Too Low

moixana · April 8, 2016, 8:42am

First off - a thank you to Colin and everyone else who has been giving their advice and 2 cents to my NUMEROUS questions and posts regarding my “restoration.”
Second - I’m admittedly not very knowledgeable with a lot of this stuff, so thanks in advance for bearing with me.

This is my first car with modified suspension. To those who don’t know, a speed bump ripped my old exhaust off (it was shit anyway), and so I’ve raised the car a little and have put a new exhaust system on it. The car is currently as high as it can get with the current setup, but I still don’t have enough ground clearance. I measured today, and I have a whole THREE inches between the ground and the lowest part of the exhaust.
For reference:
There’s 5 inches clearance at the jack points.
3 finger gap up front.
2 finger gap in the rear.

I know this is a pretty common setup all around, so maybe someone can add personal experience regarding the following:
Ground Control/Koni Yellow
Springs are 8 inches, 340F/250R
Tanabe Medallion Touring cat-back
Tires are 195-55-15

I have no complaints with the stiffness, handling, or the look of the height. I had no complaints about other DAs with completely stock suspension, but now that I’m used to the lack of a chasm of a wheel gap, I’m not sure I could go back. Haha. Stock is an option, but I’m also trying to save money (but low-quality is NOT an option). I feel like if I could just get another inch of height I could be fine… My only complaint is the CONSTANT scraping/slamming the brand new setup on bumps or uneven ground, and I’d really rather not destroy my new exhaust. Plus I’m tired of being on edge as I drive. Non-stop worry.

Aside from ditching the GC/Koni, I have a few thoughts on solutions, but I wanted to run them by you guys and see if there’s something I’m missing or haven’t thought of.
I just feel like this car isn’t that low, and that if this was a common problem, no one would lower a DD whatsoever. Of course, maybe I’m just old.

Idea 1: Taller springs?
Idea 2: Different top hats or bump stops (I have a feeling this doesn’t affect ride height)?
Idea 3: The exhaust wasn’t installed correctly and shouldn’t be a whole 2 inches lower than the jack points?
Idea 4: The roads in Denver are just total shit and 3 inches should be enough?
Idea 5: This is just the way it is when your car is even slightly lowered and I need to quit bitching and start getting used to driving completely differently?
Idea 6: ???

Here it is, if this helps. I know, it needs a bath. Shhhhhhhhhhh

rollinmyda · April 8, 2016, 3:42pm

I’ll respond in the same order you list the questions. Disclaimer: I’m extremely tired right now.

1- taller springs is an option and could be possibly your best option if higher ride height is the only thing you’re trying to achieve. One thing to consider with spring length though is spring rate. If the spring rate remains constant but the length increases, ride height will increase (like you want). If spring rate is decreased even though length is increased it could put you in the same position your in now once the weight of the vehicle compresses the spring more with the lower rate. Too many variables there to give a “one size fits all” answer to at what point you’ll be achieving more height based on spring length. Of course you’re also going to be limited on how much taller of a spring you’ll be able to efficiently use by your shocks shaft length. (ie: if you have to preload your spring to install the tophat, you’ve lost all benefit of running longer springs because you’ve compressed them shorter before even mounting them on the car.)

2- not really a viable option for INCREASING ride height. Usually top hats are extended and bumpstops are cut shorter to increase shock travel. If you increase bump stop length you’re just going to be more likely to bottom out the shock travel before spring travel and handling and ride quality will be negatively affected.

3- improperly installed exhaust piping is a possibility but from experience, aftermarket exhaust systems generally hang lower due to larger piping diameter and generic hangar placement. It’s pretty standard that they sit lower than the OEM system does. Worth looking at your hangars though to make sure it’s installed nice and snug using all supplied mounting points.

4- imo 3" is plenty of ground clearance for certain areas of your chassis (pinch weld jack points, etc) but can be a challenge when it’s way out in the middle of the car where the exhaust is placed.

