I want to lower my car, I heard of using the stock bolts, but I was under the car yesterday and they did'nt seem like they'd lower it much. What is the best way in lowering my car. -Thanks
Originally posted by Baron Cut bolts and bushings. Rides 10% harsher than stock, looks 100% better than stock!
Can anyone explain why this would be true?
The sprung weight of the car is essentially "suspended", at each wheel hub, on the ends of the springs. The load is transfered through the adjuster bolts to the lower control arm, which transfers the load through the wheel to the ground..
When the car is "lowered", we're changing the height of the end of the spring, relative to the wheel. This brings the suspended sprung weight of the car closer to the ground. But the load and geometry of the spring isn't affected by the change. It's still the same weight suspended through the same points.
This should mean that the ride quality should be unaffected (aside from the benefits of a lower CG).
I lowered my car as far as it would go with the factory bolts, yesterday. Aside from the fact that the air dam now scrapes pulling into my driveway, I can't feel a difference... But, there seems to be large percentage of folks who do. Is there something I'm missing?
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Bottoming out is what I mean. When you go low, your shock travel is used up and when you hit a big bump the shocks bottom out, hence harsher ride. I switched to Bilsteins, which helped about 70%.
If I were to take a guess, I think it is you are changing the geometry (both frt and rear) suspension travel.For example, if you look underneath the rear of your car, at stock height, the control arms angle up toward the center of the car. When you lower it as much as 2 inches, now the control arms are angled up toward the wheel. By doing this, you have changed the arc( or actually the part of the arc it travels in)of the control arms. This in effect changes the distance the arms travel, which will have a small effect on spring rate. Same story on the front.I am not 100% of my idea, but I think someone good at geometry could figure out the difference. And ,just for the record, when we use to lower the rears of 1963 to 82 Corvettes(by installing longer bolts), the cars always road harder.I have been at this stuff a long time, and this is my best explanation.And in the words of Dennis Miller,"I could be wrong".
Originally posted by RocketSled
Can anyone explain why this would be true?
Yeah, my car definately got a little bouncier. It seems to rebound a bit too much on rough roads.
When you lower the car, the I belive the suspension will operate in a narrower range of upward travel most of the time. The shocks will also be forced operate in narrower range most of the time.
The shocks will also be "pre-compressed" more which I believe increases the spring rate, even if the springs are not pre-compressed more (which they are not as far as I understand). I think the ride quality degradation is mostly due to the shocks not operating in the range they were designed to.
Also if you lower the car a lot (i.e. cut the bushings/longer bolts), you should also hit the "jounce" bumpers more easily (bottom out the suspension). The video talks about this. When that happens, the spring rates increase sharply and that can cause snap (over bumps) oversteer condition in the rear and snap understeer in the front .
From what I understand, if you really want to slam the car, the best thing to do is to replace the shocks with a set that are designed to operate in the new range of travel. Most of the autocross guys are going with the Penskes (pricey).
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2002 Z06/Millennium Yellow/Black/All but PSMs
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Mine dropped about an inch just by lowering the bolts as far as I could w/o cutting the bushings. I think it looks much better and corners a hair better now. Any lower and I would be affraid to drive it around with these crappy roads.
Thanks for the reply, this is for 2002Zo6, I have the same car as you with the chrome wheels, I want my car to look like yours, I don't care if I have to be extra careful on bumps, it looks bad ass.
To get yours to look like mine you need to cut 3/4 off the front bushing and go buy 7" long 1/2" grade 8 bolts with "c" type locking nuts. The proper size for the rear is 9/16" but they are real hard to find unless you want to pay $30 for the lowering bolts (waste of money) . The 1/2" bolts will probably cost you less than 5 dollars and you or your car will not notice the difference. Drive your car for half a day then look at it, if it is two low crank on the bolts then take it out again, keep adjusting until it is the height you like. Drive it for a week at that height to see if it settles some more, make your last adjustments and then take her in for a wheel alignment. I also now have the chrome wheels but I don't really have any pics yet that do it any justice. Here is one of them.
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. The 1/2" bolts will probably cost you less than 5 dollars and you or your car will not notice the difference. Drive your car for half a day then look at it, if it is two low crank on the bolts then take it out again, keep adjusting until it is the height you like. Drive it for a week at that height to see if it settles some more, make your last adjustments and then take her in for a wheel alignment. 
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