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I have 97 C5 I just bought little over a year ago and previous owner lowered the car. Every time I pull out of my drive way my front lower bumper deflector scrape. I don't like the ride and handling. I feel every bumps on the road and when i'm turning go over bumper the car jumps and Don't stick to the road. I replaced the sway bars few weeks ago with C6 Z51 and I will be installing with ZO6 shock in next few weeks to month. I want to raise the susp. back up to stock factory height. I researched this in depth but i'm still not clear and lot of the this I read I don't comprehend. I'm some what newbie and any info. and clarification would be greatly appreciated. seems you are very knowledgeable. From my research the stock height for C5 front is 27.5" and rear is 29" is this correct? how do i measure this height? Do I measure the height from flat surface with measuring tape on the ground going up at the center of the wheel to the fender wheel lip? On the front stock lowering bolt is one full turn on lowering bolt equals 1/8" ? how is rear adjusting bolt. I though I read you turn by 1/4 turn? 1/4 turn equals 1/4" ?
I have more questions but I will hold those off till after your response.I'm sorry for over whelming you with so many questions.
I will get you the info when I get home from work after 12am, I don't have all the photos I need on my computer here.
I have 97 C5 I just bought little over a year ago and previous owner lowered the car. Every time I pull out of my drive way my front lower bumper deflector scrape. I don't like the ride and handling. I feel every bumps on the road and when i'm turning go over bumper the car jumps and Don't stick to the road. I replaced the sway bars few weeks ago with C6 Z51 and I will be installing with ZO6 shock in next few weeks to month. I want to raise the susp. back up to stock factory height. I researched this in depth but i'm still not clear and lot of the this I read I don't comprehend. I'm some what newbie and any info. and clarification would be greatly appreciated. seems you are very knowledgeable. From my research the stock height for C5 front is 27.5" and rear is 29" is this correct? how do i measure this height? Do I measure the height from flat surface with measuring tape on the ground going up at the center of the wheel to the fender wheel lip? On the front stock lowering bolt is one full turn on lowering bolt equals 1/8" ? how is rear adjusting bolt. I though I read you turn by 1/4 turn? 1/4 turn equals 1/4" ?
I have more questions but I will hold those off till after your response.I'm sorry for over whelming you with so many questions.
OK the tool shown below is what a dealer would use to set the ride height, but the car needs to be on a lift, & most people do not have these, new they are around $300 this tool is what is used to set your "Z" & "D" trim heights as noted below on the spec sheet using the lower control arms, the markings on the round bar are in mm's.
A simpler way is to use your jacking puck locations J & K trim heights as marked in yellow on the spec sheet & noted on the 3rd photo.
So if you have a coupe or convertible it is easier to install a puck & make sure the top of the puck is pushed up against the frame & measure from the bottom of the puck to the ground obviously with the car on the ground & then add the height of the puck into your measurement, & hopefully you would be on a hard level surface.
In the spec sheet the stock measurement listed under service preferred column you will see the specs J is the front & K is the rear, to keep it simple 6" in front & 6-1/4" in the rear that would get you back to stock ride height assuming you are running stock tire sizes 275/40/18 & 245/45/17
You were close on your wheel well heights as well, I think mine were 29 & 27.75 I never recorded it so that is close to what I remember. You can use that to measure but is not recommended as the body panel may be off. I will admit I like all my gaps to be equal so I use the puck locations & I also measure from the bottom of the wheel well to the top of the rim to fine tune.
On the spec sheet you will also notice that Z06 J & K specs are level, the Z06 rear tire was shorter than stock C5 so that lowered the rear some. I used that as my base line, these cars look best either level or higher in the rear. On mine having same diameter tire F & R if I was to set the gap the same F & R the car would be squatting in the rear, not what I like, so I ended up at 26.5 & 25.75 from the ground with a level J & K spec of 3.75"
If you want to lower your car from the stock height for looks, just reduce the J & K specs equal F & R so you still keep some rake.
Forgot to add I am not sure how many turns equates into inches of raising or lowering, you just need to keep adjusting & measuring till you are where you want to be, & adjusting bolts are a lot easier than coilovers.
Hope this helps.
Last edited by 6speedsteve; Sep 8, 2018 at 01:45 AM.
Lowered all the way on stock bolts. Any further and I would struggle even more on the driveway. I would do coilovers if I had easier access to my garage.
I think the hellaflush look is good on the C5.
