I put on my front tires last night...and was kinda surprised at how much room there is left.
Original tires were same outside diameter as new tires... It appears I can come down 2-3inches and still have plenty of safe travel...
Please don't flame me too hard...but after doing a few searches on lowering (most of which had started a step or two past my knowledge of suspension) I come to humbly ask of options.
Running 205/55R15 with about 25mm offset to the outside (+??). Not looking for a street sweeper, just looking to take it down to eliminate the huge wheel well gap.. I know there are going to be some cost, to keep alignment/camber and such, but what are the options here.... ($$ low to high)
If anyone recommends 280zx struts (which I see alot are) what year 280 do I need to look for, and what mods to the struts in order to get lower setup..
As to lowering, there are a wide variety of options. Typically you will also adjust (increase) the spring rate when you get this far. That brings up other choices/options. Essentially you either need an adjustable spring perch or a shorter spring. Which you chose is up to you as there are + and - for each.
280ZX struts are probably the most documented modification in all of 510dom. Plenty of material here on that, or here:
DQ Volume 2 Issue 4 - 280ZX brakes stop your 510 on a dime - So you've made your car fast, but can it stop? How does four-wheel disc brakes sound? We'll show you how to swap the brakes from a 280ZX into your 510.
Because when you spend a silly amount of money on a silly, trivial thing that will help you not one jot, you are demonstrating that you have a soul and a heart and that you are the sort of person who has no time for Which? magazine. – Jeremy Clarkson
Even if you havent made your car faster i still recomend at least doing the 280zx front brakes. If you chose to go that route you will need to get rid of the 280zx springs and perches as the dont fit the 510. I would recomed some type of coil over as that will give you the most height and spring rate options
In our ideal suspension world for our 510's, no matter WHAT combo you use, you want to shoot for a real 2.5" - 3" of real travel..BEFORE the bumps stops get hit. I'm sure that goes without saying, but, it does not hurt to revisit this on occasion. Horrible and dangerous handling ( or the lack thereof ), will happen if you do not have sufficient travel.
Maybe just re-read the suspension thread, where we talk about the travel, and of course the weight transfer that goes with it.
"Racing makes heroin addiction look like a vague wish for something salty" - Peter Egan
Keith Law
1973 2 Door Slalom/hill climb/road race / canyon carver /Giant Killer 510
1971 Vintage 13' BOLER trailer
bertvorgon is 100% correct in what he says. Suspension travel is something you do not want to just take for granted when changing ride height.
Back in 1984 I bought a new daily driver so I could do some more serious modifications to my 510. I bought a brand new mid engine sports car, a Pontiac Fiero. This was a basic 4 cylinder, 5 speed with crappy little 13" tires. But being a "sports car" I decided I needed to try it out at an autocross being held at the local 1/3 mile oval.
The course was chicanes on the straights and you ran the banked corners without gates. The Fiero was set-up like all other mid 80's GM products and had terminal understeer.
In an attempt to "balance" the handling I decided to remove a link from the front swaybar to reduce the front roll stiffness. This made turn in easier adding a slight amount of oversteer that you could correct for, but what happened mid corner was a 100% reversal of handling. At mid corner the car would suddenly understeer worse than it did with the swaybar connected.
What happening as the car turned into the corner was the right side suspension load increased. The further you got into the turn, the more the load shifted. At turn in with the lowered front roll stiffness (a disconnected front sway bar) it allowed the front tire to grip slightly more than the right rear. This was creating the slight oversteer condition at turn in.
Once the car approached full right side loading near mid corner it would do an about face from oversteer to massive and sudden understeer. The lack of a front sway bar was having two compounding effects. Not only was there more body roll adding more weight to the right side, but the lack of effective spring rate from the disconnected sway bar was allowing even more suspension travel. What ending up happening was the right front suspension would bottom out mid turn, steering the car directly toward the retaining wall.
So when Keith says it is important to make sure you have sufficient suspension travel, I can vouch that it is very important. There is a no more helpless feeling than having your car change direction for no apparent reason in the middle of an all out cornering maneuver.
That's a really good example Dave! ( my "off" was 1983....I think you and I lived the same life...)
Mine was the other end of the car, massive and sudden over steer. This was as we were developing our suspensions, and we had lowered the car, but, totally under estimated how much travel could get blown through on a high speed corner ( 80+ MPH). The rear of the car compressed both by the gear shift to 4th, and a BIG dip in the corner, thus letting me contact the stock rear bump rubber ( which had been cut down)...yeeehaaa hang on...into the tire wall I went...at 80 MPH. INSTANTANEOUS OVER STEER.
We learned from that one, I now no longer run a rear bump stop in my case ( you guys figure out your requirements ), but, I also run 1200 Inch/lbs rear springs, and a shock that I know will not bottom. I will coil bind first.
I was lucky I did not write the car off, the forensics taught us a lot..and I get preachy about proper suspension travel...a race track is one thing...and exit ramp is a whole other ball game.....
Oh, yah, one other thing, if you are "just touching the Bumps", you will always be fighting the suspension, not really knowing what is going on, you may not even feel it, if you are just on the edge, but the car may not be doing what it should be doing, and tuning it will be impossible, until you are 100% sure that bottoming is NOT an issue.
"Racing makes heroin addiction look like a vague wish for something salty" - Peter Egan
Keith Law
1973 2 Door Slalom/hill climb/road race / canyon carver /Giant Killer 510
1971 Vintage 13' BOLER trailer
I think this got a little too complicated for a " for dummies " thread but all that was said needs to be considered. BV and Dave know what they are talking about.
Thanks for the heads up...Like most things with this car, Lady Luck has been my friend...once I got all 4 tires on the car, and got it out in the driveway...I realized that lower IS NOT even an option with the current setup. It looks good with original setup anyway. viewtopic.php?f=29&t=23219 Pics on post #13
Because when you spend a silly amount of money on a silly, trivial thing that will help you not one jot, you are demonstrating that you have a soul and a heart and that you are the sort of person who has no time for Which? magazine. – Jeremy Clarkson
Yeah, front could be dropped...will require a bigger hammer on the inner fenders LOL.... but at least its not too bad at current height...it's better than what I thought it was going to look like. It'll progress with time. After 3+years, today was the first day I've drove it (outside of a few testing drives down the road and back). I drove 35miles to work, mostly at 70mph. It was very smooth at highway speeds...more than imagined, actually quite nice!
The Japanese Advisors here at Toyo, loved it...they surrounded it immediately
I'm just going to enjoy driving it for the next week or two, and try to catch up on other projects around the house.
Today marks the beginning of a great thing. I almost didn't want to leave the car in the parking lot....I'm thinking of eating lunch in the car, just to be near her..
Here are a couple easy ways to see if you are bottoming your suspension on the bump stops.
Up front, put a wire tie around the shaft of the strut and put it tight. Cut off the extra so it doesn't get hung-up on anything. Slide it down so it is on top of the strut tube. When the suspension moves it will push the wire tie up the shaft toward the bump stop. After using the car, look at where the wire tie ends up. This will tell you what is left for travel under opperating conditions.
On the rear you can stick a ball of modeling clay on the bump stop and see if it gets distorted. If so, you will be able to judge the amount of suspension travel left by the thickness of the clay.
