I've done some searching and it seems as though most people are running 8"-10" rear springs with their weight jacks. I got the 10" and it seems way to high, even with the adjuster at full low. I am using the stock rubber spring isolator. But even if I removed it I still wouldn't be near low enough. I have around 4" of fender gap. This picture is with the suspension compressed, via jacking up on the rear. The car has not actually sat on tires yet. So I understand it will settle some, but I really don't think it will be enough. The fronts tucked up really nice without "setteling". What do you think, should I give GC a call and get some 8" springs?

I did look around at the rear suspension and didn't see anything preventing the rear from tucking up into the car, expect of course for the spring.

Suspension compressed.


Here you can see a comparison with the front.


As you can see the front tucks nicely.


Here are a few more photos just in case you can find me doing something stupid.

 

One more. 10" 175lb rear vs stock 70k mile rear IROC.

 

Wow, The stance in the front is absolutely perfect. I love it! I have 9.5" front springs and 10" rear springs and I wish I would have gone about 2" shorter for both, that way I could have a little adjustability. right now both the front and rear are adjusted all the way down. This gave me pretty much the same stance that you have.

BTW: are your tires mounted backwards??

 

Interesting. Seems like some users have had success with the 10" rears. Sounds like yours are the same as mine. As for the front. I agree it looks awesome but where its at the strut mounted bumpstop is already touching the strut mount. Looks like I'll have to lower it an inch.

Yes the tires are backwards. I just grabbed the first front and rear in the stack to check fender gap. The car hasn't even been on the ground yet. And won't until I get the springs fixed.

 

Make sure the top of the rear spring isnt hung up on anything. What is the new rear spring rate? Spring appears to say 175lb. You might have to put the car on the ground and go a lap around the block to get and accurate portrayal of actual ride height.

Funny things can happen with bushing stiction and such when just using a jack to load the suspension. Besides It takes longer to put the car back up on jack stands than it does to swap out the rear springs if need be.

Im using taller springs, taller perches, and lower rates and my car will sit lower than that.


EDIT:

looking at the forth pic, it looks like between the forth full coil(from bottom) and the fifth coil you might be hanging up on a coil. It could just be the photo but there seems to be a dark spot there. Worth investigating further.

 

Interesting. Car is not currently drivable but I can probably roll it around a little. And maybe jump up and down in the hatch a bit.

Funny how the front compressed fine though. Maybe because there is more weight up there.

 

I'll check it out but I'm pretty sure its just the angle of the flash not illuminating that area.

 

Mine are 10"/180lbs (i'm using the ones on the far left) & I don't think I'm that high, but pics can be deceiving based on the angle of the shot & such, taken by 2 different people......


What is your measurement from the ground to the top center of the wheel arch?

 

Car hasn't sat on the tires yet. Should matter much though. 4" fender gap is to much by anyone's measure.

I will be goofing around with it tonight.

 

My 10" 200 lb springs sit really high fully compressed too (I don't think i have 4" of fender gap...maybe 3"), so I bought some 9", but haven't installed them yet. I think your front height looks perfect.

 

Hey guys,

I'm not sure what the problem was but as soon as I put the car on the ground the problem went away. I now have an acceptable ride height.

First just to make sure it wasn't the rear suspension binding up I took out both rear springs and just let the rear tuck to the bump stops. Frankly it looked awesome so I took some pics. This is with the front springs adjusted all the way low and no rear springs.

 

Front fender height.


Rear

 

Then I stuck the rear springs back in the car with stock rubber isolator and the adjuster at its lowest setting. Excuse the artsy photos, we had a nice sunset tonight.

 

So I think what i'll do is remove the stock upper isolator to lower the rear a little bit. Then I'll raise the front 1-1.5" and see how ground clearance is there.

In conclusion on ride height from ground to fender lip.

Stock
27 3/8" Front
27 1/2" Rear

Front weight jack at lowest setting, rear resting on stock bump stop.
24" Front
25" Rear

Front weight jack at lowest setting, GC 10" rear spring at lowest setting with stock rubber isolator
24" Front
26 1/2" Rear

Desired Ride Height
25 1/2" Front
25 1/2" Rear

 

Sorry, kind of offtopic. But GREAT CAR! I'm a fan. I like all the pics, especially the last few.

