech makes another appearance on the chassis bracing section. The Toe Arm Brace is an incredibly beefy item that not only joins the mounting points of the toe arms, but doubles as an eccentric lockout kit with its provided washers and hardware. Less shifting and flex is the name of the game and a brace this beefy offers just that.
AXLES:
OEM is the move on the axles. With huge community feedback, the reality is all aftermarket axles (especially the parts stores) are junk. If you have a set of clean OEM axles, run them. Could we have upgraded to some 1000hp axles for an egregious amount of cash? probably, but we don't over-build here (or try not to haha)! We inspected and cleaned up the OEMs and allocated that saved cash for energy drinks and a proper alignment.
SWAY BAR LINKS:
A timeless classic, Energy Suspension bushings offer incredibly long life and with oem hardware fetching less than a 12-pack of your favorite drink; they make for an even more affordable performance solution than any aftermarket (IMHO). We are running a tried and true Godspeed Sway bar front and rear. Godspeed is the only company on the market making a SOLID sway bar and as a fun fact, that's because of us! A decade ago we were running their hollow and snapped it on the touge (no crash involved). Godspeed sent us out a "prototype" solid sway bar and after some R&D it went into production and still is to this day!
That pretty much wraps up the rear! Having turned a lot of wrenches back there over the years, everything had been touched previously. The Joy of this is that there is no rust, no stripped bolts, and no drama.
-FRONT-
Full Disclosure, the front was somewhat of an afterthought. We knew most of the components in the front were tolerable, with the exception of the ball joints being a decade old. However, The reality is that we wanted roll center correction for the lowered car and figured "Well, while I am in here" type of thing and took to the front for a refresh.
KNUCKLES:
Once again this is not a drift build S-Chassis (gasp)! Yes, we guys who love huggin' the turns to the max rather than sliding them do exist. Don't worry, we still clutch kick the hell out of the car and slide everywhere, drifting simply isn't the main focus of this build. Fortunately, GK Tech knows how to attract us grip guys and offer their fabricated "grip" knuckles which offer weight reduction and above all, roll center correction kinematics. For comparison, the knuckles in photo 2 are at the same top mounting point on the coilover, you can see the roll center correction in the hub mount height.
ARMS:
As you saw at the beginning of this blog; our S13 FLCA was last installed over a decade ago. Thus a refresh of those was either sandblast, new ball joints, bushings, etc., or alternatively, get a new set. We sprung for the Moog units. Since I had some extra Nismo stickers and Nismo FLCA are literally OEM with some shiny silver, I slapped em' on. Next time we are up in NorCal, likely Kanyon will weld some braces in them for that true Nismo rep flex lol!
SPL Tension Rods remain intact after rod-end inspection. The same can be said about Godspeed solid sway bar and Apexi coilovers. Two years ago Kanyon and I replaced the rack and pinion as well as the tie rods which remain in spec.
BRAKES:
Yes, the rotors are rusty on the hats. We are located about two blocks from the beach here in San Diego so that is inevitable. An EBC Yellow pad refresh a couple of years back shows that pads and rotors are still in spec and have plenty of life.
Thus that completes the front and rear suspension refresh! The suspension of these cars is incredibly basic which makes for easy maintenance and replacement. The S13 will be off to the alignment shop to get the specs dialed in for the next few years of touge abuse!
Thank you all for reading this long blog. We hope to provide you with some of our first hand experience regarding the S-Chassis and as always we are only a call, text, email, or DM away from helping you get parts for your ride!
-9AM Nissan S-Chassis Parts Catalog-
🏁Cheers from 9AM!🏁