Front end to high! How to lower?
 

Have searched the site for sometime and cannot find a descriptive enough thread on how to lower front end, the back of my car is nicely lowered, the front end I would like down about 2 more inches. If anyone can point me to a link, threads or explain what is needed to lower front that would be great.

First you need to buy Wayne's "101 projects for your 911" which will show you how to not only adjust your suspension, but 100 other projects all with color pictures. To adjust your front suspension you will find a vertical bolt (either 10mm or 14mm) at the end of the torsion bar closest to the passenger compartment. Turning the bolt one way raises the car, the other way lowers. If you can't lower the car enough you will have to re-index the torsion bars.

If you touch the height adjustment, you will have to have the alignment checked and adjusted. It is also very easy to corner-jack these cars, i.e. get more weight on one front wheel than the other. Not a good thing, scales are required to nail that unless you are very creative.
Lots O'folks play with that adjustment and then wonder why they can only get 3000 miles out of a set of tires, not to mention the adverse handling characteristics. My advice? find a local Porsche shop who does alignments, have them make the adjustments and do the alignment.
This is not something that average Joe should be messing with IMO.

And don't forget that lowering the car changes alignment. I believe it'll cause more toe in and increase negative camber so if you are chinging the front much you'll need a new alignment.

What is the measurement of the top end of the front wheel well lip and the rear wheel well lip? The rear should be roughly 1/2" lower than the front because the rear is cut differently than the front. With that measurement the car should have a roughly 1* rake.

Thanks for all the info. How much would a front end alignment cost or would I need alignment all around? Just want to compare cost. The measurement between front and back I can't get exact right now but it is definitely more than a few inches difference, the old PO looks like had the back end dropped and didn't adjust the front at all. Do want the front end down considerably might have to take it in as sammyg2 recommended to a shop.

These cars are so light that corner balancing really is an issue. You can use DOT scales to get them very close, but alignment will change when ride height is changed. DOT scales are left on when the weigh station is closed. Sounds like you don't know whether the car is aligned at the moment or not. So, do all the stuff you're going to do (shock and tire changes, etc), and then get a pro alignment and corner balance. You'll pay a few hundred dollars.

The vertical bolt is neither a 10mm nor a 14mm. I think it might be a 12, but it's pretty easy to find, at the ends of the aluminum crossmember. May be an 11. Front fender lip should be 1/2" higher than rear, for the 1 degree forward rake.

Post a photo - you will have no shortage of opinions on proper ride height. Lowering the front is very easy, unless the torsion bar adjusters ran out of adjustment. Even then, it is only another 15 minutes per side (at least with an easy way to raise and lower the car).
BTW - a full corner balance and alignment can be $300 to $500 US.
It is a very iterative process.

Good luck!

Thanks all, I will post photo later tonight, again the back looks great, the front is just up a litttle in my eyes. Photo will be up in a few hours.

How loose can I run the bolt and how do I adjust the T-bars, my car looks like a Dakar cup.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1118853024.jpg

Nice looking P!! Good question about how far you can turn. Hope one of the more knowledgeable ones will catch the question.

I don't have any photos to share. Picture is worth 1000 words. If you use the search function "torsion bar front adjust" or something to that effect, I'm sure you'll find plenty of photos. The adjuster bolt threads a long ways and can change ride height by a matter of inches. It is held tight by a threading compound, not through some torque spec. Look at the pictures, if you can find some and it'll make much more sense.

If your car is a 964 (Dakar cup car), it doesn't have torsion bars, instead it has coil-overs.

Doug

One more thing to look at:
if your rear shocks are shot it will make the back squat down more than normal.
My car sat low in the back but when I installed new bilstein sports the back came up and now it looks too low in the front.

A full corner balance and alignment aint cheeep but it makes a huge difference. Make sure all components are good before having the corner balance done, no sense in having to do it twice.

If money is an issue you can get it close to ballpark with a tape measure and then have it aligned, but it won't be perfect.

sammyg2, I have heard also that the rear end will come up with new shocks. Do you remember how much (half inch - inch?)?

Well, before it looked like the rear was a little low, now it looks like the front is too low. See attached pictures for the before and after. The second picture is after the new shocks but I also raised the front 1/4", it was even lower before I did that.

So I would guess that the back came up at least an inch, probably 1 1/2".
But......... my left rear shock was completely blown and wasn't supporting the car much at all. The right rear was very weak.
If your shocks are in better shape then it would stand to reason that new shocks wouldn't make as much difference on your car.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1118864890.jpg http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1118864900.jpg

Also note that I have several hundred miles on the new shocks when that second picture was taken. Some people say the new shocks settle in and drop the car a little after driving it, I didn't see that happen at all on my car.

