recommended ride height?

[Avante]

I recently bought a set of tanabe sustec s-0c type 2 coilovers and some 5zigen wheels from a friend. I'm planning to put them into my 97 this week, but was puzzled about the optimum ride height for the car. the 5zigens are 17x7.5 in the front and 18x8.5 in the back. I was looking through the tanabe box but didnt see any suggested ride height settings for the coilovers. I was wondering what i should set it to? Any response is greatly appreciated, thanks!

[onosqv]

as slammed as you can get away with... hahahaha.

Well, are the roads around your area good? lots of dips/curbs/driveways/etc?

Do you mind having to angle through these?

Ride height is mostly w/ asthetics for the most part. You'll love the slammed look for a week until you figure out you can't go anywhere w/ it.

Lower it 2-3" from stock and you'll be fine. Any lower and you may have to start being very weary of driving a lot of places.

It's all about trial & error and personal preference.

[kamikazestorm420]

2"-3" is a lot...

i live in cali and my car is dropped 1.5" and my dam blitz nur-spec scratches on some speedbumps. when im going up most speedbumps i probably have about a finger gap btwn my piping and the bump.

[black s13]

the front of my car is .5" off the ground.

slam it, and correct the alignment specs with al full set of pillowball links.

[Red coupe]

ummm Ride hight is not just an astetic/ground clearance thing and it can change your suspension geomitry quite a bit even after an Alignment, most knowlageable sources I have read agree that after about 1.5 inches any gains are worth the problems created...

[Avante]

Got the rims installed and the suspension set up! Thanks for the responses, I'll post some pics to let you all see what it looks like. Thanks again!

[Avante]

[sensibleS13driver]

oh snaps that car is dumbass clean. ride height looks about perfect. oooh nice ride. you may want to raise it a little if you have any problems with rubbing but looks good to me.

[dfw240_EE]

There was a good article in the August 2005 SCC on the subject. One of the issues is that dropping your body will lower your roll center significantly, but won't lower your center of gravity as much. Therefore you have a bigger 'lever' between the cg and the roll center. My magazine says display until 7/26, so go look, you may be able to grab one.

[naed240sx]

Yeah i read the article too, very informative. I always thought that the lower the car the better, because of a a lower center of gravity. Unfortunately this is partly true. Overlowering negates any advantages gained from lowering in the first place, and actually increases body roll and poor handling. Every car is different, and no golden rule exists, but SCC's article does have some good ways to figure this out, if youve got the time.

[dfw240_EE]

Someone should get some scales and figure out the CG line for our car as they described

[BryanGrigsby]

Avante,

Did you buy any peices to correct camber or just lower the suspension? I have a 98 with the same fn01r-c's. I was looking at a coilover system as well. How low did you take down would you say? BTW, looks really sweet, very inspirational.

[Avante]

I actually just slapped on the coilovers and took off. The camber isn't that bad, and shouldn't be a problem at all. The only set back I had was the alignment of my passenger side front wheel, where it is slightly toed out. My friend and I contemplated on how low to drop the car, and we ended up dropping it almost all the way, where it was about 2.0 - 2.5cm from the top of the lower spring perch to the end of the thread body, so about 2" or so.

PS: I think I gave false information...the fronts are actually 17x9 and the rears are 18x9.5

Thanks for the compliments, guys! And as for the scc article, I think I'll stop by some place and grab a copy tomorrow.

GOod luck with the coilovers, Bryan!