I had the F45 package and everyone said they had issues lowering on stock bolts with the F45 (said the shocks rode weird/firm when it was dropped).
so i went Aldan coilovers. I think they were like 1100 bucks or so. I'd do it again. before the carbon i'd hit the air dam a little. But it was fine other than that... now with the carbon i have to be pretty careful... but I love it lol
Last edited by 2k2wranglerx; Sep 10, 2018 at 03:58 PM.
I had the F45 package and everyone said they had issues lowering on stock bolts with the F45 (said the shocks rode weird/firm when it was dropped).
so i went Aldan coilovers. I think they were like 1100 bucks or so. I'd do it again. before the carbon i'd hit the air dam a little. But it was fine other than that... now with the carbon i have to be pretty careful... but I love it lol
Those with coil overs, did it stop bottoming out completely or do you still experience?
Those that went with z06 components, the same question. Did it stop bottoming out?
Appreciate the feedback.
I had stock shocks on my car with drop spindles with out issue, the drop spindles allow you to still have shock stroke with out hitting the shock bump stop. I was about 2" total drop.
There are 2 types of coilovers a preset drop normally 1-1/4"-1-1/2" total drop, or a base adjustable to raise or lower without changing shock stroke.
On a preset drop coilover you can adjust the height of the car with spring preload but you still need to be within the 40-60% range, or you will top out or bottom out the shock, so not a lot of adjustment from the designed drop.
On the adjustable base you can go lower without changing preload, but the 40-60% is still critical to your ride quality. Also these cars are not always equal from side to side, I set my shock stroke to be between 40-50% so I get more travel on the compression stroke, to get that as close as possible on each side my preload is different at each shock. I marked the shock shafts with 40,50,& 60% marks so I had an idea where I was, and then adjust the base to get my final ride height.
I'm going to chime in from the coil over crowd. After I installed my coil overs, the car road smoother lowered than it did at stock height on the leaf springs. I didn't change the sway bars and it still corners flatter than it did, and as was mentioned earlier no more rear end hop in bumpy corners. There are no rattles or squeaks. I have a front lip that I have to be careful of, and I have scraped on some monster speed bumps that we have here, but all in all it's livable. I don't track mine either but I personally think that it was worth the investment.
I've been looking at installing a rear wing spoiler on my C5 , I seen your car and said that's the style and look I'm going for. Did you install that spoiler or was it already on when you purchased it. Any issues with that style of spoiler ? Is it bolt on or 3m ? Any info. would be greatly appreciated ! Thanks in advance !
Here’s some pics for reference again no bolts in the front and lowering bolts in the rear c6 z06 shocks
LM134's all the way around, reverse mounted? I'd love to get a second set of LMs for mine and run the rears on all 4 corners.
Originally Posted by 2k2wranglerx
I had the F45 package and everyone said they had issues lowering on stock bolts with the F45 (said the shocks rode weird/firm when it was dropped).
so i went Aldan coilovers. I think they were like 1100 bucks or so. I'd do it again. before the carbon i'd hit the air dam a little. But it was fine other than that... now with the carbon i have to be pretty careful... but I love it lol
I LOVE the lip / skirt combo! I've got the same color and that is so tempting to do.
I hit my plastic hinged piece leaving my driveway, there's no way I could be that low, but that's the only way those lips / skirts look good. My first car was low enough I'd pull the bumper to go up on ramps / lifts, and I don't necessarily want to run back down that road again.
Ok, thanks..it just looks like it's more in the pic. Did you realign the car after you lowered it? I am interested because I was curious on tire wear with negative camber..
If you have the base model it will help a lot to increase spring stiffness especially if you load the car with more weight. Most coil over sets do this but switching to Z06 springs will reduce bottoming out which stresses the shock bumpers, here's a link to the factory installed spring rates, https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...s-97-04-a.html. Z06 owners usually can lower the car more before it bottoms out due to the stiffer springs not the shocks or sway bars.
If you have the base model it will help a lot to increase spring stiffness especially if you load the car with more weight. Most coil over sets do this but switching to Z06 springs will reduce bottoming out which stresses the shock bumpers, here's a link to the factory installed spring rates, https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...s-97-04-a.html. Z06 owners usually can lower the car more before it bottoms out due to the stiffer springs not the shocks or sway bars.
One thought I would like to add is the rates for leafs & coils will be different, but not sure what the formula is for that. And also another is that these cars have very little suspension travel compared to others, that came from one of the companies engineers I was talking to about coilovers.
PFADT coilovers on mine.
