Ride height measurements
 

There was another thread about this topic that got polluted, and this may be better in the Tech Section, but there is more traffic in General right now and would be good to get input from owners.

I measured the ride height tonight in the garage. I measured this using a ruler along the width of the tire extending far enough out to the wheel well lip and a tape measure. These are not from the "shoulder" of the tire, which obviously curves down. The second measurement is from the floor to the outer edge of the wheel well lip.

Left front, just a touch under 1.75" and 27.25".
http://imageshack.us/a/img833/4061/56b2.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img209/9633/0q1f.jpg

Left rear, just a touch under 2.75" and 29.25".
http://imageshack.us/a/img845/6659/bijq.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img812/1600/jezq.jpg

This is how the car sits on flat ground.
http://imageshack.us/a/img545/9134/h3n9.jpg

I'm tight on clearance at my driveway apron (~1") in and out and really plan to see if there is any change over the next month or so. Also note, this was with ~1/4 tank of fuel. An additional 60# may cause the car to drop slightly in the back. If anything, I would dial in ~.5" of drop in the back and leave the front as is.
S.

Should you do the measurements, left and right with you in the drivers seat? Or you an a passenger if that is normally the way you drive. Especially for driveway clearance. You don't want to have to have your passenger get out before you pull into the drive.

If you are considering full tank versus 1/4 tank, this may be a bigger factor. I realize that people weight is more evenly distributed on front and back, than fuel weight is. I however, weight more than 120#s, YMMV.

If you intend to track your car aggressively, I would do that prior to lowering it. I noticed, while aggressively driving some of the curves on "The Snake" on Highway 421 in the Tennessee mountains, that the front air dam would occasionally scrape on the pavement simply with .8–.9 G cornering on some of the curves. Also if you look at some of the GoPro captured images of tires during some of the magazine drives on curves you will notice the incredible amount of compression that the suspension will take.

Just saying, GM determined the ride height for a reason, directly related to handling and cornering. If you lower the ride height, you may be in for a real surprise if you intend to corner aggressively. It's all you want is a boulevard cruiser with a low-slung, Lowrider appearance, go ahead and do it.

Snorman - Thanks for posting the picture. Very helpful!
Rad 22 - Great comment!

Z51 option
 

Rear of car sitting in the garage with 3/4 tank of gas. Vin # 2560 with less than 60 miles. About a inch lower than snorman's car. Factory stock .

Outside shot
 

Z51 sits about an inch lower in the back than snorman. This is stock from the factory.one week old and 60 miles on her .

That looks really high....lower it.

Another z51 with a vin 2154
 

Car @ dealership notice how high this one sits and it has a high vin #

Maybe the suspensions have yet to "settle"?

We are trying to figure out why some are higher then others and both z51

No both are built @ around the same time with less than 60 miles on each. Referring to the blue car.

C6 ride heights and wheel alignments were all over the map on "identical" cars, and they also changed the specs several times during the production life. Hopefully GM will get it right this time.

The Service Manual for our 2009 C6 says that ride height should be measured with a full tank of fuel, but no luggage or people. You should also bounce the suspension up and measure, then down and measure. But since the suspension is so stiff that any hand-bouncing is liable to crack a fender, I prefer to drive over the 2" lip of our garage to settle the suspension. You might try using a couple of 2 x 6's as rumble strips.

Also, the proper measurement is from a flat floor to the top of the wheel well arch, not from the tire to the top of the arch. In a perfect world, the results would be the same. But life and Corvettes ain't perfect.

If this is stock....I cant even slightly imagine that...There isn't One shot of a machine out there that is as NICE as yours my friend...It totally looks lowered....

yeah I agree. looks amazing.

It is completely stock and thanks for the comment. When I was looking @ other C7's I noticed how high some were. Just glad mine turned out as it is with not having to lower it. I also think torch red just pop's on this generation Vette.

F55 or not? For comparison purposes, my '12 GS F55 (CE 4LT) measures exactly 1-5/8" front and rear (looks perfect to me, plus I like the fender gap even), and 26-3/4" and 28", which in itself gives the car a slightly pointed-down stance, due to larger wheels and tire circumference at the rear. I'd elliminate that awful extra rear fender gap, and wouldn't make it any lower than my GS already is. Good luck.

Are the current batch of C7's lower than the one's on this post ? Need to see some pics.

Is that an MSRC/FE4 car?
Interesting how there is that much of a difference.
S.

I provided both floor to arch and tire to arch.
S.

What is a MSRC/FE4 car ?

Magnetic ride.
My car has magnetic ride and is an A6.
S.

No my car is not a magnetic ride car and it is a 7speed. Maybe that is the answer.

Good to know. I would guess the A6 cars put more weight over the rear tires. But who knows how about the non-FE4 vs. FE4 difference.
:lol:
S.

