The more I look at my Vette, (which is quite often ), the more I want to lower it. Some of you keep talking about the 4X4 look and I'm starting to agree. I've seen the instructional posts and it seems pretty easy to do.

Besides looking better, will the car handle significantly better once lowered? Seems to make sense that the lower center of gravity would equal better handling....

Right now it's totally stock and I'm thinking maybe an inch or so. Nothing too low like some I've seen here, but something in between perhaps.

What are your experiences? How low before you really can feel the difference, if any, in handling??

 

jeff

 

 

I'll chime in here with experience. I'm not sure about the corvettes setup, BUT, you can lower a car too far. If you lower a car to which the control arms are no longer perpendicular with the ground, and are now folded up, you loose the performance architecture of your vehicle, and you will loose handling, because when lateral force is applied to the tire, and thereby the control arm, instead of the arm being able to apply force back, it applys force unevenly upward due to the control arm being folded up, and causes understeer, this really depends on the factory position of the control arms.

 

Mine is slammed with front bolts gone, I have only been zipping around my block, but it handles like a *****, I think it is a big improvement.

 

I think there is an improvement due to the lower center of gravity, but I doubt if the average Joe can actually feel it.
If it's lowered too much, altered suspension geometry can have a negative impact, but I doubt lowering on factory bolts will have that affect.
Either way, if you lower it, be sure to get a good alignment.

 

The handling was the first thing I noticed, it made a big difference. I have the base suspension and was really dissapointed when I first drove the car home because it was very loose feeling for a sports car.

I am still on bushings and stock bolts so I only went down a little over an inch but it was well worth it. Along with the zo6 sway bars and my car handles awesome now!!!!

 

Lowered on factory bolts and it feels a lot "tighter". Ride is almost the same and the car looks way

Slam it with longer rear bolts and no front bolt and it feels a lot looser because the stock shocks are just too long at that point. They no longer work as shocks.

Right now, slammed - with stock shocks and stock swaybars, my Vette bottoms out and rides like a Ricer

Had I thought of this before I slammed it, I would have installed Bilsein shocks (which are both shorter and stiffer) and Hotchkiss sways and links.

That's getting installed in a week or so - I'll get back to you on handling then.

As another member said - get a good 4 wheel alignment done after the car settles - about 100 miles or so.

EG

pix before the front was completed - the rear has dropped another 1/2 inch since I took this picture.

 

I lowered my Z06 to it's stock hardware limits and felt that the rear shocks definately have a progressive bleed arrangement in that the further they are stroked the firmer they become. It was harsher than I liked at the lowest setting. From this experiment I raised it back up to split the difference between stock 28.5 inch rear fender lip and stock bolt lowered 27.75 inch rear fender lip. I am at 28.125 now and the plushness has returned. The front dropped .5 inches turning the footed adjusters in all the way so my front lips now sit at 27.0 (no cutting), stock was 27.5. The front shocks don't seem to have the progressive bleed arrangement so the half inch lowering didn't seem to increase the harshness. I thought that the stock height Z06 handled very well on irregular country roads and that minor lowering (.375) did not negate any control and adhesion. Dropping the rear below .375 from stock definately placed the suspension grometry in a position of less than ideal stroke and control of an irregular road surface. My observations are based on California remote windy roads which can be very irregular and undulating so a fair amount of suspension travel helps in keeping the wheels planted and absorbing the energy of gravity acting on the car. On a race track or very smooth roadway less travel might work.

 

If done correctly without cutting costs, it will handle noticeably better.

When lowering any car, you need to buy a completely new set of custom springs (don't cut them like the stupid ricers), recommend new shocks/struts, and caster camber plates for the front.

To help even more you can upgrade the anti-roll bars and so forth and the result will be awesome in comparison to stock.

Ah, can't forget better tires - obviously grippier the better - my cars always seem to handle like new even just after a set of new tires...but maybe that's because I wear the old ones down as much as possible, lol

 

Yes, it helps, with the proviso that you stay out of the bump stops...

The point is yes you can lower it, but don't get greedy and slam it unless you are going to go to stiffer springs and shocks than what is on the base car....