 

Yes, I agree. Great car

Couple of issues on ride height-
1)Fronts: What strut mounts are you running? If you have stock factory strut mounts you will be making strut body to strut mount contact in suspension travel when you drive the car if you have it set at 25 1/2" front fender lip. You are about borderline as low as you can safely go but if you make contact with severe potholes or such you can damage the strut. On a V8 car you can expect at least about 2" travel even with heavier rate aftemarket springs in there. That will set you compressing at about 23 1/2".

For reference, I have an extremely built lightweight V6 car with a front fender height of 24 3/4" with 825 lb front springs, solid 34mm chromemoly front swaybar and Koni yellow struts which are firmly compression valved and I would yeild an average 1" travel with a 1 1/2" max travel in extreme hits. That travel height resulted in my strut body invading the cavity up inside my taller extended aftermarket strut mounts. I had aftermarket bumpstops which I set to give 3/4" clearance on the strut body to strut mount and on extreme hits where I would contact the bumpstop I would get into it 1/4" leaving me only 1/2" clearance margin of safety. It was tight, but I was very light nose weigt with heavy rate springs and swaybar to boot. max travel with my extended strut mounts gave me 23 1/4" where I would have killed my strut body with a stock strut mount. If I recall, the stock strut mount will only give you aprox 24" fender height with the average strut body length. I am pretty positive you will be nailing it if you try and drive the car at that height on factory strut mounts- I suggest if you do not already have them to buy some aftermarket ones.

2)Rear Height: two issues here-
a) bump stop needs top be cut and reshaped or you will be riding against it pretty much at all times. My car rode at 26 1/8" rear at stagnant and even with the bumpstop trimmed 3/4" and retapered for softness of impact progression, I would hit the bumpstop fairly abuptly. I can not recall the exact height of the rear contact and travel because I ended up taking them off entirely and opted for a Koni shaft style progressive bumpstop that I actually had aid in normal suspension travel contact and would progressively increase spring rate. THis gets complicated to explain but I had the entire rear setup of the car designed to induce squat so as not to jack the rear of the car under heavy braking while alot not sufferiung from lower spring rate wheelhop under braking.

Anyways, figure if you sit on the bumpstops and you were at 25" without springs, the bumpstops had to be compressed holding that rear vehicle weight so you are probably contacting them already at the 25 1/2" rear ride height you say you are shooting for- then you are riding on them always with no rear supsension movement when asking for travel articulation.

B) the other rear potential problem you face with that gorgeous car is watch out not to hammer the torque arm/differential bolts into the bottom of the chassis of that car. These cars are notorious for clearancing themselves in this area mainly with aftermarket thicker flange Tqarms,m but will still hit this area with the facotry setup if too low like you are looking at.

Just a friendly heads up what to watch out for if any potential unwated future damage to you car.

Again, you have a beautiful car my friend!

Dean

 

Thanks for the compliments guys.

Vetruck here is my suspension setup for reference.

Front
Spohn K-member
Spohn Del-shpere a-arms
Koni Yellow struts
Ground Control strut shaft mounted progressive rate bump stops
J&M Strut Mounts (claimed to be 1" higher than stock. I believe it comparing the two)
GC Weight jacks with 850lb springs
stock 34mm sway bar

Rear
Spohn del-sphere torque arm
Spohn del-sphere control arms
Spohn del-sphere panhard rod
Spohn LCA relocation brackets
Koni Yellow Shocks
Ground Control shock mounted progressive rate bump stop (had to split in half to get on the shaft, then i wire tied them back together, I don't think they are going to hold together, thoughts?)
Stock bump stops are still in the car at the moment
GC weight jacks with 175lb springs
Stock 23mm sway bar

 

The first photos of the front and rear slammed seem unrealistic without major workarounds. The strut mounted bump stops are already hitting the inside of the J&M strut mounts just sitting there, I guess I could trim them down as they are very tall. Also the stock radiator deflector is only 1" off the ground. On the rear the stock bump stop is in contact of course. Also the shock mounted bump stop is very close to hitting as it the torque arm. Probably 1/16" clearance on both. I have already softened the corner of the torque arm in an effort decrease damage to the floor pan. I plan to try 25.5" on the front and 26" on the rear and adjust from there.

