Strange Ride Heights

ubiquity0 · 12-28-2003, 08:34 PM

My SC seems to have an imbalance in the left-to-right ride heights. I measure
LF-25.5 RF-26.0
LR-25.0 RR-25.5

This is with ~ 1/2 a tank, & no driver's weight. I have bilsteins & jumped off each corner of the car to settle it. Although the car tracks straight I've been thinking its about time for an alignment. Should I worry about the imbalance before getting it aligned?
thanks

12-28-2003, 09:22 PM

You're likely to have side to side height differences even after a CB/alignment.

ubiquity0 · 12-28-2003, 09:34 PM

Thats what I'd assumed. At this stage I'm thinking of going w/ an alignment @ all 4 wheels but no CB. After going for 1" spacers on the rear 7x16's I need a little more negative camber as they rub the rear fender lip (the last alignment some time ago was to factory spec, so not much camber). I will have a suspension rebuild coming up sometime in the future, maybe in a year, so was thinking I'd rather not drop 500-600 for the corner balance, only to redo it all. Is it worth my while just getting it aligned with the current ride height, or would that be silly?

jluetjen · jluetjen's Garage

If you are that concerned about it being "nuts on", don't pay attention to anything without the car ballasted with the driver's weight in the driver's seat. Getting an alignment by the way won't fix the issue. If you want the car to be perfect, the order of operations is as follows (all with 1/2 a tank of gas and ballast in the driver's seat)

1) Check all bushings for wear and replace any which are loose or sloppy.
2) Set the ride height.
3) Corner weight the car
4) Doublecheck steps 2) and 3) since the ride height can be changed while adjusting the corner weights. If you can't get them both perfect, priority should be given to the corner weights..
5) Get the car aligned.

The detailed directions have been covered previously on this forum.

ubiquity0 · 10:11 AM

Hi John.
I believe most of my bushings are worn. The rear torsion bar bushing (?- where the spring plate rotates) shows visible flow/deformation. The problem is I just don't have the time right now to go into this. I think factory spec for ride height differential side-to-side is 0.25-0.3"? I'm measuring more than that, but then with bilsteins the ride height never seems to be a constant # anyway, so maybe I'm being paranoid.

At the moment my front tire wear seems to sugggest I have a little toe out & the rear tires are rubbing (barely) on the inside of the fender lip. With a bushing replacement sometime in the future it seems like a full corner balance now is a waste, so I'm thinking get an alignment now & live w/ a little lopsidedness (its not visibly apparent- at least not to me) for a while. The thing is, without this board I'd never notice this stuff, & worn bushings/ corner balancing would never come into my mind. Now that I just KNOW this is what should be done to get the car at 100% of its potential, but I don't have the time now, it just drives me nuts!