As far as total grip goes, generally speaking you are further up the camber curve and the camber gain will be better, that is you will gain more negative camber as the car rolls and that helps the tires grip better in the corners. That and the CG effect are the payoffs....

HOWEVER!!!!

When you hit a bump stop the handling all goes to h3!! in a handbasket. The roll stiffnes goes thru the roof and whatever end is on the bump stop gives up holding the road. You essentially get big oversteer (if the back hits first, as is the case generally with the C5) or big time push if the front hits first. Plowing off the outside of the corner or spinning your pride and joy is no fun at all.

Why does it work this way?

Running out of travel is much more likely to happen when the car is already cornering hard, (you used up the travel in body roll and now when you hit the the rough patch the car hits the bump stops) this is when the excitement begins....Belive me it is no fun to experience a big time car control exercise as the back of the car tries to pass the rear just when you didn't need any more driver workload.....

If you are just going to cruise and not get greedy about flinging it around corners, lower it all the way but if you are serious you should have the Z06 springs (or stiffer) in there to help keep the car from bottoming...

In a practical sense, if you live in the sun belt you can lower it more than folks in the rust belt. The autocrossers and track guy are lowering the front all the way and keeping the back a little higher, but they are also using stiffer springs when the rules let them or starting with a Z06...

Lowering a base car all the way is fine for the car show circuit, but not for a base car that the driver wants to enjoy a fast run thru the woods in....

 

Totally agree here. Suspension travel is important. Does anybody know how much articulation the C5 suspension has?

I know some cars, ie dodge neons, nissan maximas shouldnt be lowered much at all because they have very little suspension travel to begin with.

 

I think Im one of the few that has not jumped into the lowering bandwagon yet.

I like working on my cars and I had learned the hard way driving a lowered car. My daily driver is slammed and I have difficulty raising it up whenever I have to change its oil. I had to run it on 2x4s to get up a pair of Rhino ramps. Every 3000 miles I had to do this chore.

One day I ran on something on the freeway that bent 2 of my wheels. Since it's lowered, shocks dont do their job and the wheels took the brunt of the force. No one wants to tow a lowered car, too. When I found one, they asked me to sign a waiver that they are not liable of the damage due to scraping. Being too low, I had to take off my muffler too since it will scratch/be destroyed when the nose is up.

When you lower a car, as stated, do it right. When you go lower that you have to cut your front bushings and use longer bolts, have your shocks' body shortened or buy shorter shocks. And yes, cut your front air dam by an inch.

They look good, they feel better/more stable when taking a corner but I got tired of scraping the front and slowing down on the smallest of dips and bumps.

 

How much lower than stock was your car when this happened?

I'm not one for the autocrossing circuit...just want better looks and improved handling around corners and freeway entrances and exits and all that...

 

Agree with Solofast too. My additional comments are: YES, lowering will improve your handling up to a point. I've felt it. Just keep in mind that the shocks need their proper travel to do their job for you. I'd say to try lowering it 1/2 inch to 1 inch at first and then drive around for a bit--not too aggressively at first to see how it feels. From every post I've seen, I don't think that the stock shocks are meant to be lowered much at all...

 

you dont want the arms perpendicular unless you wanna drive on your side I think you meant parallel>

Dave

 

can anyone chime in and explain how there car feels with coilovers? I basically just wanna fill the gaps between my wheel wells, but then again i would like the performance factor of the coilovers, just havent heard anyone talk of them

 

and let me add a correction. C5s do not have "springs" you can cut like a Ricer; it has a single fibreglass transverse leaf front and back.

You can buy a stiffer leaf from companies like VBP and others, or you can dump them altogether and get coilovers, or keep them and look at VBP Blisteins, QA or Konis shocks. I'm more inclined to get Bilstein Sport shocks (1 inch shorter than stock) with Hotchkiss sways and heim joints. That along with a good but aggressive 4 wheel alignment and sticky tyres witll do very nicely for me.

EG

 

Send a PM to CF member ALLKAR - his 2 Vettes have coilovers.

EG

 

It depends on spring rates and shock valving. There's potential to make your car handle better than you can imagine... but you can also very easily lose ride quality...