I've got low/superlow combo on my th and with 18" rims and it needs to be at least

1-1.5" maybe even 2" to be close to were i want it.

can this be done? and does any one know where/how much?

also does lower than this cause any issues?

cheers....

You have a couple of choices here.

1. Reset your springs and have them professionally treated (Involves sagging the springs by applying heat, then hardening them and treating them) wollongongVerada has done this
2. Custom springs K-mac can do up some custom springs for you - There are also a set available in the FS section atm
3. Coilovers. The best and most expensive way of doing this. You are looking at 2-3k just for the coilovers, then installation on top, but performance is best with these.

The problem is, king SL/L is bad enough as is for scraping and bottoming out, makes country roads impossible. Whats your main issue? Arches or ride height?

Any lower then Kings SL/L and your ride quality is gonna be ****, if you know a good fibreglasser willing to work cheap, you could have custom arches made up (low+flared) to make the arches sit much lower, but the car at the same height.

I believe Ego went custom flared arches to fit his brembos in, it can be quite expensive.

Cut your springs.

http://autospeed.com/cms/A_3082/article.html

Cut your springs.

Cut your wrists.

http://autospeed.com/cms/A_3082/article.htmlThat's a good article. Thanks.

Cut your wrists.


BEST CALL OUT!! omg im killing myself laughing :bowrofl: :bowrofl:

true mitsu magna man!

Cut your wrists.
Where are those lazy moderators when you need them :P

Any lower then Kings SL/L and your ride quality is gonna be ****, if you know a good fibreglasser willing to work cheap, you could have custom arches made up (low+flared) to make the arches sit much lower, but the car at the same height.


Incorrect, You can go lower so long as you bump up the spring rate as well to prevent too much wallowing and bottoming out, my previous lancer was on the deck, (custom made Kingsprings etc) was 35mm at the lowest point of the car (front tow hook) i didnt have any trouble when i lived out west just gotta be smart on how you drive it.

Im putting in Custom kings in the magna on monday along with revalved koni's They are 64mm lowered front and 70mm for the rear. But since i have increased the spring rate considerably it should still drive well.

thanks for the replies, :)

I might check out getting them reset by industrial springs.

My main issue is the space around the wheel arch, i want it to come down about 1-1.5"

I wont be chopping, i've dont that on most of my previous cars and its never quite right!

the autospeed article seems to explain it all.

IIRC the VRX guard flares make the wheel arches appear lower, you could fit a set of them, then maybe fill the lip that they produce with body filler for a smoother look.

What i see to be the problem with going lower than S/lows etc is yes ,you can increase the rate and re valve the shock enough to make up for the horribly reduced suspension travel so you dont hit the bump stops every 2 mins, but at what cost?,you probably will have a very stiff ride that will want to bump steer you off line everytime you hit a bump mid corner,and another thing,will the spring still be captive without the use of a "short" strut?

Steve

You learn to drive it.
If you want a low car go for it. Mine (although not a 3rd gen) is on SL's up front and compressed L's in the rear with front strut brace and rear swaybar. handles fantasticly and tucks rim in the rear. It's funny when people say anything that low will ride like crap! it doesnt. Handles very well and many members off here can attest to that.
Go as low as you can man. I would never be happy with a car that "supposedly" rode better but was still 1.5" higher then the top of the tyre...stuff that.

']]It's funny when people say anything that low will ride like crap! it doesnt. Handles very well and many members off here can attest to that.


The fact is most people don't know what good handling/suspension is, because they havn't experienced good suspension, or don't have the experience to be able to tell what the chassis is actually doing. It's easy to claim your car handles well when you are ignorant, to be blunt. (not having a go at you, just a general statement/observation).

"Dumped" cars can give the illusion of handling well at low speeds, but the reality is they handle like poo when driven hard, there's no getting around this.

Lowering a car much beyond it's factory ride height means dynamic geometry under hard cornering and roll centres are messed up. Have you even seen a "dumped" car with Mcpherson struts on a track? They look like they are running about 4 degrees of positive camber under compression and just compltely fall over onto the sidewall of the front outside tyre.

IMO for your magnas, without RADICAL changes to the suspension setup, the optimum ride height for handling is 30-50mm below factory.

If you wish to lower your car beyond this, that's your choice, but be aware of the reality is your car WILL handle like poo when pushed properly around corners.

IMO without going to decently designed coilovers or custom springs and valved dampers, King Lows are the way to go, as you still have a spring rate that's suited to amount of suspension travel you have.

If you are going to dump it, you'll find you'll be bottoming out easily because the springs are too soft for the travel you have, or the ride will be harsh because the springs are stiff to compensate for lack of travel. Stiff springs require shocks that are valved to suit them, off-the-shelf stuff like KYBs will be no where near correct.

