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Hi! I was looking at your handful of old posts. Mark from Ireland, is it? I saw you were talking about adding a 993 or a 964 to your Cayman, did you buy this Carrera instead? Looks beautiful.
All of these cars can be lowered without replacing any suspension components, but it's possible that the torsion bars will have to be re-indexed. Talking about the rear, the spring plates do have some adjustment available to change the ride height. The question is whether there is enough. There is an eccentric bolt for minor adjustment - I think it is really meant to make it easier to corner balance the car. What you need to check is where the bolt sits now, and if you have any additional travel available to lower the rear. See this thread (I'm sure you can find many more, and videos on Youtube): http://forums.pelicanparts.com/porsc...djustment.html
If you don't have any room for adjustment, then the spring plates need to be pulled off and the splines on the torsion bar adjusted to change the ride height.
In front, there is a bolt that can be used to lower a bit, but there again how much you can lower depends on where the bolt is set now. Otherwise the front torsion bars would have to be re-indexed, like the rear.
Even if you do this yourself, it's not free since you should have the car re-aligned and corner balanced after changing the ride height.
Here in the US it's common to lower to a "Euro" spec, but you should already be there. Your car does seem like it is riding higher than Euro. Did the last owner replace the shocks? New shocks can cause the ride height to increase.
Reasons to lower are better looks, and better handling due to the lower center of gravity. I think it might be hard to notice handling differences unless you push the car pretty hard.
Hope this helps,
Mark
I lowered my 991.2 and totally regretted it. To low, hit everything, scraped everything. I ruined my sled. Instead of raising back up, I got into an X5M. It looked great but Porsche made the ride height for a reason.
If you're thinking about dropping, think again. You'll look sleek but fear the road in front of you.
If you adjust the torsion bars be sure to have the car corner balanced. I had my 88 Targa lowered to Euro height 12 years ago. Very happy with looks and ride.
If I had a 3.2 Carrera I would set it to the Euro ride height and stop there. I love these cars and hope my next P-car project will be a Carrera Coupe in the '87-'89 range. Good luck with your car it is a beauty.
+2 on lower to euro and stop. As the owner of a euro ride height 911 with a crazy sloped driveway, it just barely scrapes and any lower would be a disaster. Only con is if you are regularly driving in and out of anything with a steep angle.
Our 1984 Targa came with USA height to meet Fed Headlight reg's. It was lowered by our alignment shop in 1985 to Euro height and been the same since. Usual issies with some driveways but not an issue.
I have played for years with my 911 and finally settled on the Euro ride height as being the best balance of suspension travel for rougher services, handling, ease of going onto driveways and the like. The US height is way too bloody high for the reasons stated.
...and yes, if your car is lowered below Euro height I would raise it, there is nothing to be gained by having it lower and too many expensive parts to risk with anything materially lower than Euro. To be clear, a couple of mm one way or the other is not going to make a difference and you can make minor adjustments on the front end without doing a complete realignment, but doing the butt end is a PITA as I have never had good luck taking it apart and reassembling it whilst maintaining the alignment in spite of marking everything before disassembly and being careful.
The system is a weak design which is why I am going to Elephant's ASP system including their QuickChange Spring Plate Splined Hubs which I adapted to my '89....so I can adjust everything on the ground without dicking around with the eccentrics and all that nonsense.
I think your car looks perfect as it is, so why mess with perfect? To my eye, your car is not riding high, and looks standard Euro height, which of course is easily checked. Race car driving on an unobstructed track, sure, lower away. Street car driving over cracks, bumps, frost heaves, driveway curbs, etc.? Lowering is basically stupid, unless you are looking for touching up paint as a new hobby.
I have kept my 3.2 Carrera completely standard, however I am contemplating lowering it by just 10mm - 20mm (max). I have a few questions which I hope someone can help me with.
01 - Someone mentioned to me previously that the 3.2 Carrera suspension can be lowered quite easily without requiring a replacement of the suspension springs / arms etc? Is this true and advisable?
02 - Any reason you would recommend not lowering the car?
Try some height adjustable springs. Atleast you get to tune it to your specifications. Check us out we might have something for you!
i think " you will love the new look" is a very subjective comment and lowering cars is always a trade off.
Personally i like stock euro height or maybe a touch lower. But i have seen cars totally slammed with the entire top of the wheel covered and i think it is the ugliest thing i have ever seen. But i do get its subjective. For performance and trade off opinions i would ask others, for looks .. its my car and i don't care what others think.
You guys do realize that the only 911s that have a raised US ride height are the '75 thru '83 models
Bill i have a related question about this ... when i replaced the front suspension on my car ( 78Sc) i removed that front spacer above the front shock. I put Bilstein inserts in and didnt think much about it. From what i have read i did not effectively lower the car , but just changed the operating range of where the shock works , is this true ?
Bill i have a related question about this ... when i replaced the front suspension on my car ( 78Sc) i removed that front spacer above the front shock. I put Bilstein inserts in and didnt think much about it. From what i have read i did not effectively lower the car , but just changed the operating range of where the shock works , is this true ?
Correct \to lower the car the t-bars must be rotated by at least 1 spline
Curiosity question not suited (for me) to its own thread - has anyone added an electrically adjustable air suspension setup to a 74-88 era 911? Have casually web-browsed kits for EAS around $3K n/i installation, but haven't seen any reports of on-the-road experience with them, nor have I seen any experience with installing them or tuning them. I have EAS on a modern Land Rover - and while I totally understand the galaxies-apart difference between a Land Rover SUV and a Porsche 911, a properly-tuned air-sprung vehicle compared to the same vehicle on coils can have a more dynamic ride, even in spirited driving, and has the benefit of being quickly and easily adjustable in terms of spring rate and/or ride height.
As I'm researching pre-'88 911s, if I made such a modification, I'd like to be able to return it to stock configuration relatively easily, so not looking for heavy suspension rework and not really even convinced that I'd want to mod it this way. But, it might be nice to raise it slightly for easy driveway ins/outs, and maybe hunker down to Euro or maybe 10mm lower for spirited driving.
OP, others here have given you a lot of great information that I wont bother repeating.
My only contribution is a word of caution when it comes to lowering these 30-40 year old cars. If your suspension hasn’t been refreshed/upgraded, you may unintentionally uncover problems that weren’t presenting themselves at your current ride height.
Once you lower the car, you will change the geometry of all the various components and doing so may cause the suspension to move in ways it hasn’t done previously.
I ran into this very issue myself on my car and the result was chasing squeaks/groans/creaks that ultimately lead to a complete suspension refresh/upgrade. I definitely don’t want to scare you away from changing your ride height. I just think it may be best to be prepared to remedy any issues doing so may uncover. Personally, I wouldn’t lower a car on original suspension that I wasn’t planning to do a complete suspension refresh on.
Here is a pic of my current ride height for reference.
Last edited by paul_howey; 04-30-2022 at 08:40 PM.
04-12-2022, 01:47 AM
