Lowering cars is a good way to
improve handling response and overall look. But, there are a few
things you should consider before lowering your car:
- Most spring manufacturers put a lot of research into
their springs and what will or will not work in each
application, it is very important to follow their
instructions and guidelines.
- When upgrading your springs you you should also upgrade
your struts/shocks. The old struts/shocks are designed to
work with the original springs, and leaving them on could
damage the springs and the suspension.
- How low is too low? Again the spring manufacturers spend
time and money to research what works best. In our shop, we
have installed lowering kits that brought the cars down over
80mm, but the car wasn’t designed to be that low, damage to
the underneath of the car is likely to occur in these cases.
We have also seen holes caused by the tires in the metal
inner fender well, and conversely, tires torn by fender lips
and the inner fender well. We once test drove a car and tore
a hole in the engine's oil pan by hitting a tiny bump in the
road. Being low has its advantages but being too low has its
consequences.
- Tire rubbing: it’s going to happen, especially if you
plus-size the wheels.
- Most of the time it’s the inner fender well lip
hitting the tire. If it is excessive you should have
your fender lips rolled.
- If it is the inner fender well plastic hitting the
tire, don’t just rip it out, it’s there for a reason,
sometimes you can trim a little away to stop it from
hitting. You can also try a heat gun to soften the
plastic and bend it out of the way. CAUTION: be
very careful with the heat gun, make sure you know
what’s behind the liner before applying heat, the
charcoal canister may be located behind it, and its
purpose is to collect fumes from the gas tank to burn in
the engine. This could cause a potential fire hazard to
you and the car if it is damaged by the heat gun.
- If you have a charcoal canister behind the inner
fender well we recommend removing the fender well and
working on it away from the canister. And always follow
the heat gun's directions.
- Alignment: after any suspension work a quality alignment
should be performed. When you lower a car you also change
the camber adjustment which changes the toe alignment. The
camber will go negative, which is not a bad thing for
handling. Cars set up for road racing run a high negative
camber, but they don’t care about tire wear, but I will bet
you do. On some newer cars you have to change parts to
adjust camber. These parts, depending on the car, are
available from the dealer, or if they don’t make one some of
the aftermarket make “camber plates."
H&R Springs make a universal camber bolt for certain style
strut housings called “Triple C camber adjusters.” Check out
this link for applications:
In some cars, you cannot do any camber adjustment at all. As
noted above, negative camber is not a bad thing—camber up to -1
degree from original specs shouldn’t cause tire wear, it should
increase handling.
As always, you must adjust your toe setting as it will change
with lowering. Toe out of spec will destroy tires fast. |