What is a good ride height?

[SummerSledSix]

Guys, my teener is just about ready for the weather to warm up ("just a few more tweaks..."). The car has been lowered, perhaps a little too much. I've got the rack spacers and turbo tie rods, the car points like a laser, but I'm getting the old wheel well rub (up front) more than I would like.

Question is, what should the ride height be? What is the range of lowering acceptable for the teener? What was the original ride height? Where do you measure it?

Thanks in advance,

John

[Joe Ricard]

I wish I could help. My car is so slammed I have to step up to get to parking lot.
I have less than 4 inches of clearance to the ground. Found real cool way to measure under a car. Take two pieces of 1"x2"x 36" wood sticks, put a bolt through them to make like a scissor. Stick under the car and tighten bolt. pull back out and measure with ruler.
If you were the one who posted this method sorry but it is just the coolest.
Works good on my 928 too 4" front 4 1/4" rear. Speed bumps are generally 4".

[Brunofski]

Is this actually possible and if so how do you do it?

I have also lowered my car but it bottoms out at the front I think because there isn't enough pre-load on the torsion bar. Thus raising the spindle, paradoxically lowering the car, would be a good solution.

Any thoughts?

Thanks

[Zeke]

I bought a new '72 in '72 and lowered it. It rode so rough on the So Cal freeways (which have always been terrible) that I raised it back up. Rode fine for 18 years at which time I sold it. Now after 10 years, I've been bitten by the bug and got another one, but it's not for the street.
BTW, it's always been the case that until you got out of the LA basin (general area), the roads are rough, mostly concrete. Once you get on asphalt on the way out of town, like on the way to Las Vegas, it is smooth as silk. So the road out in the middle of the dessert is better than the local road. Go figuer.

[J P Stein]

I don't know what the "right" ride height is.
I do agree, however, that the stock height "looks" to high.
So lowering the car seemed like a good idea. The questions are, how and how far. I didn't want too get carried away with respect to suspension geometery and real life road clearance.

I did it with tire/wheel size. 205 X 50 15s front and 225 X 50 X 15 rear. The front t-bars were backed off all the way, but not repositioned. 140lb springs at back set to the 5th slot on the Bilsteins. This gives a ride height of about 5 inches, from the ground to the doughnuts. Here's a pic.....it's a repeat, sorry.

Too high, to low? You pickem'.

[mike mueller]

Due to the differances in tire sizes there is no magical number that you should be trying to obtain.

It is thought that the ideal hieght is when your front A-arms are // with the ground. This will only lower the car so much naturally....the way around this to have the A-arms // and a much lower car is to raise the spindles. For stock 15" rims, the most the spindles can be raised is 18mm otherwise you'll get rubbing on the inside of the wheel. By going to larger diameter rims, the spindles can be raised much more.

My car has the A-arms // with the ground, I am running 205/50/16 tires (approx dia. of 24.1 inches)

With no air dam up front, I still hit part of my driveway while approaching it.