The front of the car is slightly lightened with aluminum heads, ministarter, k-member, a-arms, and removed Air system. But certainly nothing like a V6 car. However these changes alone did raise the front end with the stock springs. The mid and rear have gained significant weight with the addition of all the Spohn rear suspension parts above plus Spohn SFCs, 40lbs of dynamat, 50 lbs of amps and a sub in the back. Car totally stock was 3410. I figure I'm still pretty close to that or a little higher but with a much better weight distribution. Here is a pic of the car with the stock suspension.



This is about the stance I'm looking for. (bad photoshop with 18" IROCs)

 

I did that also with the first set I bought. I tried to use two hose clamps at the base but they poped off.

I ended up carfully cutting gromet washer off the koni shaft so I could slip the bumpstop all the way over the top of the shaft without splitting it. I then just put a hardened washer back onto the bump of the shaft and the gromets in the upper mount of the shaft stayed in place fine and never rendered a problem.


On the front- I do not reasonably see any way to use that shaft style bumpstop on the strut without any clearance issues, not even trimmed down. I would just recommend an Energy Suspension aftermarket bumpstop onto the control arm in place of the factory mount.

 

Vetruck,

Here is the front strut mounted bump stop. The second one from the right.


I'm not really sure why you don't think it will work. Please elaborate. The only problems I can see are the bump stop is either to long not allowing any suspension travel before contact (cut it down) or since it adds width to the strut shaft, you can't run extreme camber or caster because of the size of the hole in the strut tower. However if you have the second problem, the strut body would hit the strut tower anyway under extreme compression.

What do you think?

Here is a pic of the front bump stop installed.

 

On your post #18 you state the bump stop is already hitting the J&M mount. Even if you cut the bumpstop in half it is still what? 1 to 1/1/2" tall giving you only at most 1" travel before it hits again. I do not think that will give you adquate unabated articulation. It is pretty much like going into coilbind. That trimed bumpstop will be stiffer in rate and will be much mopre abrupt when it hits that the unit not cut off.

THe Koni shaft style units I ran on my rear shock shafts were very soft progressive rates. I have listed on here somewhere in the archieves the calibrated compression rates down to the 1/8" of squish on the units I used. Using that info, I was able to shim my upper shock mount to get the unit to make contact and aid in my compression rate overall when combined with the progessive rear coilaspring I also ran. My wheelbase was also shortend by almost an inch. I also ran a massive rear 25mm solid chromemoly swaybar which most cars are not avble to do becasue oof nose weight which aided in lateral spring rate in the rear, yet droped the rear roll center 1 1/2" to increase leverage so as to keep the inside rear planted when hard pressed in stready state of corner. This car pulled as many here know a spectacular 1.07 g on Goodyear GSd3 street tires factory sized on IROC wheels 245-50/16. Reason I am telling you this? Because you may ask why I ran on the bumpstops but am telling you not to. I had alot going on back there and it was all trail and error calculated as well as they just ere not any ol bumpstops, they had spcific rates and squish travel.

Dean

ps- I also set this all up with a full tank of fuel or very close to it any time I tested it. Why instead of hlf tank average? because I would occationally drive the car around with my significant other and daughter in the back seat at that time. This was our "family car" or at least the closest thing we owned to being that- I have all sports cars, no mini vans, etc. Its also why I put 3 bucket seats into my truck cab. The added weight of my daughter in the rear seat on occations would set the car right onto the bumpstop and give a much harder ride. I would try and make sure I did not fill up if we were going anywhere the 3 of us. I used to try and keep it half tank or less. That 8 gallon decrease in the rear of the car (Being around 50 lbs) is equivilant to about 100 lbs in the back seat because of position or distribution. The few times we had full tank and the 3 of us in that car I do remeber many WAMMM's when hitting major bumps at speed- I would just go OOOUUCH. triffles of having a performance family car fully loaded.

