Lowering Car (I know, old topic)

1753 Views 13 Replies 9 Participants Last post by 01ZEE06, Aug 10, 2001

dimer0

Discussion Starter · Jul 21, 2001

I've done a lot of research on both forums, and I'm still a bit confused... Wonderin if you guys could give me your sage advice.. My Z definitely needs to be lowered.

I want to get the car .5-1 inches lower, without the front being higher than the back.. (I've read one tragic post about that - OUCH!!!)

In the front, I tighten the bolt until there's nothing showing between the bushing and the bolt..

In the rear, I probably shouldn't cut the bushing (would make it too low??), and just tighten till I see two threads showing on the top of the bolt..

Once that's done, immediately drive it - slowly - to an alignment shop to have them zero out the toe and, in my case, increase negative camber on the front wheels to about 2 degrees and the back at around 1.. (Autocrossing next weekend, want this set up ok)

Does this sound about right??? When I do this, I'll take MANY pictures - since I haven't seen any step-by-step pics of this procedure yet..

Thanks!

_________________
dimer0
2001 Torch Red Z06 [ anti-cagged | zaino | passport 8500 ]
2001 Black Audi S4 [ bone stock | zaino ]

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JimGreen

· #9 · Aug 3, 2001

On a Z06, to lower either the front or rear, you must cut off part of the "pad" on the end of the adjusting bolts. The most difficult for me was the front, as I had to loosen the upper A-arms and lower shock mounts to get the adjusting bolt out. On the front, I cut off the first section of the pad.

There is a link to a good set of lowering instructions on the C5 Registry FAQ page. On my car, lowering about 1" caused the front to gain about .5-.7 degree negative camber, so that had to be taken out of each side. Reducing the camber caused the toe-in to increase, so I had to adjust that too. But it lowers the center of mass of your car about 1", and that improves the handling a lot.

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JimGreen

· #12 · Aug 10, 2001

One thing I forgot to comment on -- what is this "drive it for a month before you do the alignment" stuff? The car doesn't take a month to settle to its new height. In fact, it doesn't even take hours. One trip around the block and it is where it will be forever (unless the bolts loosen and turn). If you don't have alignment tools, the trip to the alignment shop is all you need to "settle" the suspension. In fact, when I was racing, we bounced the car in place to settle it, rolled it back and forward one foot, and then measured the alignment. What's going on here?

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