i would raise the car, loosen the lugs and re-tighten evenly using the 5 star pattern to see if it helps. use 80-85ft/lbs. use a torque wrench.

if you still have vibration, remove the spacers, clean the rotor and hub, try swapping the wheels left/right and see if that helps.

if you still have vibration try swapping just the spacers left/right.

if you still have vibration get some H&R's or Eibachs.

It is not uncommon for some people to have a small vibration ,I had H&R 15mm,20mm and had a vibration @80 took them off and it went away then I tried Z1 15mm on the front the vibration was @65-75mph but it is smaller so I just leave it be.

im OC when it comes to my z....i just hate it how the steering wheel slightly vibrates at 70-80mph. :shakes head:

Dmatt ' I too installed the ichiba 15 mm on my nismo and have a Vib at 75 mph. Have you resolved the issue?

Is vibration still an issue with spacers? Im thinking of ordering some H+Rs to go with my swifts.

I've always used H&R- never had a vibration issue. IMO, with the H&R it all depends on the install. As long as they are mounted/torqued correctly, you'll be ok. I've had several pairs/types over several cars.

As far as other brand spacers go, I can't really say. Good luck.

Ccat, do you recommend the stud replacement spacers? I've read they are safer. I will be doing the occasional autocross.

Just FYI, although the common answer to that scenario is brake rotor issues, it's not the only answer by far. I've been fighting a vibration-under-high-speed-braking-only issue for months now. Been through 3 sets of rotors, changed tie rod ends, lower ball joints, wheel bearings... it's a damn nightmare to debug this. I'm hoping that during the course of my problems I actually had more than one problem, and that I've solved one of the problems already and now I'm just missing some lost wheel weights or whatever (going back for wheel balancing *again* tomorrow, which was the first thing I did in my debugging months ago).

I hadn't thought about the hubcentric rings in a long time though, so I'm glad this thread popped up and reminded me. I have plastic hubcentric rings on these Forgestars, and they've been through a lot. Maybe they're worn just a hair too much and that's contributing, and I just need to order some new plastic rings.

I personally recommend the slip on over the stud replacement- 20/25 front/rear or 25/30 if you want it to sit flush with a drop.

Over all of the spacers used throughout the years, nobody has reported a problem with them in an autocross setting. Even Porsche uses spacers on their 911 GT3. Don't sweat it.

Pull them off and try, I don't even bother with them any more. Just tighten the lugs incrementally to get everything nice and centered.

Yeah I'm always anal about lugs. I snug them by hand until I get the holes perfectly centered, then I do just half a turn or whatever to feel slightly snug with a regular half-inch wrench in a star pattern, then I switch to the torque wrench and star-pattern them first to 55 and then to 85. So I wouldn't think the rings would be an issue regardless, but I'm just scraping for any idea at this point.

Took the car down to a shop this morning to let them debug and comment on it. Don't know if they're the world's best front-end guys or not, but at least they have really nice alignment/balance/lathe equipment and they've done good work for me before, and they're nice honest guys.

Their guy says no way it could be anything but a rotor issue, the suspension is all tight, etc, esp given what I've already replaced, but of course he can't lathe my 2-piece floaters (I told him to go ahead and try anyways just for the hell of it, but it didn't go well).

All normal advice on the problem is "brake rotor issues", but I've got a pile of brand-new supposedly high quality rotors from two different manufacturers that I've run through the car and still had the same issue :(. I even checked the last 1-piece rotors (from Z1) with a dial gauge myself and they were well within spec (checking runout mounted on the car, lugnuts holding the rotor on the hub).

Some days I just feel like driving this car off a damn cliff :P

Yeah brake vibration is annoying. There are a couple of things that can cause it in a fixed caliper setup.

1) Sticking piston. If pressure from the pistons is applied unevenly to the rotor then it will distort the rotor under braking and transfer it to the hub and wheel.

