Good ride height and alignment suggests?
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From: fairfield, CT
Good ride height and alignment suggests?
Pre nov 1 1991 c4 with Bilstein HD's, eibach prokit springs, and a 21mm sway bar in the rear.
intention is to balance the handling, reduce understeer, and still be able to drive over speed bumps, and in and out of driveways without scraping too much. but the ride height had to come down from stock...
What are good suggestions for the over-all setup? Ride height, rake, camber, caster, etc? And at what level does the ride height become and issue? What is too low for normal use?
intention is to balance the handling, reduce understeer, and still be able to drive over speed bumps, and in and out of driveways without scraping too much. but the ride height had to come down from stock...
What are good suggestions for the over-all setup? Ride height, rake, camber, caster, etc? And at what level does the ride height become and issue? What is too low for normal use?
Nordschleife Master
Joined: Feb 2011
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From: Deep Downtown Carrier, OK
This is just about as extreme as a real setup gets. Claudia is lowered beyond RS height, about as far as possible and camber is at -3.2f / -2.4r.
For everyday driving this could be a hassle. I have not encountered problems yet, but if I'm on the street I tend to avoid many things I would otherwise just drive over.
For everyday driving this could be a hassle. I have not encountered problems yet, but if I'm on the street I tend to avoid many things I would otherwise just drive over.
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From: fairfield, CT
Yep, that's on the "way too fun to drive around town" side of the setup ladder...
I'm looking for something that's kind of the best compromise. I'd rather the car not look "lowered", but correct, unlike the way it looks now like an suv... And then I'd rather not wear out the insides of my tires in 400 miles, but, it'd be nice that when I get moving, it handles well and fairly balanced...without setting it up toward the extreme side...
So, has anyone tried different settings and come up with something "right" for normal use? How does Row settings look and feel in the US? What about Euro RS +15 ride height with just a small amount of negative camber? Any ideas? And pics would be good too so we can see how low the settings appreare from the outside...
I'm looking for something that's kind of the best compromise. I'd rather the car not look "lowered", but correct, unlike the way it looks now like an suv... And then I'd rather not wear out the insides of my tires in 400 miles, but, it'd be nice that when I get moving, it handles well and fairly balanced...without setting it up toward the extreme side...
So, has anyone tried different settings and come up with something "right" for normal use? How does Row settings look and feel in the US? What about Euro RS +15 ride height with just a small amount of negative camber? Any ideas? And pics would be good too so we can see how low the settings appreare from the outside...
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From: Fairfax Station, Va. USA
Here's a photo of my '93 after installing new Bilstein HDs and H&R Greens. Front camber was set at -1.25 degrees; rears at -2.25 degrees. After install, measurements from garage floor to front lip was 25.75"; rears, 25.125"
Nordschleife Master
Joined: Dec 2001
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From: Kingston, NY
I've had a lot of experience with various setup and for the street, I think the RS ride height and alignment settings work very well as a starting point. On the C4, I'd also suggest a larger rear sway bar to help balance the car out.
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From: Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
In my experience the ride height is largely the result of which springs you fit. I believe the threaded collars on the shocks are there primary for corner balance. As such, I am not sure how much height adjustability you are really going to have with the Bilstein HD's. I run those with H&R springs, and IIRC (its been a long time since they were fitted), I ended up pretty close to Euro RS ride height with the corner balance very good.
No doubt your car will look a lot better once you lose the SUV ride height. Mine sure did.
Brian
No doubt your car will look a lot better once you lose the SUV ride height. Mine sure did.
Brian
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Three Wheelin'
Joined: May 2009
Posts: 1,720
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From: West Sussex
Good info thanks guys. The 21mm rear ARB is a given.
BTW Goughary, the RS specs are (taken from an old post on here)
Ride height 125 mm (+/- 5 mm)
toe, unpressed 25' (+/- 5)
camber -1 (+/- 10')
caster 4" 25'
Rear
height 223 (+/- 5 mm)
toe +10 (+/- 5')
camber -1" 15' (+/- 10')
The main differences over stock are the ride height and camber. I'd guess you'd get a fair amount of camber just through the act of lowering, due to the natural arc of the suspension travel.
The ride heights are taken from the front cross member bolt head, and from a cast boss on the rear trailing arm.
Looks like the height adjustment for the Bil HD/sport front is very limited so you basically get whatever the spring gives you. The rear has a much longer thread, so there's some scope there I think.
