1987 carrera pros & cons of lowering to European Height from stock?

[captainlewis]

Other than looks, what is are the Pros & Cons of lowering 87 carrera from stock to european height, thanks

[tcar]

No cons.

[MIK911]

All PRO's

[Tori]

MIK, can you tell me what your wheel well measurements are? That looks great.

[stlrj]

Con #1 Bottoming out

#2 Notice how much lower your front bumper is to the car in front of yours? Just make sure
you don't rear end anybody or your fenders are history.

Other than that, nothing to worry about.

[ejp]

^ This.

I run euro ride height on my '88 and I tend to scrape the front end exiting steep driveways and parking lots. Most of the time, with a bit of planning, you should be able to exit steep driveways at a narrow enough angle to avoid this, though.

As far as pros, better handling (lower center of gravity) and less body roll.

[darrin]

i thought that by '88 both euro and US cars were coming from the factory set at the same height?

[Jeff NJ]

I lowered my 88 930 to Euro height. Pros are that it looks better.
I wouldn't call them cons, but certainly considerations: The alignment is whacked out when you do this and a bump steer kit may be needed too.

So lowering is free if you can do it yourself (not too difficult, but the rear is time consuming to get correct), a bump steer kit is not too expensive and can be installed by you too, but unless you can align your car, you need to spend a bit of coin getting it aligned. Do a bump steer kit before you align it, because that will throw off the alignment too.

[ejp]

Originally Posted by darrin

i thought that by '88 both euro and US cars were coming from the factory set at the same height?

I do not know, but when I bought mine the ride height was higher than euro.

[chrisbruck]

I've scraped my front valence a couple times on driveways but never bottomed out. Really no cons in my eye.

[david.avrahami@]

1987 911 stock is already european height...

[GH85Carrera]

With my old 15 inch OEM Fuchs and those tires I had a heck of time getting into and out of many standard business like gas stations. I have skid plates on the torsion bars just to keep from tearing things up.

I gave up trying to find a good tire for the 15s for street and highway driving and bought some 17 inch fake Fuchs. Now I can get into and out of my own driveway at home with no issues.



The old 15s



With the current 17s.

Stock Euro height. I would never go lower personally.

[aoncurly]

Pros: Aesthetically appealing.
Cons: Unless you live where there are no driveways to enter, you will scrape the front guards or tailpipe. It's really an eye opener going over an unexpected dip in the road and hitting those front bar guards. Obviously, cost to lower especially if they have to reindex bars, and alignment and balancing costs and addition of bump steer kit.

I've had my car lowered to a scosh below "Euro" height and was constantly scraping, even crawling up/down driveway aprons. They must not have driveway aprons in Europe? When Elephant Racing replaced all my bushings, I had them reset my ride height slightly ABOVE Euro by about a 1/4". I like this much better functionally as I no longer scrape, and I even think it looks better. I have stock 16s all around.

[aread]

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

With my old 15 inch OEM Fuchs and those tires I had a heck of time getting into and out of many standard business like gas stations. I have skid plates on the torsion bars just to keep from tearing things up.

I gave up trying to find a good tire for the 15s for street and highway driving and bought some 17 inch fake Fuchs. Now I can get into and out of my own driveway at home with no issues.



The old 15s



With the current 17s.

Stock Euro height. I would never go lower personally.

Agreed. I'm slightly lower than Euro. Handles great, but driveways and speed bumps are the bane of my existence....

[FLA997]

Glen - I have the twin of your car. Alex - what front bumper under valence is that on the red coupe?

[88-diamondblue]

The handling is great and I like the look of the lowered cars. I rarely have any problems with clearance once you learn how to enter driveways.

[Bleedsblue]

As mentioned above, an '87 came from the factory with the same ride height in the US and in Europe, but that's not really the question/the point. The real question is about the pros and cons of lowering below stock height, whatever you want to call stock ride height.

I like the look of a lowered G body, in the grey area between bottom-out-city/compromised handling, and stock ride height. I lowered mine in my garage getting it as close as possible, then took it to a professional shop (with much race experience) for the final alignment, corner balance, and ride height fine tuning. I made sure the set-up guy was comfortable with the ride height because I wasn't going to sacrifice handling and suspension performance for looks, and didn't have the budget for further upgrades (spindles, etc) that would preserve handling at even lower ride heights. I saved myself quite a bit of coin since he didn't have to re-index the bars.

I find that with stock-ish OD tires (near 25" tall), the only thing I really ever hit is the front spoiler lip; though I'm actually going spoiler-less for aesthetic reasons, and then I'll have the lowered look without the risk of plowing into stuff. It was only an issue on steep dips/driveways, sometimes even when taking them diagonally and at 0mph. Coincidentally, my own driveway was my worst enemy.

[aread]

Originally Posted by FLA997

Glen - I have the twin of your car. Alex - what front bumper under valence is that on the red coupe?

It's an RUF style lower valence. Designed for the center mounted oil cooler soon to come.

[Nick Triesch]

Why go through all the trouble of lowering your 911? The regular ride height of say an 85 911 is already
so low that you must be careful on many street dips and driveways. I live in the San Diego area and there are a lot of folks near the border that love lowered cars with gold wheels with giant triple wings on the back.

[darrin]

guess it comes down to intended use -- was humorous to watch a 991gt3rs owner coming into a local porsche dealership for a pre-DE tech inspection finesse (and ultimately scrape) his way up a shallow ramp that I'd have shot straight up without worry in my '86 targa. However, I'm sure the gt3rs' low setup (and huge front splitter) would make it stick on the track FAR better than my targa (at relatively stock height) ever would.

Unless the scope/nature of use of my targa changes (currently a daily driver), I don't see myself lowering, as I can already scrape bottom with relative ease as-is.