5- honestly I think this is something you need to consider heavily. You can NOT expect to lower your car and not change your driving habits. My cars are always lowered more than yours (in your picture) and it’s something you really have to get used to and change your driving habits accordingly. I’m so conditioned to driving lowered cars that I can be in a stock height vehicle and I’m still taking speed bumps and parking lot entrances/exits sideways and veering around even the smallest obstacles in the road simply because it’s a habit. I don’t even think about it anymore. It all comes down to what you are and aren’t willing to sacrifice and what you choose your driving experience to be. Being lowered isn’t for everyone but only you can decide if it’s for you or not.

pkda9 · April 8, 2016, 6:06pm

I tend to agree with what rollinginmyda has said. I went through several ride heights, raising my car up twice until I am sitting about where you are. I even have a similar exhaust setup, my midpipe has a massive resonator or glasspack (not sure what to call it) and that is my biggest worry. Living off a dirt road and in a rural area is why I raised it up, and like you said gritting my teeth everywhere I go. But just being aware of road conditions makes a huge difference.

Colin · April 8, 2016, 9:02pm

Rollinmyda pretty much hit what my suggestions would be.

This will work, but new springs aren’t cheap.
Neither of these will help in your situation.
In my experience it’s not easy to get an exhaust to fit just perfect. Each joint or flange has a lot of slop in it so if you just bolt it up then it likely won’t be perfect. I tend to get OCD about this so I usually mount my exhaust then go back and loosen each flange and make adjustments till it’s where I want it. But this isn’t going to get you anything significant.
This is probably part of the problem.
I’d say you hit the nail on the head with this one - 100%. You absolutely cannot assume that you can lower the car and have it ride the same and have the same clearance. You’re making a compromise: looks and handling for ride comfort and drive-ability. Those things aren’t 100% mutually exclusive but as a general rule you can’t get the best of both worlds.

It’s all personal preference and everyone’s perception and situation is different. To me your car looks quite high and for me it’d be a pretty casual drive without worry of undercarriage damage. Sure, there would be situations where I might scrape, but as Mike mentioned, I too am very used to driving a lowered car which means I have adapted to driving and have techniques to help prevent scraping, am constantly on the look out for what I’m driving over, and lastly am simply used to the fact that you WILL scrape - it’s going to happen so you need to try and prevent what you can and be OK with what you can’t.

Lastly, I do have 3 possible suggestions:

You could go back to stock springs, cut some stock springs (just a tiny bit), or find some other lowering springs which lower the car less than you are now.
This may or may not be an option… Do you happen to know where your shocks are set? Koni yellows have a tiny bit of height adjustment built into them. THIS pic shows a typical shock that has 2 grooves in the shock body. You install a circlip into one of these grooves and that is where the spring perch or coilover collar rests. If your shocks are currently setup with the circlip in the lower groove then you could raise your car another half inch or so by moving it to the upper groove. Most likely your shocks have 2 grooves, but some have more.
Wheels/tires play a fairly big role here, or at least they can. What size tires are you running? What is your air pressure? If your tires are on the small side or are under-inflated then you’re making your scraping worse than it needs to be. Even if you have properly inflated stock tires you’re not in the best situation in terms of scraping. I assume you’re not looking to go out and buy new wheels or tires so I won’t go into the details because there are a lot of intricacies and it’d take me a long time to type up, lol (although you could probably find it by searching, I know I’ve written about this numerous times on this forum).

Best of luck!

moixana · April 9, 2016, 6:47am

THIS:

In the grand scheme of lowered cars, that’s what I was thinking. I do realize that a lowwwwwwwwwwww car would need quite a bit of extra maneuvering, and I figured I’d have to drive a little differently in my situation, but I feel like the extra-driving-effort-to-height-ratio isn’t proportionate in this case.

I never would have known this. That might be the piece of information I needed! Awesome. I think I’ll take the sleeve off the shock and see if I can’t raise it a little that way.

I knew that would come up, so I put it in my original post.

195-55-15 with stock air pressure (whatever it says in the door jam. 32?).

