how low should I go?

Liom the Chef

Liom the Chef

Member
This could draw out some interesting opinions :think: but effectively what I'm looking for is the ideal height I should have my CH at for improved handling, ignoring the legal constraints.
I have my coilovers installed, and am sitting at approximately 8cm front, 12cm rear, I was wondering what others had there's adjusted to.
Aesthetically lower = better I know, but I'm looking at it from a performance perspective primarily (whilst remaining practical as well)
 
go to a suspension place that does racecar alignments. they'll lower your car enough so the suspension geometry works at its best.

lowest centre of gravity helps, but proper geometry is better.
 
^WHS

If you go too low your suspension components wont work properly. Take it to a racing suspension place like Heasmans and get it done there. They will guide you on how to best set up your car for whatever your needs.
 
mdclear said:
as low as practical to you, lowest center of gravity = win
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Don't do this. With McPherson setup. As you lower the car, yes the CG lowers, but the roll center lower much faster, causing greater roll couple.

You also lose dynamic negative camber.

Without doing a corner weigh and elevated corner weigh, you can't do much but speculate the CG height, and its then near impossible to work out the most effective combination of low CG and roll centre height.

To combat the camber issue. Look at the angle your LCA makes with your shock. If its 90* or greater. It means that when you corner you will experience a shift to positive camber, which is not ideal. If you adjust your height so that in a corner, you max shock compression produces an angle of 90* or less, it means you wont loose camber during cornering.
 
low is awesome, but i'm hoping for some middle ground. And yes, I was looking for input on the best geometry of the car, I don't really have the resources to get my car professionally balanced (mid-long term though that sounds like a good idea once I've finished with what I want to do with the car). However having looked at the LCA and it's angle in relation to the strut (thanks for that info by the way) it looks like the fronts are pretty spot on at 90 degree's.
The rears look like they have a little bit to go lower before being 90, but considering we sort of winged it aside from matching the left/right sides height, it's come out pretty well.
I'll adjust the rears, then get it aligned.

I can see I have a lot to learn though
 
lowest part on my magnas chassis was <75mm and skirts were like 50mm......prove it too me you can go lower, i dare you.
 
Chocko said:
lowest part on my magnas chassis was <75mm and skirts were like 50mm......prove it too me you can go lower, i dare you.
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haha skirts are cheating, and I would go lower, but for a special occasion, maybe a lancer meet if one comes up :think:
 
jaxom_n said:
Chocko said:
lowest part on my magnas chassis was <75mm and skirts were like 50mm......prove it too me you can go lower, i dare you.
Click to expand...

haha skirts are cheating, and I would go lower, but for a special occasion, maybe a lancer meet if one comes up :think:
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BUT mine were only small skirts thank fck lol not like cheating fibreglass ones ;)

383661_292960577393808_1186999836_n.jpg
 
I would take it back to 100mm, I doubt the handling is going to be noticeably worse on the streets, you wont have to worry about being defected and speed humps, driveways,etc will be less of a hassle...

With the 90 degrees bit, wouldn't you still need to be making sure its like that when the spring is compressed under load during cornering as well and not just at stationary?
 
The rears are different to the front as the camber is not defined by the strut assembly, so the 90* thing doesn't apply to them. I'm pretty sure most trailing arm setups have a roll centre at ground level, but each trailing arm setup is different so its hard to work out.

Yer the angle should be less than 90* throughout suspension travel. So it will depend on sway bars and spring rate.
 
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