steve40th

Okay, I am finally doing ball joints and bushings in my 93. I am going to the FHB ZO7 front spring, from the softer FHA spring.
My ZO7 spring has no pad eyes on the end, and I just installed the lowering wedges from Mid America. I used very good 2 part epoxy.
I plan on putting rubber (super thick high durometer) or teflon or Delrin pads to protect the A Arms and ends of the spring. But, the factory is 5/8 inch thick. I am looking for more lowering so I am only going to install 1/4 protection there.
Now, I followed Central Coasters write, great one by the way, and am going to leave out the aluminum spacer as well.
http://webpages.charter.net/khasting.../lowering.html
Here are some pics now, and hopefully within a week or 2 I will have pics for front and rear, as I am doing the ZO7 rear spring and DRM rearend brackets too.

And here is the aluminum block, at 2 inches, which seems to be good enough for squeezing things down with the wedges. And the pad eyes missing, and the old spring at 5/8 inch.
I am going to shoot for close to JEFFNLSA 96 Black LT4s stance, which is SWEET.


PS, I have the front end apart, any questions regarding rebuild and or lowering. Let me know, as this is a work in progress.

steve40th

TTT, input, questions etc.

95wht6spd

Cool, show pics when done.
I have thought about removing the alum spacer, didn't know if anyone had or if it would be to much.
What about the rear, looks like there are several alum spacers there that could be removed or added back to adjust?

steve40th

I will post pics, after alignement. The aluminum spacers in the center of the rear leaf spring is for different springs. Each spring, from Z51/ZO7/FE1 suspension etc uses them in different order. In other words, 2 on top, 1 below, or 2 below spring and one on top. The FSM talks of this.

95wht6spd

Interesting.

racebum

ride height looks perfect, i have a similar ride height with the adjustable VBP stuff. Little stiffer than a FHB but not much. one nice suprise by moving up in rates like you did is how much less you bottom out. my old FHA spring would smack speed bumps at a higher height just because of the give when you go over it.

JEFNLSA

Very nice.

Just a tad lower in front and you're there man...

steve40th

I hope so. When I took my old spring out I found the area where the urethane wedges go, it was just cut down to same height, but now wedge. The aluminum spacer was there and the spring pad eyes on the ends were there, and they are 5/8 inch thick of rubber with metal sandwiched.
So, now I need to figure out how low I want to go.
If I do just wedges, I may end up too low, as one guy with a 93 found as he has the same spring and spring pad eyes were cut off just like mine.
Jeff you PM'd me once with how you did it, can you pm me again.
Heres your car and his by each other. His is no pad eyes/ and wedges only like I was going to do (also with 1/4 inch protectors for pad eyes though)

JEFNLSA

PM sent Steve.

steve40th

Update, here are some pics. Not the best but lowered nonetheless.
25.5 front 26 rear.




Before and after lower even more

JEFNLSA

Right on Steve, looks great!

Because of your mod that allow the 315's to sit inside the fender wells, you really managed to bring the rear down. I still may have to try that w/ mine @ some point. I'll have to shoot you a PM for a how-to.

Also, I see you haven't gotten rid of her.
Hope you got (or are getting) the issues ironed out cuz I think you'd have been more miserable w/o her than w/ her. Heck, you have too much time & money into her to just say @#$! it. Plus, we both know that we'll never get back what we put into these things.

Jeff

steve40th

Thanks for the compliments jeff. The mod I did was worthwhile, especially being able to tuck the wheels in. The only thing I would do differently, is measure the left and rear offset. The left was in a little further than the right from the factory due to manufacturing tolerneces. So, I wouldnt have cut the left side as much, even though I did both sides 13mm as per instructions, i would have done maybe 11 mm on the left as the left touches the dog bone attaching bracket with the wheel weights and sometimes the tire. Now this is on extreme driving, not everyday. The wheel weights need to be the kind that get taped on, not the ones that are factory on the rim/bead area.
Other than that, it does look nicer than a wheel sticking out. Of course some people cant tell either till I tell them.
Most of my issues are ironed out. Sometimes the Vette gets the better of me. If I were single, there wouldnt be much for issues. I do have to feed the kids and put a roof over their heads, and here in Hawaii 3200 dollar mortgage sux!!!

steve40th

Better picture

jerkyboy

I think I missed it. How did you get the rear tires to tuck in? We vert owners have it tough as we have the x-brace to contend with. The verts sit higher as a result. To get it down, I actually sliced the wedges in half and removed the pads at the end of the spring. I added a thin piece of EPDM roofing membrane (really tough stuff) for the spring to A-arm area. I am down close to you guys now but my x-brace takes a beating All of your lowered C4s look great in this thread!

steve40th

I tucked the rears in by narrowing the brake bracket 13mm, used 13mm shorter spindles from a 87 (86/87 will work), then used a dremel and cut the hole the spindle/wheel bearing goes through on the knuckle to allow it sit further in(not a bad job, and GM did it on their Big Doggie 454 90 Vette years ago.) There is little more to it, but with the GS 50mm offset and 13mm narrowing, the wheels come in flush.
Give me your email and I can send you the PDF file of the article.

silver86

That's interesting. I'm trying to tuck my ZR-1's on my 86 (35mm offset). Haven't really figured out how to do that yet.

steve40th

I think the 86's its supposed to bolt right in. I think someone else needs to chime in, but you already have the shorter spindle. But, you are useing the ZR1 offset which is an additional 14 mm further out than a GS offset of 50MM. Measure 14 mm on your set up, and thats how much further it would go in with the Grand Sport wheels.