Speaking of this…in my effort to raise the car, here’s what I did:
The car was on the lift, tires off, there was a couple inches of room between the bottom of the spring and the perches. So I spun the perches up until they were touching the bottom of the spring (the top of the spring was pushed up into its final resting place), and then I twisted the perch even further. So I was essentially compressing the springs. And probably didn’t get as much height as I could have…? If this is the case…am I to understand that as far as spinning the perch to a higher position is concerned, the highest I can get the car would have been to spin the perches up just until they touched the bottom of the springs but no further?

So does it seem normal for the lowest part of the exhaust to be a full 2 inches lower than the jack points? How many inches difference is there on your cars? And how much clearance do you guys have?

rollinmyda · April 9, 2016, 3:02pm

[QUOTE=moixana;2333249] If this is the case…am I to understand as far as spinning the perch to a higher position is concerned, the highest I can get the car would have been to spin the perches up just until they touched the bottom of the springs but no further?
[/QUOTE]

I’m not an expert on suspension theory or spring behavior under compression so anyone feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, but my understanding of how a linear (like GC uses) spring behaves is that an 8" spring with a spring rate of 500 lb/inch that is compressed by one inch is going to effectively perform exactly the same as a 7" spring that has the same spring rate of 500 lb/inch.

Now that’s not to necessarily say that GC included the absolute longest springs possible with their kits. I’m fairly sure you would be able to get longer springs and achieve more height that way while still utilizing the spring perches, I was merely stating that there was a limit to how long of a spring you can effectively use. As Colin said though it gets expensive, especially to achieve a near stock ride height.

Colin · April 9, 2016, 4:39pm

[QUOTE=moixana;2333249]
In the grand scheme of lowered cars, that’s what I was thinking. I do realize that a lowwwwwwwwwwww car would need quite a bit of extra maneuvering, and I figured I’d have to drive a little differently in my situation, but I feel like the extra-driving-effort-to-height-ratio isn’t proportionate in this case.[/quote]
Without physically being there and seeing how you’re driving, the roads and obstacles you’re experiencing and how the car is handling it it’s really impossible to tell if there is something wrong here or if it’s just your perception that needs an adjustment (that doesn’t sound nice, but I in no way mean it that way). I will say though that if you spend some time watching other cars drive around you’ll notice that their bumpers are often VERY close to scraping on things (e.g. when entering a driveway). So you gotta imagine that just a minor drop will probably start causing ground clearance issues. Plus, older cars like ours are more prone to scraping than newer cars which have more ground clearance in general.

[QUOTE=moixana;2333249]
I never would have known this. That might be the piece of information I needed! Awesome. I think I’ll take the sleeve off the shock and see if I can’t raise it a little that way.[/quote]
Yeah, check it out and see, with some luck you might be able to get another little bit of height.

[QUOTE=moixana;2333249]
I knew that would come up, so I put it in my original post.

195-55-15 with stock air pressure (whatever it says in the door jam. 32?).[/quote]
EDITED Edited because I apparently I can’t see clearly.EDITEDIf you are running 15’s then 195-55-15 is the best tire option you have for preventing scraping. Personally, I love that tire size for the extra height it gives on a slammed car.

[QUOTE=moixana;2333249]
So does it seem normal for the lowest part of the exhaust to be a full 2 inches lower than the jack points? How many inches difference is there on your cars? And how much clearance do you guys have?[/QUOTE]
I’ve honestly never measured my ground clearance at any point, so unfortunately that’s no help, lol. That doesn’t seem unreasonable to me though. One option I neglected to bring up is the exhaust hangers - yours could be broken, saggy, or even the wrong ones. You can buy new ones, stiffer/shorter aftermarket ones, or you can even use a hose clamp to pull up a sagging hanger. A hose clamp will help you “tune” the hangers but you don’t really want to use this method too much as it begins to negate the whole effect of having rubber (non solid) hangers in the first place.

[QUOTE=moixana;2333249]
Speaking of this…in my effort to raise the car, here’s what I did:
The car was on the lift, tires off, there was a couple inches of room between the bottom of the spring and the perches. So I spun the perches up until they were touching the bottom of the spring (the top of the spring was pushed up into its final resting place), and then I twisted the perch even further. So I was essentially compressing the springs. And probably didn’t get as much height as I could have…? If this is the case…am I to understand that as far as spinning the perch to a higher position is concerned, the highest I can get the car would have been to spin the perches up just until they touched the bottom of the springs but no further?[/quote]
How far did you compress the spring?