Anyone have thoughts on caster?
From reading around I'm getting the feeling that you can almost go with the max camber and caster the factory adjusters will give you. From there its upto taste and tyre wear requirements, that right?
BTW Goughary, the RS specs are (taken from an old post on here)
Ride height 125 mm (+/- 5 mm)
toe, unpressed 25' (+/- 5)
camber -1 (+/- 10')
caster 4" 25'
Rear
height 223 (+/- 5 mm)
toe +10 (+/- 5')
camber -1" 15' (+/- 10')
The main differences over stock are the ride height and camber. I'd guess you'd get a fair amount of camber just through the act of lowering, due to the natural arc of the suspension travel.
The ride heights are taken from the front cross member bolt head, and from a cast boss on the rear trailing arm.
Looks like the height adjustment for the Bil HD/sport front is very limited so you basically get whatever the spring gives you. The rear has a much longer thread, so there's some scope there I think.
Anyone have thoughts on caster?
From reading around I'm getting the feeling that you can almost go with the max camber and caster the factory adjusters will give you. From there its upto taste and tyre wear requirements, that right?
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From: Kingston, NY
On the street, you probably don't want much more than 1 degree of negative camber (RS values) as the car will tend to be hard to steer and will follow the uneveness of pavement. We run as much caster as you can get up to about 6 degrees.
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From: fairfield, CT
Wow blast from the past...i had completely forgotten about this post...
Back then, i think this was just after my motor came back from rebuild. I had the original boge struts on the car and was just then installing bilstein b6 with eibach springs and looking for suggestions. I had yet to do all kinds of other work that was later done.
Funny thing, now after having driven, setup, f'd with, and tried everything known to man on a 964, i see that Geoffrey pretty much made the perfect suggestion way back then.
In a nutshell- all things being equal- rs+10mm ride height front and rear and the rest of the setup is rs spec. Easy enough.
But...you can make a ton of adjustments to comp for all kinds of things or make the car handle in different ways...and if you have very heavy swaybars, like i do now, you may want less camber. I think I'm -0.5 degrees camber approx in the front and approx -1 in the rear at the moment. I'm on cold street tires, and the car doesn't lean, ever...so it feels better and is stickier this way. If i were on track and could get some heat in the tires, i might find i need a bit more negative camber, and if i had very sticky rubber on track, I'd need even more.
Anyway- long story short. Take a look at your setup and how you like to drive , start with rs+10mm ride height and rs spec alignment, and tweak from there. If you don't like how the steering feels, take out a little of the camber first.
Let us know what you come up with...
Back then, i think this was just after my motor came back from rebuild. I had the original boge struts on the car and was just then installing bilstein b6 with eibach springs and looking for suggestions. I had yet to do all kinds of other work that was later done.
Funny thing, now after having driven, setup, f'd with, and tried everything known to man on a 964, i see that Geoffrey pretty much made the perfect suggestion way back then.
In a nutshell- all things being equal- rs+10mm ride height front and rear and the rest of the setup is rs spec. Easy enough.
But...you can make a ton of adjustments to comp for all kinds of things or make the car handle in different ways...and if you have very heavy swaybars, like i do now, you may want less camber. I think I'm -0.5 degrees camber approx in the front and approx -1 in the rear at the moment. I'm on cold street tires, and the car doesn't lean, ever...so it feels better and is stickier this way. If i were on track and could get some heat in the tires, i might find i need a bit more negative camber, and if i had very sticky rubber on track, I'd need even more.
Anyway- long story short. Take a look at your setup and how you like to drive , start with rs+10mm ride height and rs spec alignment, and tweak from there. If you don't like how the steering feels, take out a little of the camber first.
Let us know what you come up with...
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964RS/t
regular 964
993RS on the left reg 993 on the right, both have radial brake mounts like the 964RS/t , both are aluminumm, the RS version corrects geometry on lowered cars you can go down to ~``97mm front rife height, o/s tie rods help at the extreme low end
993RS outer tie rods are different in shape from 964/993 regular tie rods and must be used w/ the RS carriers. There are at least 4 different inners, 964 are shorter, 993RS have harder rubber connection , 993RSR have a monoball connection
top, reg. 993 tie rod ouer and inner w/ runner connecction. bottm 993RSR monoball connection, same outer as 993RS
