Low enough?

wastintime · 10-06-2005, 01:38 PM

Hey everyone,

I just installed a set of H&R coilovers on my RSA. Honestly I'm incredibly dissapointed with them and really feel like I did nothing but waste money on them, well, had they been about 1/4 of the price I probably wouldn't feel that way, but as expensive as they were, they were not worth it. I'm mainly pissed off that H&R flat out lied to me on the phone telling me that it would use different springs than their spring kit, it doesn't. They also told me that different shocks are used between the C2/C4 kit and the RSA/965 kit... either I got the wrong ones or they're the same... it's stamped right on the side of the shocks. My big problems with the kit itself are that it isn't a complete coilover kit, and the rear shocks are WAY too soft.
This is as low as the car can be set with them. and still maintain corner balancing, rake, etc... How does it look to you guys?:

Thanks

Dantilla · 10-06-2005, 01:43 PM

Looks plenty low to me. What are the measurements, and much more importantly, how does it handle?

9dreizig · 10-06-2005, 01:46 PM

Looks very low to me too. I can't imagine driving it on the street any lower. Much lower and it would look kinda ghetto.

wastintime · 10-06-2005, 01:54 PM

After balancing it with me in the car, the floor to fender ride heights ended up being

F: 24 2/16" 24 2/16"

R: 24 3/16" 24 5/16"

I would have loved to get it another 1/2" lower for track use, but oh well. It's not that it handles badly. It handles amazingly well, although now it could really use some more sway bars, it's just... it wasn't as big of a change as I was expecting, and as I said I really don't like the rear shocks being so soft. I mean they are very soft, and I like having the rear end softer than most guys I go to the track with. Overall they're just very dissapointing.

Emission · Emission's Garage

It's a bit too low for my tastes (combo street/track). You'll have to worry about speedbumps that low!

wastintime · 10-06-2005, 02:02 PM

lol, the "speed humps" around here I can handle... it's my damn driveway that's the killer. I've got to figure out some way to get the city to let me redo the curb.

jtkkz · 10-06-2005, 02:08 PM

I lowered my '91 C2 w/HR springs to RS specs

V= 125mm
H= 218mm

wastintime · 10-06-2005, 02:19 PM

I originally had the H&R springs on the car(the RSA/965 springs, not the C2 springs, those are so progressive it's ridiculous. Lol, they actually increase body roll on track), and that's the problem... I think just the springs did as much as the whole coilover kit. It didn't get it much lower either. I was really expecting the coilover kit to come with different springs and very different shocks - as H&R specifically told me it would.

ted · ted's Garage

Looks low, at what point do you lose the anti squat geometry?
When you get on it does it drag the engine or go forward?
The front may have got the bump steer treatment.
When the rear is real low at some point you might want to bump the rear too.

Shocker · 10-06-2005, 02:57 PM

Very Low. I think it might be too low. Seeing as you are thinking it needs more swaybar, you might have dumped the roll center below 0 (ground level).

If that is the case, you are too low.

Here is a decent article on calculating the roll center of your car.
http://circletrack.com/techarticles/4637/

Mike

DW SD · 10-06-2005, 02:58 PM

I like that height. I just had my street / track car raised from 24" to 24 1/2" in the rear. The suspension was bottoming out (hitting the shock bump stops regularly at 24", now, nada. I was also concerned that I'd rub the tires on my flares (17x285x40 in the rear). Now, I have zero problems with driveways or speed bumps.

Too bad the company misled you - that sucks.

Doug

wastintime · 10-06-2005, 06:04 PM

nah, it's definitely not too low, if anything it's higher than I would have liked it. If you've ever seen a full race prepped RSA, they sit down really low, even some race SCs I've worked on have sat an inch lower at least. But, mine makes it out of my driveway okay, so I'm happy with that at least.

My comment on swaybars was more that the RSA has a pretty nice set of stock waybars, kind of intermediate between the US C2 and euro RS, and I'd been hoping to leave them stock by simply going to the coilovers. Which really is how you should do it. Swaybars are just for fine tuning, not solving suspension problems. After driving it hard with this suspension I've reevaluated it and really want to add different swaybars to be able to tune it just a little better.

Thanks Doug, I like it too, lol... I wish I could squeeze 285s under my flares. I'm still running 255s, I had been running 275s, as street tires which I think might rub on the track now. If only someone made a 265 track tire I could use it'd probably be perfect. Still, I think I'm going to play with toe and camber and get the 275s under there.

rnln · 05-01-2006, 12:12 AM

very lowed

slow&rusty · 05-01-2006, 04:02 AM

I am confused what do you mean that the H&R kit is not a "complete coilover kit"???

