CDH76

I am just curious those that lowered the car on stock bolts yourself did you get your alignment checked? If so how was it? I'm assuming I will be out of alignment some but I am just curious.

If you did NOT check your alignment and you've put say 5,000 miles or more on your car since you lowered hows the rubber looking?

I plan on getting alignment done but don't think I will do it right away. Maybe a couple weeks before I do...just busy.

Thanks

axr6

I just recently got my base C7 and lowered it as soon as I got it home. Before, I took a set up camber and toe measurements at both ends. Going all the way down on stock bolts gave me 0.5" lower ride height.

I drove the car a few miles to settle the suspension and rechecked the alignments. For all practical purposes it was exactly the same. The only difference I measured was 1/32 less toe-in up front at each side.

Since I live in a mountainous area with mostly winding road driving just yesterday had my car realigned for more negative camber. They could not get my specified values of -1.3 degrees in the back so I drove home and removed one washer from each of the upper rear A-arm mounts. This is the factory's recommendation for more camber. After this they did not have any problem getting all the cambers I wanted.

I also installed the Z51 swaybars and bushings that made a significant difference in improving the already pretty decent handling. With the alignment and the swaybars the C7 responds and handles as if on rails.

CDH76

Thanks. I am going to probably lower mine tonight. First time lowering a vette myself. Did you just adjust the bolts until they won't turn anymore or did you do the exact amount of turns on each bolt? Thanks for any tips!

PS I have read the DIY post here on CF.

axr6

I just went as far as the bolts allowed without counting. On some of the bolts my wrench was able to turn better than on others due to various things in the way. For street cars IMO trying to put the same weight on each tire (counter-weighting) is a waste of time. If you go all the way with the bolts you will be fine. At most, you probably will get 0.5 - 0.75 lowering which does make a nice visual difference and helps with the handling.

CDH76

Well that was easy stuff! I'm all out of things to do to my corvette for now and I've only owned my car for about 36 hours! haha

I got some other stuff to do but that is gonna cost me 10K

Racer86

It's "corner weighting " not counter weighting. Corvettes don't have counters.
For fun, imagine a table with one leg that is shorter than the other three legs. That wobbling that the short leg will cause is exactly what will happen in a car that is not corner weighted. A underweight corner is the short leg. IT WILL EFFECT HANDLING. But, of course, it's not necessary for the street,if you just need to look cool.

Glen e

I fully lowered mine at 1200 miles and did not align anything...tires pulled at 5000 and 9000 and they show no abnormal wear.

jagamajajaran

I took mine in after lowering and my dealership did indeed need to make alignment adjustments. Some will, some won't.

axr6

You are correct; it is "corner weighting". I had done that countless times with my SCCA, GT2-3 and Formula race cars.

However, for street cars it really does not make any difference that any street or even track drive can detect. Having a corner on a 3500 lbs street car press down a few lbs more or less in a stationary environment is insignificant; any small differences will disappear under heavy cornering loads. I have my own scales to try it on my street cars and my lap times did not improve a bit as the result of that and I am a long time track racer able to put down reliably repeatable laps.

Good for lightweight, ultra sensitive race cars but, waste of time for heavy street cars. Of course you could make a case when someone deliberately messed up a street car by installing adjustable suspension and tweak it way out of balance. For the Stingray, all bolts from the factory come roughly in the same position and by going all the way down to the stop the differences will be undetectable for pretty much anyone.

axr6

Which does not mean that the small lowering made any significant changes in the alignment.

Take my '15 Stingray as an example; it came from the factory with 0.7 and 0.8 degrees of positive camber on the rear wheels. In just 700 miles you could see wear on the outer tire ribs. Needless to say they HAD TO BE realigned for at least the same amount of negative camber. I finally ended up setting -1.3 degrees on all four, given the fact that I live in a mountainous area with nearly all winding road driving.

jagamajajaran

True. On the other hand, it also does not mean that the small lowering did not make any significant changes in the alignment. As long as you take a car in before it reaches 7500 miles on the odometer, the alignment job is covered under warranty, unless you have made modifications beyond the factory specs (i.e. aftermarket lowering bolts, etc.).

GTB/ZR-1

But, will they go as far as removing washers to give one their desired alignment specs?

axr6

I doubt very much that any dealer would do that free of charge. They may even refuse an alignment if they see that the suspension was lowered or otherwise changed.

After that I could not get enough camber with the factory setup, I asked the alignment shop to remove the washers as I really did not want to drive the car home, take washers out and drive it back with the alignment way off. The shop refused to take out the washers. So, I took it home, removed the washers in no time (super easy, thanks Chevrolet) and checked the alignment changes.

The removal of the 8 washers from rear upper A-arms gave me plenty of negative camber but, it messed up the toe. I had more that 4 times the max specified toe-in. Since I really did not want to do the alignment at home I had no choice but, drive it to the shop; about 20 miles where I finally got it adjusted.