Ride Height--Can I Go Higher?

[john g]

Question: What are the implications of raising the ride height to say 5 or 5 1/2 inches? My hope is to gain a little ground clearance and make it easier on my aging bones to enter and exit the car. Will this adversely affect suspension or front tire clearance?

John

[billjr212]

May be a little awkward visually as your tire to fender gap grows. I'll defer to the suspension experts on your actual question though.

[wallace18]

Yes 5 " inches is Ok. I set mine up that way. I had no issues at all.

[dirty kurty]

Have you thought about a coilover hydraulic lift such as www.ramliftpro.com ? Then you have the clearance and entry/exit height without sacrificing looks.

[Junty]

Depends a lot on how you are planning to gain the extra height? If you wind the springs up (gaining height) you are coincidentally adding pre-tension making the suspension stiffer and reducing the allowable travel.
If extra height is desired from the original FFR specification, I would source different springs.

[Quiny]

I like the idea of a little more ride height. Anyone know what size springs you would run on an S to achieve 5 inches. I currently have the stock springs and I don't want to preload them anymore than they are now.

[Bob_n_Cincy]

Depends a lot on how you are planning to gain the extra height? If you wind the springs up (gaining height) you are coincidentally adding pre-tension making the suspension stiffer and reducing the allowable travel.
If extra height is desired from the original FFR specification, I would source different springs.

My engineering brain just kicked in.
You are not compressing the spring when you tighten them up. You are just raising the car.
The car still weighs the same. So the springs will stay the same length.
Running out of shock travel is a concern.
Bob

[TouchStone]

My engineering brain just kicked in.
You are not compressing the spring when you tighten them up. You are just raising the car.
The car still weighs the same. So the springs will stay the same length.
Running out of shock travel is a concern.
Bob

Right! I was just about to post this same reply.

[TouchStone]

Yes 5 " inches is Ok. I set mine up that way. I had no issues at all.

How did you achieve the 5" ride height?

[Junty]

Hey Bob,
It could be due to the low vehicle weight? I wound mine up to gain about 4 1/2 inch height using the R mounting position - ended up with very firm suspension and only 1/2 inch of downward travel when you jack the car up. My suspension specialist want far more travel - so wound them back to 100mm height and ended with 30mm of travel, and a little softer?

[Scargo]

It does adversely affect the suspension. You may not notice it or it might be unacceptable. Wallace18 says it's OK to go to five...
I would assume that the S shocks do not have any more travel than my red Rs which have 4-1/4" total.
You are not going to leave much for droop and droop has no bumper like for compression.
It messes with the geometry, bump-steer and camber rates. Again, you may not notice it and it may work fine for you.

[wallace18]

How did you achieve the 5" ride height?
I just adjusted the spring collars. Very easy to do.

[john g]

Thanks for your comments and suggestions. I raised the car by adjusting the spring collars and will now aim for 5 inches. If it works for Wallace it should be good enough for me. And thanks to Bob for the theory. As an experiment, I will try to measure the length of spring as I adjust the collar. If I remember my freshmen physics, it should not change.