What diameter spring is on the coilover? If its 2.5" - which is universal, you get new springs (to your spec - height and # spec) for $200 for a set of 4.

Can you not move the treaded collar up to gain some height?

Can you take pics of the kit itself as I have not seen a 964 coilover kit, and yes I bet the kit cost some bank!

Does the H&R look like this:?

Yasin

jluetjen · jluetjen's Garage

I have two questions:
1) How are you defining the "ideal" ride height?
2) Have you changed anything else except the springs and shocks?

While I'm not sure that rear roll center is below street level, that's actually less important then the difference between the car's CG height for that half of the car and the RC height at that end. As you lower the car, the distance between the two will often get longer (picture a torque wrench with a longer handle -- the pivot is at the RC and the CG is your hand) which means that the car will become softer in roll. All cars are designed with a certain amount of roll control generated by the suspension geometry, and a certain amount generated by the springs and sway bars. By lowering a car beyond it's designed range, you can mess up this ratio since the suspension geometry becomes less effective. For a more detailed discussion on this, do a search on "lifting front wheel".

Comparing the ride height of your car to "full race" cars may not be meaningful since generally "full race" cars have had their suspension geometry modified to resolve this problem. The modifications for 911's generally consist of the following:
A) Raising the front spindle by about 1/2 inch returns the front roll center to where it was designed to be while still lowering the car.
B) Slotting the inner rear trailing arm mounts so that the pivot point can also be raised by +/- 1/2 inch to do the same in the rear.

If you haven't updated the geometry to accomodate your new ride height, it's quite possible that the results will be springing that is too soft.

BTW - Did you specify the spring rate that you wanted or just use kit as offered?

javadog · 05-01-2006, 04:55 AM

Andrew,

I think the car is too low, for any kind of street use. Frankly, I'd worry more about how it worked than how it looked. John's post makes some excellent points. If it were mine, I'd take a look at what Porsche thought was an acceptable compromise for street usage and head in that direction.

You can remove a section of your driveway and re-pour it with a more gradual slope. I've done it before. I wouldn't necessarily recommend you tell the city. If it's done correctly, it's no big deal. Find a contractor that knows what he's doing and it can be done in a day.

JR

wastintime · 05-01-2006, 05:40 AM

Actually, as of now, I'm of the opinion the car is at the perfect ride height... yes it's a little low to be the most practical of cars, but hey, it's a 911 and I track it a lot. Especially since not too many guys can do a 1:20 at Roebling Road, or a 2:12 at VIR in an RS America, but mine did it last February and November. I really haven't run into any big issues either... driveways are a pain, but I solved the problem with my driveway (although thank you JR, I still may end up doing something like that), and other than that you're just really careful what you try to do with it. Everything's a compromise, and for the performance gains I get from the current setup, it's worth it to me. It's no longer really my daily driver, except maybe in the winter, and absolute practicality isn't as important to me. Would it be way too low for most people, probably, but I love it.

What I meant about the H&R kit not being complete was that lets say hypothetically you had a '92 C2 without a suspension and you bought the H&R Coil-over kit. You could not just install it, you would not have enough parts. It forces you to use a lot of parts from the stock suspension. To me, that's an incomplete kit. In addition to which, while I did not specify the exact spring/shock rates that I wanted, I spent a good bit of time on the phone with H&R making sure of what they were going to be, and making sure that the kit was what I wanted, and then what they sent me was not even close. Basically I'm just all around dissapointed in the kit. Yes, it's really easy to change out springs, but that's not the point. I did not get what I paid for, and was flat out lied to by H&R.

And yes I know about suspension geometries. That's one of the things I love about the coilovers on my WRX is that they have adjustable spindles. While I may be unhappy overall with the H&R Kit itself, we did check and make sure the suspension geometry was still acceptable and working as it should. When I posted this last year, I was mainly trying to get some feedback on how the car looked that low, lol, and b*tch about H&R. I wasn't terribly worried about the suspension itself.

Miguel Antonett · 05-01-2006, 05:59 AM

That car has a great stance, any lower will be "low rider" style and a hassle to ride on the street. The important things is, how it handles.

Sorry about the disappointment, but that's the way it goes with "improvements"; sometime they work sometime they don't. Enjoy the car.

sepsis311 · 05-03-2006, 05:37 AM

i have a question. where did u get that spoiler for your front bumper? I have the same bumper BB (SKT) i believe, and i've been looking for a spoiler/splitter for it.

wastintime · 05-03-2006, 05:53 AM

It's stock, well, it was stock for a 3.8 RSR, it's the 3.8RSR splitters. Most body places sell them, I got mine from GT Racing, although I'm not incredibly happy with them these days. you have a 50/50 chance of getting a beautiful perfectly fitting piece, or a piece that looks like it was made by a 5 year old.