2) Pads leaving deposits on rotors. I had this with the DS2500 pads, they worked great for the 1st session, started getting a little vibration in the 2nd session, and by the end of the day they shake was horrible. When I pulled the pads I could see they were wearing very quickly and tapering. I switched pads and tried to scrub off as much as I could. Eventually they came true again (2-piece AP).

3) Warped rotor, or over expanded rotor ring. For fixed mount 2-piece rotors if you get them outside of their operating temperature range they can bind up in the hat hardware and cause distortion.

Just rebuilt the calipers a couple weeks ago also, so no pistons should be sticking. Pad deposits are always a possibility, but again I keep seeing this same problem putting on new rotors, on the first trip out to bed them (and I usually only lightly bed them since I can feel the vibration and know it's all a waste at that point). Haven't run at the track lately since I can't fix this, so I haven't heated anything up enough to distort/warp anything. I guess I'll try another new pair of front rotors, but take them to a machine shop first to verify their level of perfection and/or correct on a lathe?

How can you do this without bottoming out the lug nut on the stud? without the spacer the studs are too long for the factory lugs. now open ended lugs would be fine, but not the closed ones.

The factory lugs have 15mm of headroom. But I think in this case he is talking about the Forgestar wheels.

good to know! thx

Bump.

I'm having a vibration/shaking wheel thats driving me nuts after installing 10mm ichiba spacers and studs.

Can a bent stud cause this? I cant think of anything else. I had the wheels road force balanced and now have brand new tires and still shaking. The spacers are slip on hub centric and I also have hub centric rings for my wheels.

I'm stumped. And yes I've tightened them with the front end off the ground in the typical star pattern. I'm at a loss and I'm not even sure a shop could or would be able to help out. Most wont touch spacers and even if they would, how could they figure this out any better than I can with the forum's advice.

Thanks

Have you re-torqued the lugs since driving on them? Especially with brand-new studs (I assume you swapped in 10mm extended studs to clear through the spacers), sometimes the stud isn't seated fully when you first install it. Driving and re-torquing you'll find those and tighten them down into place.

I installed them in October, so yes lol i stored the car in November and just got it out, drove two days, retorqued them, drove again, still vibrated, ordered all new tires, installed, drove, retorqued and still giving a shimmy. Today lifted the car again, dismounted, put my wife in the car to hold the brake, reinstalled and torqued them down, sat it down, and.... You guessed it... Shimmy.

One stud on the passenger gave me a little trouble last fall when installing it and it went in slightly angled but torqued the wheels down, pulled them off and it seemed to finish seating it correctly. But my worry was that maybe that one might be giving me problems somehow. I can't identify which one it is now so it looks to be good.

My second thought was, can a hub actually bend from the firm tapping when punching out the oem studs?

Aside from that the only thing left is a untrue spacer?

I have no clue how to diagnose this.

"Firm tapping"? Depends how firm it was, and if the tapping was delivered with a sledgehammer :) I've been using a little "ball joint separator" tool to press mine out instead of beating them out, something almost exactly like this thing: 3/4" Forged Ball Joint Separator. (Edit: also a good trick for installing new ones: buy a huge stack of large washers and a few cheap nuts that are the same thread as the lugnuts, stack washers over the barely-installed stud, use impact wrench w/ nut to tighten against the washer stack and seat the stud).

The hub flange itself is pretty damn thick, but what I would be more worried about than bending the flange is damaging the wheel bearings the flange rides on. If you have a dial gauge for checking e.g. rotor runout, you could try using that on the hub, but a lot of bearing issues only show up under real load, and wouldn't be apparent in the air with the wheels off. You can also try pulling on the wheels while it's lifted and seeing if you can detect unusual bearing play in one wheel relative to the others.

If it does end up being a bearing, luckily replacing bearings is easy on this car, no hydraulic press involved. The whole bearing/hub is a single unit, about $160/corner from Nissan, and you just unbolt the old one and bolt in the new one.

It was with a 3 lbs hammer yes lol but that's how everyone said to remove them. I did install them with a stack of washers just ask you described but one of them really fought me on the process and kept trying to angle up until the very end.

