Too low?

[Nathan M]

Lowered her at the weekend. What do you think? Handling seems to inspire more confidence and pitches less over the bumps. I'm just not sure if the rear is just too low from certain angles?

[GRG1911]

Looks Good....

[spinner]

I like it. If I remember, the roads around Yorkshire aren't too bumpy. What are the front/rear heights? Make sure you maintain the pitch - the front should be a tad lower than the rear. I can't tell from the pictures. Also, what's the camber settings?

Cheers,

Paul

[ted]

Just looking at pic on the screen....
For optimised cornering pretty sure there should be some consideration to roll center, and this may be too low.
Is this what your corner balance expert reccomended?

[Nathan M]

The roads around here are pretty bumpy, but I've not got any clearance problems (yet). Front's 24.5 rear's 23. I think I need to raise it a little at the rear (?). Not had chance to check the camber yet - another job for next weekend.

[spinner]

Believe the difference between f/r is 0.5" so your rear is a tad too low.

[dd74]

I measured mine last night. It's 24.5/24. Maybe your rear is a little low.

Spinner - isn't the front supposed to be a little higher than the rear? The factory uses lower profile tires in rear than front

[spinner]

The front is lower to get the proper downward angle. The measurement for the front is higher due to the fender lip height.

[Adman]

Make certain that you still have the proper rake. Measure from the ground to the bottom of the rocker panel at both the front and rear. Your front measurement should be between 3/4"-1" lower than the rear measurement.
Matthew

[dd74]

So why are higher profile tires used in the front than rear as per the factory? Other than helping - in some way - squatting down on acceleration possibly - I can't figure out why this is the case.

Thanks.

[Adman]

The lower profile tires are in the rear because they have a stiffer side wall. Keeps the tire from rolling over as easily under hard cornering. The car has a 40/60 weight bias, front to rear. The rear tires need all the help they can get to limit the oversteer. On a factory setup you will find the tire diameters are almost identical.
Matthew

[dd74]

I thought stiffer sidewalls promote more oversteer, and that it's softer sidewalls that limit oversteer.

[Rob McKibbon]

The rear is not too low. The front is too high.
Bring the front down and it'll look great!

[Chas White]

As the car turns, the tire tread tries to keep going straight, and does, a little. The sidewall distorts when that happens. That's slip angle. Lower profile, lower sidewall = less slip angle. More slip angle in the front makes for understeer, more slip angle in the back makes for oversteer. More weight transfer in the back means the sidewall will distort more, everything else being equal. Having lower sidewalls on the heavy end makes the car more neutral.
C.W.

[Bill Douglas]

Looks like you have a big fat girl in the back. Maybe drop the front a tad.

[ZAMIRZ]

Damn, that's dumped. Oh well, good excuse not to give fat chicks a ride anywhere "sorry chunky, my car will scrape with you in it".

[stlrj]

If it were my car, I would leave it alone...it looks great the way it stands!

This rake thing IMHO is more BS than anyone is willing to admit. If you like it where it is, then leave it alone. More level as it stands makes it look more contemporary, like one of the newer 911s instead of raked, ricey and dated.

Even if you checked your ride height the way the factory does, using your torsion tube centers as reference, not your fender openings, you'll end up with a very level car as yours is and your front fender openings will be about 1 3/4" higher than the rear since the front fenders are cut 2" higher. So more fenderwell space up front is to be expected and does not mean the front of the car is higher than the rear. We need to focus on the rocker panels not fender openings.


Just my $.02

Joe

[RoninLB]

I believe you'll have a rear alignment problem if it's 23in to fender with stock wheel diameter.. the proper rake and corner balance should produce a center of gravity under your dash............Ron

[Al G]

I am running 24.5 F and 24.5 R with 7" (205) and 9" (245) x 16" Fuchs. The clearance appears minimal, but I haven't had any rubbing so far except on a speedbump.

Looks awesome, handles like its on rails.

Al G

[jluetjen]

Since you asked, yes -- I think it looks too low. It looks like it sitting right on the bumpstops, kind of ricy.

If you are concerned about looks, you can certainly set the ride height where you want. If you are concerned about handling, then with the stock suspension you can certainly go too low. The handling issues that you might have or create are...

1) Insufficient wheel travel. The sooner the car hits the bump stops, the more drastic the handling will shift into sudden under/oversteer when cornering depending on which end hits first.

2) Front roll center may be too low and your front geometry may be in a range where any lean by the car (or bump travel) will decrease the negative camber (or make the front camber go positive). The result will be constant and terminal understeer until you hit the bump stops. You can resolve this by installing RSR front struts or raising the front spindles on the strut by 12-18 mm.

3) If you have raised your front struts, and not touched the rear suspension, you will have changed the roll center relationship between the front and the rear. The result will be the car will "fall over" onto it's outside rear tire when cornering which will use up what little travel that you have left in that corner. To resolve this you can add any of the rear suspension update kits which raise the inside pivot of the rear trailing arms. Raising that by roughly the same amount as the front spindles were raised will return the roll-center relationship back to what the factory designed. from there you can also adjust it higher or lower to accomplish your handling objectives. Alternatively you could go for drastically stiffer rear T-bars and swaybars, but that could have sideaffects in the rest of your handling, especially on bumpy roads.

4) You then need to look at your shock travel to ensure that you are not bottoming out the shocks which will drastically shorten the shocks life.

From the handling perspective, those are the things which would concern me.