More planning went into my car lowering than I had anticipated but when the installation was done the car ended up at precisely the height I had targeted with no further adjustments necessary. I highly recommend adjustable links as they make precision far easier than other DIY methods and eliminate the guesswork and experimentation. The steps below are a foolproof method for lowering the car to your desired height without trial and error experimentation, which can be a major PIA.
As there are several other threads on car lowering I'll dispense with other ground that's been covered before and cut right to the chase, which is to save some time and trouble for those who are planning to lower their cars.
Here are the steps that I think are critical:
1.Measure the tire/wheel well gap front and rear with the car on your desired suspension height setting (in my case low)
Checking by eye I noticed that my car was higher in the front than the rear. I had previously reported this to my Service Center but nothing was done. Not completely trusting my eyeball method, I took some measurements with the suspension in the lowest setting. I placed a thin, flat 12” ruler on the top of the front and rear tires and measured the distance from the top of the ruler to the bottom of the wheel well opening. Sure enough there was a substantial difference:
Front gap 1.75”
Rear gap 0.875
Conclusion: The difference was real and I needed to lower the front much more than the rear.
2.Decide how small a wheel well gap you want and thus how much you’ll need to lower the car
As I was lowering my car for appearance and wanted no compromises to handling or potential problems from lowering it too far, I decided to lower it enough to achieve an even front and rear wheel gap of about ½ inch at the lowest suspension setting. This meant that I’d need to lower the car about 1.25” (31.75mm) in the front and .375” (9.7mm) in the rear.
3. Calculate how much longer the adjustable links need to be than the stock links to be to achieve the targeted lowering at the desired suspension height setting
The stock links measure as follows from ball end to ball end (as shown in the photo).
Front: 65.08
Rear: 84.83
For my adjustable links 1mm of additional link length lowers the car by 5.6mm (I’m not sure if that’s the case for all adjustable links but that’s what the instructions for mine indicated). With this information it’s a simple calculation to determine how much longer the links need to be than stock to lower the car to your target height. In my case the front links needed to be 5.67 mm longer than stock (31.75/5.6) and the rear links 1.7 mm longer (9.525/5.6). That results in new link lengths of 70.75 mm front and 86.5 mm rear. I set the adjustable links to these lengths (ball end to ball end) and locked them in place with the lock nuts.
4.Set the adjustable links to the length specified by your calculations and install them.
If your calculations are accurate when you lower the car after installing the properly set lowering links the car height front and rear should be spot on with no adjustments necessary. That was my case when my car was lowered.
By the way, installing the links front and rear is much easier to do if you remove all of the wheels. You can reach the front links with the front wheels on but the installation is more difficult, especially attachment of the clips that lock the link balls on the socket. Make it easier on yourself and remove the front and rear wheels.
Will post more photos tonight.
As there are several other threads on car lowering I'll dispense with other ground that's been covered before and cut right to the chase, which is to save some time and trouble for those who are planning to lower their cars.
Here are the steps that I think are critical:
1.Measure the tire/wheel well gap front and rear with the car on your desired suspension height setting (in my case low)
Checking by eye I noticed that my car was higher in the front than the rear. I had previously reported this to my Service Center but nothing was done. Not completely trusting my eyeball method, I took some measurements with the suspension in the lowest setting. I placed a thin, flat 12” ruler on the top of the front and rear tires and measured the distance from the top of the ruler to the bottom of the wheel well opening. Sure enough there was a substantial difference:
Front gap 1.75”
Rear gap 0.875
Conclusion: The difference was real and I needed to lower the front much more than the rear.
2.Decide how small a wheel well gap you want and thus how much you’ll need to lower the car
As I was lowering my car for appearance and wanted no compromises to handling or potential problems from lowering it too far, I decided to lower it enough to achieve an even front and rear wheel gap of about ½ inch at the lowest suspension setting. This meant that I’d need to lower the car about 1.25” (31.75mm) in the front and .375” (9.7mm) in the rear.
3. Calculate how much longer the adjustable links need to be than the stock links to be to achieve the targeted lowering at the desired suspension height setting
The stock links measure as follows from ball end to ball end (as shown in the photo).
Front: 65.08
Rear: 84.83
For my adjustable links 1mm of additional link length lowers the car by 5.6mm (I’m not sure if that’s the case for all adjustable links but that’s what the instructions for mine indicated). With this information it’s a simple calculation to determine how much longer the links need to be than stock to lower the car to your target height. In my case the front links needed to be 5.67 mm longer than stock (31.75/5.6) and the rear links 1.7 mm longer (9.525/5.6). That results in new link lengths of 70.75 mm front and 86.5 mm rear. I set the adjustable links to these lengths (ball end to ball end) and locked them in place with the lock nuts.
4.Set the adjustable links to the length specified by your calculations and install them.
If your calculations are accurate when you lower the car after installing the properly set lowering links the car height front and rear should be spot on with no adjustments necessary. That was my case when my car was lowered.
By the way, installing the links front and rear is much easier to do if you remove all of the wheels. You can reach the front links with the front wheels on but the installation is more difficult, especially attachment of the clips that lock the link balls on the socket. Make it easier on yourself and remove the front and rear wheels.
Will post more photos tonight.
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