Hi guys,
As you know I recently got my new 18"s, and I am thinking about lowering it with superlows on the front and lows on the rear. However I am just a bit concerned with regards to clearance. At the moment on factory springs and when I first got the car, I wasn't used to it and ended up scraping heaps. If I get it even lower it'll be even worse for that, so can anyone allay my fears? Can you do any real damage by scraping (not hitting) driveways, speedbumps etc?

Sorry if I sound a bit silly, but I'm pretty new to all of this :cool:

Thanks
Ash

no damage just lower it!

off the shelf springs are all good, still like a normal car

once you go compressing them custom springs thats when you run into things

any scraping issues will most probably be the fronts rubbing against the plastic guards. that is fixed easily by just pushing the guards back and tie-ing them down with something.

as long as ur 18's dont sit outside of the guard too much, you wont have any issues !

enjoy

i bolted 20's onto mine and threw king lows in all round..

i suggest new shocks and bump stops at the same time though..

Have you got any modifications done to your exhaust or anything like that?
I've found with mine the exhaust gets dragged across certain speed bumps and my lowering is minimal, but I have got a fairly biggish after market exhaust that seems to sit a bit lower than it should.
The damage is seemingly quite minimal, but it's definately scrubbing out. I have also had issues with catching the sump guard on cement parking blocks (you know those cement things across the front if individual car parks to stop you running into the behind it? The ones that a normal person puts their front wheels up against?) You have to stay quite some distance out of the car park otherwise once you drive in, a) the two tow hooks scrape across the top of the cement bar and b) when you reverse out you leave the plastic sump guard behind. Potentially if you were much lower again you'd have trouble with the two tow hooks hitting the barrier so you'd really knew when you had reached the spot you had to stop.

taken ur mudflaps off? have a KJ here on s/lows all round, first thing i did was take the front mud flaps off coz they scraped on everything (rears still on for protection)... scraping isnt too much of an issue, tho do get it around the place, especially if i dont expect it.

really surprised u've scraped with stock height!

when you lower your car - just it easy for the first few days when driving the car around.
get used to how much clearance you have, going slowly over something that you dont quite have the clearance for is much better than hitting it at speed (does more damage when you hit it hard obv)

i find (in my stock height true) Rada, that the tow points grab before anything else - my driveway is vicious but you learn how to get down it without leaving half ur engine laying on the road!

if your going so low that you need to be on a diagonal to get over small speed bumps.. then it might be time to think about raising the car up a lil....

oh yeah - them concrete bollards at the front of carparking spaces SUCK, why cant they all be uniform height so that you know you either clear them or hit them!!!!
i try to make a habbit of not parking right up against them for fear of damage!

At the moment on factory springs and when I first got the car, I wasn't used to it and ended up scraping heaps. If I get it even lower it'll be even worse for that, so can anyone allay my fears?

I've got a VR-X on King Lows all around and have only scraped it once or twice in the 6 months since I've had it lowered (ignoring the bloody concrete blocks in carparks that doddski's talking about). Speedbumps and most driveways don't pose a problem at all.

As long as you remember to take everything at an angle and nice and slowly (screw anyone waiting behind you), you'll be fine. I did this before I got my car lowered - because my parents always did it with their old Commodore - so it's second nature to me.

My Veranda has been lowered with the most popluar combo i've seen here (Superlow front, Low rear) and i've never had any serious scraping problems. Apart from the random unusually high speed bump that might scrape one of the exhaust resonators you don't have anything to worry about as long as you go slow over bumps.

i just changed mine from superlows in the front to lows and i must say it looks much better. it looks more even front and rear that it did. the superlows in the front made the **** end look like it was huge. also rides much nicer, and no clearance issues, and my 17" wheels sit out a touch wider than the stockies