Well, I've got the new coilovers installed, and I'm trying to get the ride height set where I want before I take the car in for alignment/corner balancing.

I think my stock tires (205/45-17) are taller than my autocross tires (205/50-15), so I should probably use my stock wheels for figuring out the ride height.

For those who have lowered your cars and went a smidge too far, what was the first area where you ran into trouble? Was it the tires rubbing on the body, or did you start hitting things with the front lip?

The ride height is adjustable without changing the spring preload, so there's not going to be a problem with suspension travel in the shock unit itself - I just don't want to tear the front air dam off on a bump or wear holes in my fender liners from the tires.

Thanks!

 

Thread moved to 1st Gen/Mods/Suspension upon request.

 

I just lowered my 05 mcs with M7 springs...listed as a 1.3in drop, my wheels are 17x7 with a 40MM offset and 215/40/17 size tired - i dont rub, I think you should be fine.

 

You should use the tires/wheel combo with the larger OD, to ensure you don't lower too much... Depending on the coilovers chosen, the length of the bodies and stroke, etc., you could theoretically rub the inner liners before bottoming out on the bumpstops.

The ride height IS adjustable using the lower spring perch, but depending on the spring length, spring diameter, wind, body length of the strut/shock, and stroke you can run into plenty of issues - especially suspension travel. For the majority of coilovers on the market, you cannot drop the car all the way to the bottom of the adjustment range and have enough suspension travel - the caveats being the static length of the springs (e.g. you could have 8" springs for instance and the perch bottomed out but have plenty of travel), body length, threaded length, and stroke...

If you go too low, you can either ride around on the bumpstops OR possibly experience coil binding. You can also "preload" the springs, if you jack the perches way up (shorter than their static length) although the rate wouldn't change (assuming they are linear springs - if progressive, you WOULD change the rate).

I would suggest putting on the 17's (should have ~24.3" OD versus ~23.1" for the 205/50R15) and setting all four corners in the middle of the adjustment range... Drop the car back down and see what you think. Adjust accordingly. Lock the perches when you're done. Then, put some zip ties around the strut/shock rod and drive around (suggest hard cornering, undulations in the road, sharp bumps, etc.)... Come back and see where the zip ties ended up. If they're not hammered up against the upper hat, you should be fine... If they are, or if you can feel the car bottoming out, you need to raise the ride height...

And then take the car for cornerweighting...