Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

Ive posted this in the general auto section, but here goes aswell

Just hoping someone can shed some light on ride heights?

Whats legal? Whats Defect-able?

Can a car be left at stock height yet have very low skirts?

Does it vary between makes/models? (My brother wants to have some fun with the astra in my avatar...would this ride height be different to an R32/R33/R34?

Any help would be great thanks guys (and girls)

Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/31856-how-low-can-you-go/
Share on other sites

To get a little more technical, you must have at least 2/3rds of the original suspension travel too, and you must have the same height front and rear - ie the car must be level, so you cant just lower the front.

Different cars will have different ride heights from the factory - there are a couple of different measurements to assess this. One is from the centre of the wheel to the guard, another is 'eyebrow' height, as there are now ADRs which state the minimum height from the road to the headlights - once again, this may be exceeded if the car was manufactured with a lower eyebrow height than specified.

It would be worth checking your local rules, which are available on the RTA website - as for example here in SA, they require engineering certification if the car is lowered at all from stock - but I am pretty sure most states are not that strict.

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now


  • Similar Content

  • Latest Posts

    • Depending on the purpose of the car, and how much more fabbing you want to do, and what clearances you have, you could look to raise the motor, which will raise the front diff up. Likely would mean altering the chassis rails etc etc, hence the more fab work you'd need to do. However, this can create issues, not just in clearance with everything fitting under the bonnet, but you've also raised a LOT of weight up in the car, and this will DEFINITELY alter handling characteristics (But, so will how much weight you've already added to the front end). You'll also have to deal with the fact the gearbox to rear diff is now out of alignment too for the tail shaft, and alter the angle of the diff, or deal with a bit of potential vibration. Raising the motor an inch up, is effectively the same as making the whole car sit higher by not lowering it as far. So one inch higher motor, theoretically means you can drop the car an extra inch lower, and maintain the same angles in the CVs. Again, depends on the purpose of the car. If it's a just cruiser on the street car, maybe won't be an issue. If it's meant to be a time attack car, I can see you not wanting to raise the motor. This is just for you to ponder as an idea.
    • Have you not seen geospy.ai? It can now give GPS co ords to within a metre from a photo, even if it's a random photo you take inside. Supposedly at the moment only the government/law enforcement has access to that... Supposedly...
    • I've got the rear ones, they're certainly beefy. I need to take them to my driveshaft guru to check over, he's very fussy about the quality of components so I'll let you know if they are made of cheese by a blind man.   Are you in Australia? A mate just had a set of EN26 shafts made for his K20 Lotus by our fabricator which were quite cheap (compared to Driveshaft Shop) so if you can procure the CV's and draw what you need he'd make them for ~$800 for the pair.
    • Had I known the diff between R32 and R33 suspension I would have R33 suspension. That ship has sailed so I'm doing my best to replicate a drop spindle without spending $4k on a Billet one.
    • OEM suspension starts to bind as soon as the car gets away from stock height. I locked in the caster and camber before cutting off the kingpin. I then let the upright down in a natural (unbound) state before re-attaching it. Now it moves freely in bump and droop relative to the new ride height. My plan is to add GKTech arms before the car is finished so I can dial camber and caster further. It will be fine. This isn't rocket science. Caster looks good, camber is good, upper arm doesn't cause crazy gain and it is now closer to the stock angle and bump steer checks out. Send it.
×
×
  • Create New...