[QUOTE=rollinmyda;2333254]I’m not an expert on suspension theory or spring behavior under compression so anyone feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, but my understanding of how a linear (like GC uses) spring behaves is that an 8" spring with a spring rate of 500 lb/inch that is compressed by one inch is going to effectively perform exactly the same as a 7" spring that has the same spring rate of 500 lb/inch.

Now that’s not to necessarily say that GC included the absolute longest springs possible with their kits. I’m fairly sure you would be able to get longer springs and achieve more height that way while still utilizing the spring perches, I was merely stating that there was a limit to how long of a spring you can effectively use. As Colin said though it gets expensive, especially to achieve a near stock ride height.[/QUOTE]
Mike, I do believe you’re a bit mistaken about pre-load. But I too am not an expert here so I definitely suggest anyone reading this do some additional research. First off, pre-load does not change the spring rate, but, it also doesn’t make it work like a shorter spring (in your example of an 8" spring compressed 1"). In your example if you compress an 8" spring by 1" then this means you’ve applied 500lbs of weight to the spring. If you take a normal 7" spring and add 500lbs of weight it will compress by 1". If you take the 8" spring which has already been compressed to 7" you can add 500lbs and the spring will not compress at all. You can think of this as the “energy” stored in the spring from being pre-loaded is essentially holding that 500lbs in place with no further compression. You must then add an additional 500lbs (1000lbs total) to compress the spring an additional inch. So, to summarize: the 7" spring with no pre-load would require 500lbs to compress 1" but the 8" spring which has been pre-loaded will require 1000lbs to compress 1".

Pre-load should raise the vehicle, not lower it. The extreme example here is that if you applied the same amount of pre-load as the weight of the vehicle. In that instance the weight of the car would not compress the spring at all. The suspension would be at full droop (maximum ride height) even with the suspension fully weighted.

Pre-load is a bit of a mystery to me honestly. In your situation I wouldn’t hesitate to add a tiny bit (from what I’ve read a little can be a lot), basically just a turn or two on the collars, but I wouldn’t mess with it more than that for fear of the ride quality changing.

Do you have extended top hats on the car? Any pics of the suspension? I’m not familiar with the stock Koni/GC setup but it just seems odd to me that you’re able to start applying pre-load and the car isn’t sky high. If you’re applying pre-load then the shock is fully extended. A fully extended shock with spring rates that are about double the factory rates should result in a car that sits higher than stock.

93IntegraGS · April 9, 2016, 5:04pm

I just went and measured a few things on my car.

I have:

GC coil-overs with 380F250R
KYB-GR2 shocks front and back.
GC top hats in all four corners (need them if you go with KYB “stock” shocks)
Dropped with about 2" finger gap front and back.
RS-R cat-back exhaust

Measurements:

4 3/4" at front jack points
5" at rear jack points.
2.5" at front mud flaps
3 3/4" at oil pan and cross-member (directly in front of oil pan.)
4 3/4" at lowest point of muffler canister (lower on drivers side).
3 1/4" at the RS-R exhaust resonator

Now I live in Montreal. Our roads are horrible. The points I hit are:

Front cross-member. I’ve hit quite a few times hard on this. Luckily it is strong and takes the punishment.
Oil pan. I’ve been lucky and only scraped it.
Front mud flaps. Just say by to those. Over time I’ve scraped about 1/2" off the bottom. Usually on things like speed bumps.
Resonator. Almost guaranteed on speed bumps. Not really when travelling at speeds.
Muffler, never hit.

I’ve been lucky to not hit anything at high speeds except maybe the front cross-member. Most are lower speeds on local roads.
I do still bottom out on the shocks even with the top hats. Using the KYB I get a softer ride but they will travel more when I hit a hard bump.

Now your setup seems higher than mine. Do you bottom out or do you just scrap at low speeds?