By the way my new Bilstein setup is running over double the rates of King Lows (400lbs vs 175), and the ride height is only 10mm lower than King Lows, and the same at the rear. There are reasons why I elected not go much lower, even though the focus is track performance/handling.

But hey what do I care, many of you aren't gonna listen to what I say anyway, because it isn't what you wanto hear :)

When you're getting into coilovers just because you want lower arches, you're better off paying half the price (if you're lucky) to have a fibreglasser make some custom flaired guards with the arches 2.5" lower.

keep in mind, to drop 2" lower then kings, you'll be 5-5.5" low. You'd bottom out on everything, speed humps and country roads would be a no-go zone, you could only really drive your car on a highway without bottoming out.

The lowest I would go to is 4". wollongongVerada is 4" low and experiences a lot of trouble with speed humps now :)

Hey Chisholm, kind on topic/off topic how much is it setting you back to get your yellows revalved?

Once i have the 300 rates in Tuffy you can come try my car for handling and see what they are like. :D

Also to Life, have you driven a car that low before? as i have and so long as you drive smart you dont have issues, hell ive taken the magna in places you wouldnt dream about.

Knew you would respond to what i said :bowrofl:
I have experienced excellent suspension (Drift spec RX7) which was very stiff but held the road so goddam well.
Ignorant, meh, ive been in a few 3rd gens which aftermarket suspension and i thought mine held the road alot better.
I bottomed out mainly due to having no bump stops in the front...thats sorted now.
Obvioulsy spent nothing like you have, nothing "custom" but alas have not done "high speed" cornering like you to put it to the ultimate test.
Best observation I got of the cars handling was a 40K drive along the great ocean road.

I take into consideration everything you say and love reading your posts. But TBH I dont really know what "re-valving" is nor do I know what it does or where it is on the damper

In regards to what you said life, i'm with magna00 on this.
My car is pretty low (ALMOST tucks rim on the rear and sits on tyres up front) and i NEVER scrape anything, of course you arnt going to go over speed bumps at 45kays but driveways are no problem for me, if they are steep, usually the wog crawl gets me up. but other then that its fine

']Knew you would respond to what i said :bowrofl:
I have experienced excellent suspension (Drift spec RX7) which was very stiff but held the road so goddam well.
Ignorant, meh, ive been in a few 3rd gens which aftermarket suspension and i thought mine held the road alot better.
I bottomed out mainly due to having no bump stops in the front...thats sorted now.
Obvioulsy spent nothing like you have, nothing "custom" but alas have not done "high speed" cornering like you to put it to the ultimate test.
Best observation I got of the cars handling was a 40K drive along the great ocean road.

I take into consideration everything you say and love reading your posts. But TBH I dont really know what "re-valving" is nor do I know what it does or where it is on the damper

In regards to what you said life, i'm with magna00 on this.
My car is pretty low (ALMOST tucks rim on the rear and sits on tyres up front) and i NEVER scrape anything, of course you arnt going to go over speed bumps at 45kays but driveways are no problem for me, if they are steep, usually the wog crawl gets me up. but other then that its fine

He talks of Revalving as in Rebuilding Konis to suit certain spring rates etc, and yeah my previous car (a lancer of all things) was 35mm at the lowest point (tow hooks) and still didnt scrape unless i went at it at speed. I lived in Moree at the time and anyone who has been there/lived there the roads there make Sydney's roads look like glass. Got pothole?

Hey Chisholm, kind on topic/off topic how much is it setting you back to get your yellows revalved?



I ended up going with custom-valved Bilstein dampers instead. But last time I checked koni yellows are $190 each pair to revalve.


']Ignorant, meh, ive been in a few 3rd gens which aftermarket suspension and i thought mine held the road alot better.
I bottomed out mainly due to having no bump stops in the front...thats sorted now.
Obvioulsy spent nothing like you have, nothing "custom" but alas have not done "high speed" cornering like you to put it to the ultimate test.
Best observation I got of the cars handling was a 40K drive along the great ocean road.

I take into consideration everything you say and love reading your posts. But TBH I dont really know what "re-valving" is nor do I know what it does or where it is on the damper



Well that's why it's up to each person to decide what's important. E.g if you are into tracking your car, then your priorities are gonna be different to someone who just likes cruising around and will rarely/never push their car hard. I have nothing against peolpe who decide they are willing to sacrifice some handling potential for a lower ride height, I just like people to be well informed when they are making that decision :)

Keep in mind how a car behaves at low speed and high speeds is often quite different. A dumped car with bad geometry/travel/rates/valving will handle like poo on a track, but may feel fine at lowish speeds like 70km/hr around national park roads at 7/10ths, as the flaws in a setup tend to not rear themselves till you are pushing hard enough to make them apparent.

