Coilovers How Low Can You Sit Your Glanza?

[gorganl2000]

As cool as slammed cars look, don't expect them to handle very well. The rear suspension doesn't much care what height it's at (assuming that you have an adjustable panhard rod and have re-centred the axle) but the front is a different story...

When you significantly lower a basic macpherson strut based car beyond a point (it's not very much lower than stock) you start to run into all sorts of negative effects. The biggest on a starlet is that the roll centre and roll couple are miles from where they should be. This means that as the car rolls the car will actually find it EASIER to roll further. This inevitably results in hitting the end of available suspension travel. Without suitable amounts of travel you're shock loading the tire on the bump stops and it's highly likely that you will lose control if cornering near the limit. As well as that, once your lower A arms get beyond horizontal to the ground, any further suspension compression will result in POSITIVE camber gain. That's all kinds of bad!

Although it as it may seem counter intuitive to 'performance car' people, higher = better when it comes to suspension performance with stock geometry.


There are ways to get around these issues, either via a quick fix (really stiff spring rates) or the 'correct' way which is actually resolving the underlying alignment problems. If somebody is interested I could do a write up that explains why lowered starlets handle like arseburgers and how to *really* fix it.

excellent post fatman...i know its important to keep those lower arms as horizontal as possible plus other variables within certain tolerances
could you please explain further if you can

i know a bit from talking to rally guys...but a good write up would be useful to the forum

 

[MeisterR]

To be honest, it is very difficult to say what an "ideal" ride height is as there are so many things you can do.
Every adjustments you do make a compromise somewhere else, and the definition of "ideal" also differ from people to people.

Like Fatman said, roll center will start to stray the more you lower the car.
Using harder springs, running more negative camber, etc... all offset compromise you make else where.

Suspension work as a whole, so everything makes a difference such as tyre compound and alignment.
You have to work with the car to find what is good for you... and that is why I normally recommend make one change at a time when it comes to suspension.

Don't bolt on coilovers, ARB, Anti-lift kit, chassis brace, and change the wheels/tyres at the same time
Get comfortable with one mods first, then add the next one that you feel the car is "lacking".

 

[aaronw]

i have D2's and have another 15-20mm at the rear and about 20mm at the front left,bearing in mind my rear interior of my car is stripped.

same height, tho earlier pic

 

[Fatman]

Looks like you're running positive camber or somehow managed to get to 0 caster! Had your alignment checked recently/at all?

 

[aaronw]

i bought it like that, tho further lowered it myself,but ill put some negitive camber on tomorrow, im undecided on the height so dont want to get them set up fully.