Nadine

Hiya,


I have now installed the Eibachs with the stock shocks. I just wanted to know how low can you drop the ride height without major scrapping at the bottom? I was hoping to lower the S4 as maximum as possible.

Thanks

Nadine

jorj7

I currently have my ride height at 135mm with the 18" wheels, but it's been as low as 115mm with
the 16 and 17"ers. Things will scrape at these ride heights, mainly the belly pan and tail pipe (RMB),
but for what I use my car for that's ok.

Andre Hedrick

I did 130mm but raise it to 155mm after adding Captain Carl's lower strut bar!

DAMN NICE BAR TOO!

Nadine

How is the handling of the car at low ride heights?

Randy V

Compromised.

Nadine

How'd ya mean compromised ?

Randy V

How a car 'rides' is completely subjective.

A 'too stiff' ride to one person may be perfect for another.

In this case, any time you alter the suspension geometry outside the designed parameters, the handling of the car changes. Usually for the worse.

My advice would be to play around with various settings until you get one that feels right for you.

Do keep in mind though, that there have been many tales of folks lowering the ride height then suffering from broken chin spoilers, or even worse, busting off the AC compressor bracket and destroying the block.

Nadine

Really ? I'm amazed....

drnick

nadine, the car looks better when it is lowered but you will need to pay attention to setting the geometry up to get the best from it. im interested that you replaced only the springs and kept the stock shocks - how many miles are on them?? the shocks may be a far bigger determinant of how your car handles when you change the suspension over.

Nadine

Nick,

Your wheels look gorgeous. Do you have any more pictures of them? What size are the rims and tyres? Also do you know what the ET were for the front and rears?

Thanks

Nadine

drnick

they are the 'hollowspoke' 996 turbo rims which come in 18" with 11" rear and about 8" at the front. i swapped my fronts for 996 4S rears which are the same design but 10" wide with a 65mm et. there are a few pics of the 928 with these rims here on the forum, theres a really nice early car in black with these rims also painted black - do a search on hollowspoke. really any newer porsche style rim updates the car by years - what year do you have?

Nadine

Nick, where did you buy them from may I ask ?

drnick

nadine, i am UK based - i bought them from jasmine-porschalink who are north of manchester although i sourced the fronts from simon at porsch-apart also north of manchester. sadly the fronts are not hollow spoked and as a result are quite heavy.. im running some 997 style 19" rims at the minute which i did have on another car and they are noticeably lighter.

JPTL

Do a little research on this forum and you'll find that many of us have gone from a lowered car to factory ride height or thereabouts and haven't looked back.
FWIW, I used to be low with Eibachs and Bilsteins. When I say low, I mean low. It looked nice, but wasn't worth it.
Not sure about handling being compromised by lowering so long as a proper alignment is done following lowering....but I can say that there's no noticeable benefit from lowering in street applications aside from aesthetics.
If aesthetics are important enough to you to have to slow down your driving considerably to avoid taking out underside components on potholes, dips, speed bumps and aprons, then go for it. I found that being forced to drive gingerly on unfamiliar roads to be extremely annoying, as it's contrary to what most of us have our cars for. Get together with any of the local Porsche owners for a spirited drive on twisties and see how depressing it is to pick up the rear because you can't keep up for fear of scrapage.
Also, the roadkill factor comes into play. One evening I went over a freshly tagged racoon. Since it was centered in my lane, I wouldn't have cared had I been in anything other than a lowered car.....but a few parts of the underside of my car picked up enough of the carcass to treat me with the smell of old, hot raccoon for a few weeks whenever I'd get out of the car.
I'm now close to factory spec. ride height (maybe 10mm under). My car handles great. I can approach speed bumps, potholes and aprons without biting my lip.
I'll never go low again.

Ispeed

JP speaks the truth. The street is like an obstacle course, not a race track.
Just run a good ride height for a while and see how it goes. If you do a search you can find how to do a proper ride height measurement.