Sammy, Thanks for the input my car is a 74 Carrera w/some mods., I'm running new blistein HD all around and 23f, 29r mm., t-bars

I found it T-bars adj.

Beautiful car Sammy. Your ride height looked perfect in the first picture :)

tanks (blushing) SmileWavy

Sam, did you get that corner balance you talked about last time we met?

I will measure mine tomorrow. I think you will like the setting. Last I thought about this, it was slightly lower than Euro height.

Regards,http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1118910185.jpg

Each half turn will lower the car 1/8 inch, back the car out of the garage and pull back in to settle the sups, its also good to spray some lub on the adj screw (blaster or wd-40) I like 1 inch of rake between the front of the valance and rear measured at each end from the ground.

Jack, 87 Carrera

Nopers, haven't corner balanced yet but it is still in the immediate plans. I just bought some new front sway bar bushings, need to get them installed first, then it's off to johnston's in Torrance. It's pretty close now but I want it perfect.

Recently I installed the rear shocks, played with the height and alignment with my homemade string technique, and replaced the front tires (flat-spotted). I have new front rotors and brake lines going on the car next weekend, I'm shopping for new carpet, trying to talk myself into finally installing the new headliner I bought 2 years ago, gotta get the front bumper painted, I just bought an intercooler off a Saab 9000 that I need to modify to fit, it never ends.
Going to the river this weekend so the car has to wait.
Some day I will be all done fixing up this car ......
LOL I crack me up. ;)

C'mon Sam, you oughta be able to get all that done in, what, 2 to 3 hours tops, right? ;)

Have fun at the river.

Now it looks like I might end up getting a sway bar upgrade, kool.

Only problem is, I know me and I will end up reinforcing everything so the brackets don't break, then I will need an even heavier bar to compensate for the extra weight I add. Gotta find some lightweight welding rod ;)

Superman, I must disagree on this one. If you're saying a weight-jacked 911 will not pull on a perfectly aligned car, that's just dead wrong.

I did my own corner balance using the tripod height method and then checked it on scales. My car was 19 lbs off on one diagonal, and I'll agree that is so little, it's not worth mentioning, but prior to that I went thru Hell trying to get the ride heights even close until I removed the weight jacking.

Craig

Craig, I dunno but it sounds like you are superman are agreeing with each other. What'd i miss?

Whether or not new shocks have an effect on the ride height depends on the shocks. Bilsteins have a high pressure gas charge that raises the car up when installed on a car that previously had oem Boge (no gas) shocks.

Mine had stock bilsteins form the factory, I replaced them with HDs in the front two years ago and sports in the back recently.
Both times the suspension raised up, but with more difference in the back.
Maybe the gas charge in the sports is stronger than in the stock bilsteins, which I believe are the heavy duty models.

Was the gas charge dead on the old shocks?

oops, I guess a read a "is NOT an issue" DUh!

Hey, like I said, Superman is absolutely dead on about this :cool:

anyway, I'll include my normal lame link to my windbag writeup of how it worked for me:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/porsche-911-technical-forum/213694-home-ride-height-corner-balance-success-story.html

Anthony,
The old bilstein shocks still take some force to compress and when I let go they spring back so I would venture to say they still have a charge, but they compress much easier than the new sports.

So to answer your question, sort of ;)

Hey guys,
I got my first 911 (84 Carrera) just over a month ago. It had been lowered by a previous owner and alignment done about a year ago. I doubt any corner weight balancing checked. The measurements are all even from side-side but definitely lower than even euro-spec. I did measurements from centre of wheel to center of torsion bars, as per 101 Projects and Bentley Manual
( I got these books even before I bought the car!)
When braking hard it does not pull at all one side or the other... would uneven sprung weight on corners cause erratic braking due to more pressure on a given tire? Pics below...http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1119039044.jpg http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1119039131.jpg

Yep, that is one sign of corner-jacking, instability during braking.
The other one I know of is if the car exibits oversteer in one direction and under-steer in the other direction on similar corners.

If you car hasn't been in an accident and the measurements look good and it handles good, you prolly don't need to spend the money for a corner-balance.

Thanks, sammyg2. Turns out it can oversteer in both directions, but only if prompted to do so. It has been in an accident, unfortunately, but was apparently repaired very meticulously under the watchful eye of its independant Porsche mechanic who has seen it through several owners. It definitely is a good thing to get a history/paperwork with a used car. I got to talk to the mechanic who knows this car inside and out and he put my mind at ease about the repairs subletted out. On the other hand, the transmission ... arggh!

I just replaced the front Bilsteins on my daily driver VW and the gas charge was completely gone. The car had lost about an inch and a half of ride height.