My 89 sits a little high in the *** end. Thinking about lowering one inch. Shouldn't make too much of a difference with new Bilstein B6's. should it? Don't want to go two inches because of the conversations about the rear suspension being too hard.
Am I on track?

 

I'd thought about lowering mine a smidge a while back.

Even started a thread with a photo of the car as it is, asking for opinions about it. I was on the fence about it.

Ended up leaving it as is.

Sometimes we get an urge and then afterward it's like...meh. Well..I do anyway.

Maybe upload a good full side picture of your C4 and let's have a look at it as is?

To me, the lines don't look right on a lowered car. At least that was the jreason I gave myself for deciding on not lowering anyway.

 

I would, but it's in a small garage and snow outside. My Corvette is allergic to snow.
I can fit four fingers between the tire and the rim of the fender.

 

Yeah, thats the thing. There is a lot of empty space on a stock setup.

I think it's about four fingers for me, too.


Is yours about like this...

 

It's very easy to lower the rear. Just buy some bolts from a vendor or just order the right size off Amazon. It will improve the stance but of course you can only level it to the front. Easy to return to stock if you don't like it. Lowering the front is a lot of work...

 

It is easy to do.

But..to do or not to do. That is the question. Ha...

 

Even if you decide to lower only an inch, buy the 11 inch long lowering bolts. Its usually sold as a 2 inch lowering kit. Don't let the name fool you. You can infinitely adjust each bolt anywhere from stock height all the way to 2 inches. I got the 2 inch kit on my 95, started off at a 1.5 inch drop on the rear and although it looked nice, the front was a bit higher and I didn't want it to look like it had blown rear suspension so I ended up raising it back up and I think my final results were around 1.25 inch drop with a full tank of gas.

Make sure you have a full tank of gas when you start. Measure with a tape measure from the same spot on the rear fenders before lifting the car. On mine I found the driver side rear sits almost a half inch higher and since I have OCD about this stuff I wanted to correct it with my bolts. However I understand the driver side is a touch higher to counteract the weight of a driver in the car, so when I lowered I didn't fully eat up that half inch difference. I think my final results were a 1 1/8 inch drop on the passenger rear and a 1 3/8 drop on the driver rear leaving me with a 1/4 inch higher driver rear to still allow compensation for a driver. And this was done immediately after filling my gas tank. I also measured each front fender to the garage floor to make sure I kept the front and rear at the same height (with a full tank of gas). Again, not wanting the sagging *** look.

Now if you do the front lowering kit then you could go way further than the 1.25 inch drop. And I have been running it for a month and am satisfied.

EDIT: once you raise the car off the ground and lower it back down the suspension will need to be re-settled. The best way to do it is drive around the block making sure to cut the wheel left and right a little bit. If you can't go outside due to snow you can actually achieve the same thing if you have enough runway in your garage, roll back and forth while cutting the wheel left and right, do it back and forth maybe 5 or 6 times depending on how much distance you can travel, I was able to move back and forth to right in front of my garage door maybe 10 feet and that settles your suspension.

 

I have to do some checking. Back in about 1999, I had the rear spring replaced at the Stealership. I wonder if they have the spring bolts screwed all the way up, and there's enough thread on the bottom for some adjustment. I'll have to look.

Did you refinish your wheels. If you did, Tell me about it. I need to do something about mine.

 

Thanks for this! I can only find this kit in Grade 5. Is that a problem?
Did your ride change?
I'm not going to do the front. Just want to get the back even with the front.

 

I got mine from mid America motor works. Check their website for the 11 inch kit. If not then yes grade 5 is strong enough for suspensions

My ride quality seems about the same but I also changed all 4 blown shocks around the same time so any changes from the bolts were probably drowned out in the massive ride improvement from the shocks.

 

If you lower the rear about an inch, you should still have a little bit of a rake with the front being still slightly lower. It will improve that car in nearly every way. I have high grade 10" bolts that are M14 fine thread, with locking nuts.

 

I'm doing the same thing....4 new Bilstein B6's.

 

So, I bought the 2" lowering bolts off Amazon. This way I can put it wherever I want. Just have to get rid of that huge gap in the back.

 

the added benefit of the 2 inch bolt is that if in the future you decide to lower the front you'll still have some adjustment left in the rear to match it. The front is a bit more involved

 

If you rune wide 17X11-12" wheels, the excess bolt length will hit the wheel. You can get it pretty low with a 10" bolt.

 

Nope. I haven't done anything to em aside from just washing and an occassional wheel polish. Think I've maybe only polished em two or three times in the seven years I've had the car.

In fact, the car hadn't even been washed in a few weeks in that photo. And the wheels hadn't been polished in probably a year.

But there have been many folks around here who have refinished their whels and they've turned out very nice.

 

I'll open another thread, later on, what to do to improve the appearance of 36 year old 1989 wheels.

 

@RPO Joe had posted some pictures of cleaning his rims up a while back. That's the most recent discussion that I've seen about that stuff...

​​​​​​https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...post1607279730

But that's just cleaning. Not refinishing.

There's probably several wheel appearance threads on here already if you just search around. In fact, I'm sure of it. But, yeah, you could always make your own thread for your specific wheels.

Anyway. Good luck with lowering the car. It's pretty easy to do, as was mentioned. Maybe post up some before and after pictures when you're done with it?

 

Before and after with my 95. I ended up raising up slightly after these photos as I mentioned before

 

do you have a picture? never mind, didn't scroll down before i sent this! thanks!