Non z51 car don't know what trans it has
 

Here is a non Z 51 car it sits high in the front as well.



Can you order the mag shocks with out the Z 51 option ?

mines the same as snorman's. VIN# 1530


mag ride Z51
7 speed manual
640 miles
1/2 tank of 93 octane

Mine arrived at the dealership today. I'm hoping the angle of this pic makes it look odd. I've asked the dealer to measure.

Z51, MRC, M7, VIN 2098

UPDATE: My dealer check the height, and it it 27" front, 29" rear, which is right in line with the official specs:

Trim Height Specifications
Model RPO P-Height R-Height
1YY07/1YY67 FE1, FE2 692 mm± 10 mm (27.2 in± 0.39 in) 738 mm± 10 mm (29.1 in± 0.39 in)

1YX07/1YX67 FE3, FE4 693 mm± 10 mm (27.3 in± 0.39 in) 737 mm± 10 mm (29.0 in± 0.39 in)


http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps219d2e74.jpg

http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/x...pscd42bcf9.jpg

http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/x...psc3bd7d18.jpg

Compared to this one from one of the shows earlier this year, mine definitely looks higher.

http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps05b36b1d.jpg

Mine mirrors the measurements of OP. VIN#1305, Z51, 7 speed, mag ride, 220 miles, 1/2 tank of gas.

So it looks like the common denominator is the mag ride. At least from very limited sampling.
Mike's car sits a solid inch lower in the rear than the three FE4 cars ITT.
S.

This height looks good.

http://www.corvetteconti.com/photo-g...ACK-WHEELS.jpg

Maybe but I'm certain I have seen a non MRC car that looked high too. I'll see if I can find a picture.

Beautiful green C7 :thumbs:

These pictures show something that has always been true of Corvettes. Fresh off the truck with no miles they are HIGH. They settle down more with just a few miles, more still with a few hundred. The dealer pics of this green car look like a 4x4. But the picture on the grass already looks better :thumbs:

At 1000 miles my Base C7's ride height has come down noticeably but I'll still wait until 3000 miles before measuring and making any adjustment.

So you think they will settle a inch over time. My rear is 28 1/4" and I week old and 60 miles. When I changed rear springs on my Shelby they came down maybe 1/8 " of a inch and that's all.

Yes it will settle more but not a full inch.

So, are they adjusting ride height to "optimum" on a car by car basis? I have seen hundreds of unmodified pics of cars and they are all over the map as far as ride height goes. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that the ride height is a factor of a lot of suspension elements and GM is not "optimizing" dick.

So it's a few weeks and a few hundred miles later and checked ride height again, same place in the garage, totally level floor.
The left front has settled a bit, and is at 27 1/8".
http://imageshack.us/a/img850/1514/652h.jpg

The left rear has settled a bit as well. There is a little bit more gas than when I first measured, but it's just about 1/2 tank, which shouldn't make much difference.
The left rear is sitting at 29 1/8".
http://imageshack.us/a/img706/2397/3n98.jpg

So it seems like the car has settled ~3/16" in the front and maybe ~1/8" in the back. A small amount, but a little. I'm going to leave it for now. At most, I think I'd take 1/4" off the front and 1/2" off the rear.
S.

When we had the ride height adjusted on our 2009 (raised slightly), the car looked like a 4 x 4 at first. It took at over 200 miles before it stopped settling, perhaps as much as 500 miles but I didn't check it very frequently. And that was on a car where everything had already settled for ~30,000 miles, we just turned the bolts.

Interesting on the settling idea. Not sure what in the suspensions would give that much in 200 or 2000 miles but I hope this it true. I could see 20,000 miles.

Just lowered mine today...... down all the way all 4 corners.

Odd to me was that the setting from the factory where not consistent. Front was right one L vrs R but in the rear the L was about 1/2 higher then the R.

My front end is now perfect..... for my tastes....... the back still a little high.

Ride heigth
 

At MacMulkin's open house this Saturday I note that all the
Z51 had an appreciably wider gap between the rear fender lip and the tire than the base model.
On the base car I could place three fingers between the front and rear fender lips and the tire. On the 3 Z-51 cars I measured the front tire gap was the identical three finger gap but the rear tire gap increased to nearly 4 1/2 finger widths.
I thought the base car with it's level ride height and the smaller rear spoiler looked a great deal better than the Z-51.
https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...es/patriot.gif

Good eyes. ...my non z51 car has.1.75 inches wheel gap for both front and rear tires on the left side and a little more on the right.....from the ground 26 and five eights inches for the front and 28 and one eighth rear......all mesurements done a la Snorman.....level garage....backed up and remesured 3 times.

Awesome, thanks. Even though yours is a non-Z51 car, tire heights should be consistent or very close. So your car is a solid 1/2" lower in front and very close to 1" lower in the rear. Great info.
S.

Thank you for the great info you've been providing on this forum.

And your point is?