What is the part of the exhaust that is 3" off the ground? Are the hangers used the originals? Did they use all the stock hanger points? You could try to bend the hangers on the exhaust at the low point to give yourself a bit of room. But if it under the shifter take note that you might scrape it on the exhaust when you shift.

moixana · April 9, 2016, 8:54pm

Wow, you guys are amazing. This is why I love G2IC!

To respond to both: I’m currently only having problems hitting the lowest part of the exhaust as shown in the first pic up top. I believe that’s the resonator and the flange directly aft of the resonator. This is happening even when I’m CRAWLING over speed bumps or the like. I have adjusted my driving habits (comfortably) to where this is the only thing I’m having an issue with. It’s either low-speed scraping, or occasionally, a harder hit if I’m not paying attention. No bottoming-out. I deliver pizza, and my coworkers think I’m just being a little bitch because there are 2 complexes that I refuse to deliver to (one of these is where I lost my last exhaust, on an extremely large speed bump, at extremely low speed).

Original hangers. They seem to be in good shape, but if shorter ones might help, that may be another thing I’ll try. There’s definitely some room between the resonator and heat shield. Yes, stock hanger points.

They are 15s from a 94-96 GS-R, with 195-55 tires.

Here’s the suspension as it was when I bought the car. Those springs were 550 pounds all around. Note how low the perches were:

That netted this height:

And here’s a current pic with it on a lift (the suspension is hanging freely). You can see how much I’ve spun the perches (up to the bottom of the spring, plus two 360° turns). The new springs are 340/250.

So after raising the perches but installing softer springs, the end result is…I’m still basically at the same height as before:

I honestly have no clue about the top hats.

93IntegraGS: Thank you for taking the time to measure things! Much appreciated.

Colin: Another question regarding the circlip: That is what’s holding the red part with the threads (don’t know what it’s technically called) to the shock?

93IntegraGS · April 9, 2016, 9:15pm

Your top-hats at least in the front are stock. You can tell because they stick out of the top in the engine bay and behind the plastic panels in the trunk.

I’ve never done it, but bending the hangers slightly might work. Get opinions if there is any chance of weakening the weld, but I doubt it, since this is strong metal and bending it only 1/4" or so down I don’t think would be an issue. And you seem to have access to a pit, so getting under the car for getting good leverage is not a problem.

If they sell shorter hangers I would look at that too. If the resonator can raise on its own with very little pressure from your hand I don’t think it is an issue that it hangs a bit higher. But too high may prevent it from moving freely and put pressure on the other exhaust joints.

I don’t think you will avoid scraping. But you can do a bit to reduce how often it happens.

rollinmyda · April 10, 2016, 3:13pm

Colin- excellent explanation of how preloading works! Thanks for that. I really was unclear about it and was strictly thinking out loud based on my theoretical understanding of it coupled with my unsuccessful attempt at using preload to gain height. I dealt with a similar situation as the OP with my civic while running the same setup but at a significantly lower ride height. I hadn’t run out of threaded sleeve but had to preload the springs to get any additional height out of my setup. I turned my collars up slightly but didn’t feel like it was really achieving any additional height even though I was creating a lot of internal resistance within the spring so I left it alone even though it was lower than I wanted to be. I’m used to it now but I actually had to flatten out the pinch welds on the frame rail above the tire because I kept hitting them and taking gouges out of my tires. Now that that’s done I have no desire to raise it back up so I never revisited my ride height.

Colin · April 11, 2016, 3:48pm

[QUOTE=moixana;2333265]
Colin: Another question regarding the circlip: That is what’s holding the red part with the threads (don’t know what it’s technically called) to the shock?[/QUOTE]
Yes, the circlip is what is holding the threaded collar on. The collar slides over the shock body and rests on that clip. Once you remove the top hat and spring you should be able to just slide the collar up and off of that circlip to see which groove it’s in.

moixana · April 14, 2016, 10:13am

Awesome. Good chance I’ll dissect the suspension this weekend and figure this out.