I checked the normal wheel bearing play and feel none.

The vibration is probably better described as a shimmy. I can feel and see it in the wheel as slow as 30mph.

So, just to recap: the shimmy was present both on the old tires and on new tires mounted+balanced on the same rims, right? Basically, if it's not a mechanical bearing/hub issue from the stud install, one would expect a front-end shimmy to be a tire/wheel problem (damage, mfg defect, bad balance (weights fell off?)), so this all seems very strange.

If the tires/wheels are fine, you might try having an alignment shop look at everything while doing a realignment. Usually a front-end shimmy is not actually an alignment problem, but they might notice that some bushing or ball-joint somewhere is worn out and causing it, or some nut on some adjuster has come loose, etc. But maybe have a second shop rebalance the wheels first? It's usually like $40 tops to rebalance them all. Look for one with a Road Force machine (which normally isn't necessary, but might catch more-subtle issues).

Another thought: how confident are you there's no physical issue with the spacers from a mfg defect? You could pull them off and measure all around them with a caliper to confirm uniform thickness. Or just try driving the exact same setup but with the spacers removed (assuming your wheels don't rub that way). There should be headroom in the lugs if you went to extended studs, probably.

In a similar vein (and sorry if I'm going over stuff you already know!): be sure the mating surfaces of everything involved are clean of dirt and rust buildup. The front face of the hub flange, both sides of the spacer, and the inside face of the wheel center. Use sandpaper or something similarly aggressive to clear out the rust, and then make sure it's cleaned after that to get sand particles off.

I did not have this problem prior to the slip on spacer install. I had 15mm bolt on spacers and there was no shimmy.

Old tires had the shimmy and I replaced them Tuesday with brand new tires (all around) and the shimmy still exists. It basically HAS to be something to do with the newer slip on spacers or the new longer studs. I just dont know how to identify which is wrong other than buying another set, perhaps H&R this time instead of the cheaper ichibas that I'm running now. Rear spacers are bolt on Z1s that were on the front.

I appreciate the detail and double checking you are suggesting! I will pull them off again this weekend and sand everything down, though I did wipe them down prior to installing. I havent had the car up to speed (anything over 40) in the past day since having the front up in the air and trying for the 4th time. :rofl2:

I'll try again and keep you posted. I dont have any means of checking thickness so maybe I'll go pick up my caliper set from my mothers garage (yes, I'm 31, a home owner, married, etc and I have yet to pick up ALL of my tools from her garage:icon17: ).

Thanks!!

Well I havent been over 50 yet but earlier before I got started the wheel was shimmying beginning at 30mph.

I pulled the passenger side wheel and spacer and installed a friends G35 wheel and took it for a drive. Didnt notice much shimmy at all so I inspected the spacer and found a tiny amount of "lip", just enough to feel with my finger, around the bolt holes where the wheel would be resting, perhaps manufacturing flaws. I sanded those down, reinstalled the spacer and then threw the G35 wheel on both fronts and found no shimmy up to 50.

From there I put the passenger wheel back on and left the g35 wheel on the driver side and took it for a spin to eliminate the possibility of it being the passenger wheel. All drove fine.

Lastly, I installed both of my k3 projekt wheels and took it for a drive up to 50-55... no noticeable shimmy.

Hopefully it was the tiny amount of burr or lip around the holes and where the wheel rested against causing the shimmy. I dont see how something so small such as burrs around the holes on the slip on spacer and mounting surface could cause it so I'm not very optimistic about this being completely cured. I'll know tomorrow once I get it out on the highway.

What a pain in the butt.

With those kinds of errors, it really doesn't take much to cause a problem. If you have a local machine shop (everyone does, you just have to find them!) they could probably double-check the spacer and plane them correctly without messing up the hub-centric lip.

Drove it to work today and no steering wheel shimmy. Seems to be resolved. Crazy that a small lip on the holes as thick as a few hairs could cause a visible left and right shimmy on the steering wheel at low speeds.