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 Posted: Tue Jan 02, 2007 10:02 am Post subject: Car lowering 101 |
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| Quote: | Car lowering 101
by: zeoth
At one point in time, everyone one of us has seen a lowered vehicle of some sort. Whether it�s a Honda Civic or a Lincoln Navigator, the uses and methods used to lower vehicles comes in a range of cheap to expensive and dangerous to safe. In this guide, I hope to explain some of the most common methods used and my opinion of them.
Let�s start with the basics. What is the point of the suspension? It�s not to make your butt feel nice. It�s basic use is to keep the friction of the tire on the road. Without keeping the tire in contact with the road, the car will just go in one direction. You won�t be able to turn because there won�t be anything pushing your car in any other direction. Given that basic fact, no matter what your reason is for lowering a car (looks, performance, etc), you must make sure to keep that basic idea in mind.
So now that you have that understanding, what are the components to lowering the car. There are three basic components: Springs, Shocks, Leaves, and Torsion Bars. Springs and shocks are used mostly on cars and light SUV�s. They can either be separated or come as one unit called a strut(which is very commonly used). A strut is nothing more than a shock pushed inside the spring. Leaves are usually used in the rear of heavy duty trucks and we won�t cover it as not many people actually lower heavy duty trucks as much. Torsion Bars too aren�t as popular so I won�t cover that either.
So what does the spring do and what does the shock do? It�s actually very simple. A spring controls ride height handles the road�s elevation changes (like bumps). A shock dampens the spring�s movement. Huh? Let�s go with an example. If you drive a car without a shock (or have worn shocks which doesn�t do anything) and hit a bump, the car will start bouncing. Because it�s a spring, it will keep bouncing up and down many times until eventually it stops. A shock is a dampening device that reduces that bounce so it bounces only a few times. The reason why this is important brings us back to keeping friction on the road concept. When your car is up in the air, it doesn�t keep as much contact with the road.
One last thing. I will refer to rice to describe something people do to make performance worse just because of ignorance or doing something incorrectly.
Now let�s start with rice tip number 1. If springs control ride height, why not just cut the tip of the spring to lower the car? No no no no no. Springs on car are what we call progressive springs. It basically means the more you compress it, the harder it becomes to compress it. Say it take 30lbs to compress the spring a half inch. It would take 100lbs to compress it another half inch. The next half inch might take 500lbs. Why is this important? When you hit a small bump, the springs and shocks are suppose to compress allowing the wheel to move smoothly over it. If you cut the springs, now all of the sudden that small bump isn�t enough to compress the spring so the car will now jump over the bump. Remember a car in the air has less contact with the road. That�s VERY VERY dangerous and hence rice tip number 1 is NEVER cut your springs to lower the car.
Next is rice tip number 2. Now that you know not to cut springs, you will now buy lowering springs but use the OEM shocks (OEM = Original Equipment Manufacturer or stock or what came with the car). By lowering the car, you are compressing the shock and forcing the shock to travel a shorter distance but at a much higher frequency. Remember shocks are made to dampen the bounce. Each shock has a certain operating range. Shocks that came with your car is not meant to be compressed for long periods of time while at the same time traveling short distances very very quickly. The car might feel fine at the beginning but you will quickly boil the oil inside the shocks (having the shock travel really quickly) and thus blow out the shock and render it useless. So rice tip number 2 is to make sure you buy the springs AND shocks when you lower the car.
Next is rice tip number 3. This one is a bit harder to understand and I�m running out of space. When you put load on any corner of the car, you in effect force the top of the wheel towards the inside of the car. If you look at a heavily loaded car from the front, the wheels look like: / \. The reason why it does that is when you corner at high speeds, there is a huge lateral force and you get the best grip by pushing in the opposite direction. It�s great for cornering but when tires are tilted, the tire footprint becomes smaller and thus once again rob tire friction when just going straight down the road. When you lower your car, the car is set up to automatically have that tilt called camber because it mechanically thinks it has a load. So how do you push the tire straight? In most cases, you will need either a camber kit or a new arm to straighten out the tire with the camber kit being much much cheaper and more readily available. So in addition to buying springs and shocks, you might also need a camber kit to fix the camber problems.
So let�s talk about what�s available on the market today. There are many manufacturers that offer springs. Different drivers want different handling characteristics but the top manufacturer of springs include Eibach, H&R, and Neuspeed.
For shocks, the top manufacturers include Eibach, Tokiko, Neuspeed, KYB, and Koni. Some even offer adjustable
There are makers of complete strut systems like Tien and JIC which not only are height adjustable but some of the shocks are adjustable as well.
Makers of camber kits are Ingall and SPC with my opinion that Ingalls are a LOT better.
There are also replacement kits like airbags and hydrolics (which makes your car bounce by itself) which I don�t recommend. Those technologies are used for show and is dangerous to use in the streets.
Final things to take with you. The lower the car, the stiffer the car becomes. Why? Because there�s less room for the suspension to travel otherwise the tire ends up hitting the car. The springs have to be stiffer to prevent bottoming out. My recommendation for basic street use is a sport setting drop (not a race) with non-adjustable shocks. (Personally Eibach is softest with H&R then finally Neuspeed being the stiffest)This will cover 85% of the people out there. For those looking for a little more, use adjustable shocks. Quite a bit more costly but it gives you the added control. Finally for those serious ones out there, a full coilover system by either Tien or JIC will satisfy the masses. And don�t use race setting for street use. Beware of �fake� coilover systems that is basically a coilover sleeve. Stick with the manufacturers I mentioned and you�ll be glad you did.
Look for more guides from me in the future.
Zeoth
Friends Don�t Let Friends Drive Stock |
http://reviews.ebay.com/Car-lowering-101_W0QQugidZ10000000000122134
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