Pics of the suspension underneath the car are above. Here’s a pic from up top so you can tell me about the top hats cuz I have no idea. Haha:

Also, regarding my complaints:
This manhole mound is in the parking lot at my work. It looks like nothing, but I scrape here. Ouch! This is what I was talking about regarding changing my driving habits more than I thought I’d have to. There’s just a lot of shit that I scrape on that seems invisible:

Guess I better just get used to it.

moixana · April 14, 2016, 10:18am

Actually, I don’t do most of the work on my car. I pay people to do it. But I’m obsessive about documenting everything, so I basically force the shops to let me in to watch them and to take pictures. Haha!

moixana · April 23, 2016, 7:55am

[QUOTE=Colin;2333242]

This may or may not be an option… Do you happen to know where your shocks are set? Koni yellows have a tiny bit of height adjustment built into them. THIS pic shows a typical shock that has 2 grooves in the shock body. You install a circlip into one of these grooves and that is where the spring perch or coilover collar rests. If your shocks are currently setup with the circlip in the lower groove then you could raise your car another half inch or so by moving it to the upper groove. Most likely your shocks have 2 grooves, but some have more.[/QUOTE]

Alright, in less than 12 hours I’m having the RTA bushings replaced so I’ve got to make the final decision on my height before I clock the bushings. But I just had a realization regarding this circlip…

Referencing the “current” pic above; I’ve got another inch or so of threads that I could use to further compress my springs if I wanted to (I don’t). Assuming the circlip is in a low position, raising it to a higher position would be doing nothing more than essentially adding more threads on top, right? So if I don’t want to further compress my springs, moving the circlip would be pointless? Am I missing something?

Colin · April 23, 2016, 2:40pm

First of all, don’t worry about the clocking. It’s not that precise of a thing where changing the ride height a little will cause any problems. It’ll still be taking a LOT of stress off the bushing compared to the stock location.

As for your question… that comes back to what I brought up last time:

[QUOTE=Colin;2333256]
Do you have extended top hats on the car? Any pics of the suspension? I’m not familiar with the stock Koni/GC setup but it just seems odd to me that you’re able to start applying pre-load and the car isn’t sky high. If you’re applying pre-load then the shock is fully extended. A fully extended shock with spring rates that are about double the factory rates should result in a car that sits higher than stock.[/QUOTE]

To get more into detail here… I’m not familiar with the “off the shelf” Koni/GC setup so its hard for me to say for sure but it seems that there’s something we’re missing here. Assuming the shock is fully extended and you are adding pre-load and the spring rate is higher than stock then you should be HIGHER than stock. I’d check 2 things:

Perhaps these aren’t the correct shocks. If they are EF/EG/DC shocks that are shorter than DA shocks then this could be causing you to be lower than expected. I think the shocks should have part numbers on them.
Some binding or other force in the suspension is preventing it from going full droop - the sway bar could potentially do this. The best way to check this will be to remove the spring/shock assembly so that it’s independent of the other suspension bits. You may find you have added adjustability without adding pre-load.

If you are truly fully extended adding pre-load, then yes, you won’t be able to get any extra height by changing the circlip location.

crvtec90 · June 29, 2016, 12:31am

Lots of good info here.

I’m kinda goin through the same thing with my car. I preloaded my front springs to get a lil more height when they were brand new and they have already begun to settle about 1/4inch. I raised the the clips on the rear shocks to try to get the most height but it kinda seems pointless since it was already in the middle groove of three grooves which are only about an 1/8 inch apart anyhow.

I can tell you that you don’t have extended tophats and I don’t believe you even need them since youre not that low but maybe someone more experienced would say otherwise. You can see what they look like on groundcontrol.com

The bump stops are important in my humble opinion since they absorb impact and help prevent the shock from bottoming out.

If youre really worried about scraping the exhaust you could have a custom shop build you a super well fitting system $$$$$. Ive seen hot rodders use rectangle or oval tubing so that diameter is retained while clearance achieved.

Id like to share a pic of my 195/50/15 in front of my Brothers 205/55/16 so you can see the fairly large size difference. Just changing wheel tire combo could possibly give you enough lift. Sorry I don’t have all four wheels and tires to show you what they look like on the car