How do I lower my front end?

[WI wide body]

I have a 1986 Carrera wide body cab. It has 225 tires on the front and 265 on the rear.

There is way too much of a gap between the front fender and the top of the tire. The back looks okay.

The current dimensions are as follows:

Front: From the pavement to the bottom of the fender measures about 26 1/8
Rear: From the pavement to the bottom of the fender measures about 25 3/4

Front: From the pavement to the top of the tire tread measures about 23 1/4".
Rear: From the pavement to the top of the tire tread measures about 24 1/2".


What is the correct procedure to get the front down to match the rear.?

Thanx much.

Ed C

[tangerine911S]

There are two screws (one for each side) at the ends of the front torsion bars that when tightened or loosened will change the rotation on the bar and thus the height of you car. I beleive to lower it you want to loosen them but I forget to tell the truth. Should be obvious once your under there though. Good luck

[RWebb]

Don't set the ht. by how the gap looks. Set it to get the right rake and ht. at both wheels for performance as per the factory spec.

Don't damage the extremely expensive screws -- use Kroil or pb Blaster if they are stuck.

[DUK]

IIRC-The fronts are supposed to be about 1/2" higher for clearance issues.

[tonythetarga]

BTW, when you lower the fronts you will rake the car forward and probably raise the rear a bit. Measure all 4 corners before you do anything. If you do not turn each front t-bar in equal increments, you may also throw off your corner balance as well.

[Bobboloo]

Originally Posted by Duke Zink

IIRC-The fronts are supposed to be about 1/2" higher for clearance issues.

Duke is correct on the 1/2 inch difference although I don't believe it has to do with clearance. I believe it has more to do with the balance and handling characteristics.

When you factor in that your rear tires are 1 1/4 inches bigger in diameter than the fronts then this exacerbates the differential in the gaps. Matching the gaps will probably un-balance the car.

[WI wide body]

I appreciate the comments from all responders.

If I am deciphering the offerings correctly, it appears that if I do try to equalize the difference in the front and rear by lowering the front...I very well may mess up the handling.

Since it is simply a cosmetic thing...I don't like the way it looks...I will probably not get into it until I get some definitive advise. Especially with most of the difference coming from the larger rear tires.

But that large gap in the front wheel well sure messes up an otherwise great looking wide body cab!!

Ed C

[Larry_Ratcliff]

home depot .... couple sacks of concrete... Just kidding However, if the rear has not been adjusted down I would first ask why the front is higher since the front sits slightly lower than the rear. More precisely, the 911 has a slight rake to the front...

[cstreit]

Don't forget that once you lower the car, you will have to re-align it. (For example lowering the front will add toe-out and negative camber...)

[RWebb]

To really fine tune the handling you'll want to get it corner balanced. Search on those 2 terms. Not clear if that's needed for a purely street car.

Most here like to set the car to "Euro" ht.

You also need to find out if you have the spacer doughnuts on the front struts. Not sure if they kept on using those up to your Model Year or not.

[WI wide body]

quote
Most here like to set the car to "Euro" ht.



Actually my car is a Euro version rather a ROW car.

Also, someone mentioned that it should have a slight forward rake...and that is exacly what I would like. Right now the rear sits lower than the front and the wide body cars especially look better (to me) with the front lower than the rear.

[HarryD]

I would add that if your car is anything like mine, one side is 1/4" higher than the other yet my corner weights are spot on. Per Mr. Gamroth, this is typical.

[tonythetarga]

Hey ED, How about a picture of the car? (profile, so we can see what you are saying).
As you can see, the adjustments for lowering the car impact several other things. Their primary purpose was to balance the car weight and to work in concert with the other suspension/steering components for improved handling purposes, not to lower the car to make it look better. Nothing wrong with making it look better, as long as you realize what will need to be done afterwards; 4 wheel alignment and corner balance.

[WI wide body]

I don't have any real clear profile pictures and for some reason unknown to me I cannot send all the pics. I get an error message that the pic is too big and I don't know how to make them smaller.

Anyhow, here are the ones that will transmit:

[gshiwota]

I just did this a couple of weeks ago. Lowering the front is as easy as turning the screws. I didn't even have to jack the car up to do this. However, please be sure you know a good shop to align and corner balance the car.

I carefully measured, and carefully lowered the front end but even with patience I screwed up the balance of the car. The car looked great but the slight deviations in left/right ride height caused a major pull to the right when driving. Fortunately, the alignment shop I use knows 911s well and fixed it for me by corner balancing and aligning the whole car.

Go for it, it's easy especially if you have a good alignment shop to bail you out. My car drives and looks 100xs better now.

Thanks,

Gabe

-------------
'82 SC Targa

[tonythetarga]

OK, we see what you mean. You will likely need to re-index the fronts and rears to get the car low enough. I don't think just turning the front screws will get you low enough. Re-indexing the front is not difficult but to get the rears down is a much bigger deal and will/should involve replacing rear spring plate bushings. If you do it, do all 4 so you only have to pay for the alignment and corner balance once.

[tcar]

You don't say... are those 15" wheels?

[WI wide body]

Yeah, they are 15's.

I know that bigger wheels would probably look better but the tires are recent and I got two brand new extra 265 rears from the previous owner. So............

Plus, the Gotti wheels are beginning to grow on me. I have always preferred the look of the Fuch wheels, especially on older cars like my 1974 911 Carrera Targa.

I would consider trading the Gotti's and include the two new extra rear tires for a set of Fuchs that would accept (or had on them) the bigger tires that these wide body cars should have.

Any takers?