 

I found my old post-

They are hidden up under the dust sleeve. I would have to pull them off to get a pic. Koni sells two diffent shaft bumpstops, these are the taller ones. The first set I got I slit and then zip tied under there but to my assumption they did snap the zips and moved. The next set I had to disassemble the crimped fit upper mount bushing cup so I could slip them onto the shaft like they were intended- I'll admit, my first attempt of slitting them was stupid and I knew this going into it but was lazy and in a hurry to get the car ready for a challange race the next day. They work great in conjunction with my softer starting progresssve rate springs I run. If I recall I have about 1 1/8" free travel then they begin contact-progrssively. Remeber, that is 1 1/8" at the shock, not the tire so the axle can stll articulate laetrally more than that but will not compress mor than that both side together on a large bump. Here are the squish rates on the 2 5/8" tall Koni stops-
1/8 30
1/4 45
3/8 60
1/2 70
5/8 85
3/4 100
7/8 110
1" 145
1 1/8 195
Next is the factory rear which is 2 5/8" tall
1/8 45
1/4 65
3/8 95
1/2 125
5/8 150
3/4 200
7/8 280

 

Vetruck,

Like I said I am not running the front at 24" That was just for the sake of seeing how low the car would go. The exhaust and airdam are only about 1" off the ground. Totally undriveable. I am planning to try the front at 25.5" and see how I like it. That would give me 1.5" of travel before the progressive rate bump stops start to hit. I could trim 0.5" off the Ground Control bump stop and I don't think it would make a significant difference. They are progressive rate and sound somewhat similar to your Konis. I do not know their rate however.

 

Today I raised the front to as high as it would go. That got me a 26.5" fender gap. Tomorrow I'll lower it to 25.5" and see how I like it.

 

Here is the front at 25.5" and rear 26.5" I think I'd like it a little lower but I drive it first at this height and see if it settles.

 

You should be able to run the rear at 26" as long as you do not have any payload or rear seat passengers in the car. Once you do put a payload back there you will be hitting the factory bumpstops hard.

I would suggest taking them out and trimming them off 1/2' and then cone tapering the sides of them smaller in size back to kind of a pointed shape on top again. This will give 1/2" more clearance as well as soften the impact so they are not so harsh when they hit.

the fronts I guess you could take a little room off the stiffer bottom sides of the bumpstops, but I would be careful to have adquate clearance as well as adequate resistence in case of something failing a colasping onto them for safety. If they do not work adequately, ift would be no difference as just not even running bump stops.

 

Correct me if I am wrong but you have the tires on the wrong side of the car?

 

Yes folks its already been mentioned the tires are pointing backwards. I just grabbed them from the top of the pile. There are on there only to check ride height. I'm sure they will be on and off at least 5 more times before the car is ready to drive. Thank you for your concern.

 

that looks really nice! gives the car a nice rake, sweet!

 

I just removed my rear isolators because to me even bottomed out it wasn't enough drop. I just used electrical tape to cushion the metal against metal contact. My stance now is absolutely perfect for me. 26 3/4 in the rear and 25 1/2 in the front. I'll post pics tomorrow.

 

Yeah I'll end up taking that isolator out too. It wouldn't be a problem if they just sent you the correct spring to begin with.

 

dude..you going wheelin with those mud flaps on?

 

Nothing wrong with flaps on a street car. Its called protecting the paint.

 

very nice car though, plus I like your choice on all your upgrades..im basically going the same route as yours

 

Lol. I justify them every time I look at the pristine quality of my paint behind the tires.

 

This ever get figured out. My car sits about the same way...

 

ya...i ordered the 9'' spring and it works great. if you are planning on going extremely low you could even go with an 8'' spring.

 

I ordered the 9" spring and I am happy with the height now.

 

See above. The 10" works fine but 9" would be better.

Here are pictures of the ride height that I ended up with.

This is with 8" front springs almost fully high and 10" rear springs fully low with stock isolators.

 

Wow does that sit nice.

A note to all- you will get the best ride quality by using the tallest spring possible. There is less frequency gain in compression cycling because a taller spring generally has more coil wire.