The Ultimate Handling Guide Part V: The One Unforgivable Sin, Overlowering Your Car

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Scion TC suspension
Moton EVO suspension
The best way to lower your car is to get coil over suspension that is designed to be lowered.  The DG Spec Scion TC sold by Dezod is an affordable example and these Moton EVO coil overs are a more exotic and expensive example.

What can you do as a suspension tuner to avoid overlowering?

• Make sure the car doesn’t get on the bumpstops under maximum cornering load.  The easy way to tell this is with a zip tie tell tale on the shock shaft
• If you must run super low, do it race car style. Get short-bodied high-end coil over shocks and struts with higher rate springs that are designed for a lower ride height. This suspension is designed for a low ride height. Many popular cars have kits to adjust and correct roll centers, camber curves and bumpsteer when lowered with shorter coilovers, use them.  If not, these parts can be fabricated with universal race car parts.
• If you can’t get a decent rate drop in spring for your car, Ground Control makes kits for many cars allowing the use of Eibach 2.5” ERS racing springs which come in nearly an infinite selection of rates and lengths.  With Ground Control’s threaded spring perches, you can also adjust the ride height.
• If you can’t do any of this, run short soft progressive microcellular urethane bump stops so the wheel rate will ramp up gradually if the car gets up on the bump stops.  Koni makes excellent bump stops.
• If you have McPherson strut suspension, be especially aware of short travel and suspension geometry problems.  McPherson strut cars usually have a small window of where they can be lowered without messing things up.  It is really typically best to run these cars at close to the stock ride height unless you significantly modify many other components.

sentra racing suspension
A lowered Sentra handles horribly. We had to do a lot of things to correct the geometry when we lowered the suspension 3 inches.  We had to relocate the lower ball joint lower to correct the roll center and camber curve.  To reduce bumpsteer we had to flip the tie rod to the bottom of the spindle to lower it around 2 inches.

The biggest difficulty you as a tuner will encounter is convincing the dumped to the ground hella flush ricer with his super slammer springs that he has actually messed up his car.  Actually don’t bother convincing them, if they are a fellow competitor, the convincing will be your smoking them on the track; after all it isn't all about stance.
 

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