The correct function of a damper is to simply control the oscillations of the spring, under load of hitting bumps, fore-aft weight shift under acceleration/braking, and side-to-side weight shift under cornering.

It's quite complex, but basically compression (also called bump) is how much resistance the shock provides to the spring compressing, and rebound is the resistance to the spring extending back to full height. For e.g max out the rebound on koni yellows with soft springs, and the result is the springs are being overpowered to the point that they are partially compressed when the car is stationary, and very slow to recover from bumps.

Dampers have valving which basically controls how much rebound and compression resistance the shock has. It's actually more complex than this, there are a number of factors which vary - e.g the shaft speed of the shock varies greatly (e.g hit the same bump at different speeds). "Cheapo" street shocks like KYBs tend to work far better at low speeds than high speeds, whereas high-end shocks excel at both, or sometimes are relatively crap at low speeds. Interestingly, the koni yellows have a sort of release valve which basically softens them up for harder/faster bumps like potholes to keep them nice and comfy for the street.

Anyway, re-valving refers to changing the valving in a shock to match the rate or "stiffness" of a particular spring. e.g the standard valving in Koni yellows work pretty well with something like king Lows, but will be overpowered by a spring of double the rate (although winding up the rebound can help to an extent). Quality dampers that have been specifically valved to exactly match a specific spring are in a completely different league to a mix'n'match of off the shelf parts (in terms of handling at high loads/speeds).

The hallmarks of poor control of the spring by the damper are a "floaty" and/or "bouncy" feeling when the suspension is loaded up or hitting bumps. E.g say you push the car into a corner, and hit a bump mid-corner. The car will feel like it's floating and/or bouncing, and feel "unsettled" in general. If the car is upsettled enough, contact between the road and tyre(s) will be disrupted, and the car can will lose grip. In comparison, a good suspension setup will provide more peak grip, and will deal with bumps on the limit of adhesion as if they don't exist (up to a point).

I ended up going with custom-valved Bilsten dampers instead. But last time I checked koni yellows are $190 each pair to revalve.

Yeah try 190 Each shock, getting my reds done monday, also i didnt think Bilsten did dampers for the magna, i asked the reps ages ago and they never bothered to answer, same deal on the website as well.

Yeah try 190 Each shock, getting my reds done monday, also i didnt think Bilsten did dampers for the magna, i asked the reps ages ago and they never bothered to answer, same deal on the website as well.

$190 each shock:shock: Who's doing the work?TopPerformance? I could swear I was quoted $190 per pair only a few months ago. Although are you paying for them to be rebuilt as well, or just re-valving? (i.e brand new/good condition shocks you'd just re-valve and not touch anything else).

Oh you can certainly get Bilsteins for a magna, but there's some fabrication required, there's no off-the-shelf strut that 'bolts on' for magnas. Maybe you got fobbed off because they were not interested, thinking you were just a time-waster (Magna drivers do tend to get that stereotype sometimes).

Who did you talk to? I dealt directly with Heasmans Steering, who are the NSW Bilstein distributor. I find often when specialised fabrication work is involved, how you get treated depends largely on whether you seem serious/knowledgable about what you want, or just seem like a prospective time-waster. But I found from the beginning Heasmans lacked the arrogant attitude some big $$$/specialised workshops tend to display.

I provided Heasmans with a set of OEM magna struts, they are in the process of modifying them to accept 40mm Bilsten inserts, and adding adjustable spring platforms.

$190 each shock:shock: Who's doing the work?TopPerformance? I could swear I was quoted $190 per pair only a few months ago. Although are you paying for them to be rebuilt as well, or just re-valving? (i.e brand new/good condition shocks you'd just re-valve and not touch anything else).

Oh you can certainly get Bilsteins for a magna, but there's some fabrication required, there's no off-the-shelf strut that 'bolts on' for magnas. Maybe you got fobbed off because they were not interested, thinking you were just a time-waster (Magna drivers do tend to get that stereotype sometimes).

Who did you talk to? I dealt directly with Heasmans Steering, who are the NSW Bilstein distributor. I find often when specialised fabrication work is involved, how you get treated depends largely on whether you seem serious/knowledgable about what you want, or just seem like a prospective time-waster. But I found from the beginning Heasmans lacked the arrogant attitude some big $$$/specialised workshops tend to display.

I provided Heasmans with a set of OEM magna struts, they are in the process of modifying them to accept 40mm Bilsten inserts, and adding adjustable spring platforms.

yeah its probably why, mine are being rebuilt as well, mine are getting done via HV suspensions on monday, they are a koni dealer close to me.