flatout Posted April 28 Author Share Posted April 28 I heard back from APEX and they are making and sending me a new set of arms that is correct. Not sure what happened but mistakes happen. Not ideal for timeline since I need to roll the car out of the shop next week so I'll have MacGyver the stock arms back on with mismatched hardware to make it a roller for now. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flatout Posted May 3 Author Share Posted May 3 APEX said they would have a set made up by friday but haven't heard from them. Added a photo showing the APEX control arm length issue. Other bushing is lined up and its about 1/2" short. Put the rest of the rear together so i could sit it on the ground with the wheels and tires. T3 r200 short nose kit and rear sway bar. Got my tires in so got them mounted and installed for some motivation. Since I am using 300zx rear drum ebrake. I decided to use a 240sx ebrake handle (since I have this combo in my 240sx). Modified the handle to fit in the stock Z location. Mounted the cable holder thru the floor. Made a couple small brackets to hold the cables in the correct spot. Adjusted and works great. Also added a couple photos of the brake setup. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mitchel0407 Posted May 4 Share Posted May 4 I’m currently also waiting on some replacement Apex frame rails as the passenger side one had a production fault (was bent the wrong way!). They were also a week late with shipping the new once and even more annoying they are now held up by customs as they are unhappy with the paperwork and declared value of the package. All in all my car has been sitting idle on a lift at the body shop for two weeks now, I hope they won’t charge me too much in storage fees. 😢 I also have the Apex rear control arms and almost there entire front Retro suspension kit lying on the shelve waiting for my car to come back. I really hope I don’t have your issue with the rear control arms being to short. Would you be able to measure both the stock and Apex arms for me? That way I can check mine while I’m still waiting on my car. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flatout Posted May 4 Author Share Posted May 4 3 hours ago, Mitchel0407 said: I’m currently also waiting on some replacement Apex frame rails as the passenger side one had a production fault (was bent the wrong way!). They were also a week late with shipping the new once and even more annoying they are now held up by customs as they are unhappy with the paperwork and declared value of the package. All in all my car has been sitting idle on a lift at the body shop for two weeks now, I hope they won’t charge me too much in storage fees. 😢 I also have the Apex rear control arms and almost there entire front Retro suspension kit lying on the shelve waiting for my car to come back. I really hope I don’t have your issue with the rear control arms being to short. Would you be able to measure both the stock and Apex arms for me? That way I can check mine while I’m still waiting on my car. The more research I do the more horror stories I keep seeing so lets hope they get their stuff sorted out. I am in manufacturing and product development and i would never let these type of issues out the door. If you have the retro suspension kit it may be a different style arm which uses heims on the inner mounting point. Which i hope they updated the rear heim joint angle because from what I've see its on a big angle so any length adjustment needs to reestablished the correct "washer shims" which is a terrible design flaw. The arm and subframe is there own design so with a blank canvas this should be easy to make right. This is the same measurement between both stock and their arms. its the inside bushing stop to inside bushing stop. stock is about 16". Theirs came in about 15.5" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flatout Posted yesterday at 05:47 PM Author Share Posted yesterday at 05:47 PM They did send me another set of control arms which was nice of them but they are also a bit short. I did make some modifications to make them work. the kit is supposed to use 8 washers per side but i needed more to align the toe adjuster up, I do have T3 spindles so that may be part of the variation I was seeing. So I machined some spacers because stacking 15 washers was not my favorite design. The spacers tightly fits over the spindle and then takes up about an inch of space and allows 5 washers for "adjustment" The guy from apex did called me and we chatted for a bit about some other design concerns I have. Which was great and he took it well. Apparently they just aren't good at measuring things. They said they are going to try and make me a shorter set of front control arms aswell because the front setup at its absolute max shortest setting is still .375" wider than the stock assembly which doesn't allow me to use any of the roll center or control arm adjustments with my wheel and tire combo. I was hoping to correct geometry with everything being adjustable but that's not the case since the crossmember mounting points are wider than the factory one so I had to max everything out to its shortest point to even fit. With that said I have been plugging away at stuff, brake lines are ran, rear suspension is in, engine is assembled. adapter kit for the trans is machined, body panels are getting put on. started on the interior, everything takes so long. painting brackets and hardware and aligning everything but i am very happy with how its coming out. I was told the car came with a 240sx diff, its actually a j30 diff so it has a 3.91 gear ratio. That may be a slight advantage so not to mad. Anyway, after all this reading. enjoy some photos. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mitchel0407 Posted 9 hours ago Share Posted 9 hours ago I finally got around to refurbishing the rear end and installing the Apex rear control arms. I checked my control arms and they too measured in at 15,5” inches. But the funny thing is is that they where the same length as the original control arms!! Anyway the install went smoothly except for the fact that I had to rotate the mustache bar 180 degrees as I couldn’t for the life of me install it another way with the new bushings. That said the bar was incredibly difficult to remove in the first place. P.S. the T3 spindles do indeed appear to be shorter than OEM so adding the extra spacer seams like a good choice. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flatout Posted 8 hours ago Author Share Posted 8 hours ago thanks for the photos and description. It may just be the factory had more variation than we'd expect from modern cars but the 70s where a rough time for the automotive quality so its possible. I do also understand that I am mixing two different brands on to a 50+ year old car. With the T3 drop downs being billet they do not have any forward or backwards motion so the width of the arms need to be pretty spot on. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A to Z Posted 3 minutes ago Share Posted 3 minutes ago I am dismayed that you are having such issues with Apex. I was lead to believe they were a true top tier company. Ohm Pandya, the owner is an engineer.....really shocked to hear you are having these issues. I personally don't have any issue with the stock arms.......but I don't race. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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