[demoe]

I was at my local gas station who does repairs and he looked at my Spyder today to see if could lower it. He suggested a Porsche repair place a mile or so away, Bauer Porsche.

The owner Chris looked at the Spyder and his first words were "this will be easy". The plan is to begin at 1.25 inches and then see if there is room to go up to 1.75 inches. I asked him about others feeling the car was initally less stiff (I want mine stiffer) and he said that is common, however he said once lowered, I would be using the tighter coils of the Progressive rate spring, so, it should be a stiffer ride in the end.

He will be doing an alignment during the 1.25 lowering and again if he goes even lower.

If anyone is interested, I will keep you posted, the car is due to be ready today at 5pm!, Can't wait!......As I have said before, aside from the clutch life, service etc.....the handling has been my biggest complaint of this car. My other 2 cars can outhandled the Spyder at the moment.

It was also refreshing not feel like I was getting screwed on costs, I still have the vivid memory of dealing with Vince at SVFM, when I was finally able to speak to him after I left 3 messages for him, he goes and quotes me $1700 to lower my car. All he could say was, "it is a lot of work, it is a lot of work".obviously speaking out of his ass. ....My tab today is going to be $400, from a Porsche shop whose family has a racing history and appear to know what they are doing.

 

[masermartin]

What is the other two cars you are referring to, if you don't mind me asking.

My only concern is that lowering it could make it less predictable at the very edge of it's limits. I'm sure it will look a helluva lot better though!

 

[demoe]

Masermartin

an FYI, the signature at the bottom of your posts often lists members other vehicles...mine does, but anyways, the other 2 vehicles are both lowered as well,

1991 LotusElan, 1998 Mercedes c43AMG, I spent quite a bit of time getting both of them perfect and they feel like they ride on rails

 

[STARDOC]

Very nice. Dollar for dollar and overall the best mod on a Maser. is to lower it.
It turns it from a Jag XK to an Aston Martin.
$400 is VERY reasonable when including alignment. I know that the Lambo dealer that lowered my car ended up spending ALOT more time than what they estimated.

 

[demoe]

Stardoc

you are correct, I just got a call from the shop and the car will not be ready today and they need another 4 hours on it. they say that the Cup which is used to adjust the height of the Spring sits below a rubber piece which gets imbedded into the spring, therefore the adjustment cannot be done while the assembly is on the car, it needs to be removed from the car.

the cost now will be $800, but again is something which I need to do since I hate the way the car handles now. I just feel now that I am sitting up high above the chasis, like a bus driver sits.

 

[Curtis]

Stardoc
the cost now will be $800, but again is something which I need to do since I hate the way the car handles now. I just feel now that I am sitting up high above the chasis, like a bus driver sits.

Curious for more detail as to your feelings about the handling of the car in it's factory height? One of my complaints is that the front end seems very "light" to me under heavy acceleration. Not sure if this is something others have noticed or not. I wonder if lowering the Maser would cure this for me? Any thoughts from anyone?

 

[MikeA]

I had mine lowered at FMOSF and the cost was ~$1000. It took them a couple of alignments to get it right, but they did them on their own time and didn't deliver the car back to me until they were satisfied.
The car seems to hug the road much better. I took it to Thunderhill since it was lowered and it felt much better, although it was a rainy day, so everything was a lot looser on the track.
One warning - be careful on any and all speed bumps. My car seems to bottom out easily. Also steep driveways. And if you hit a pothole it feels harsh, since the springs have less travel until the suspension bottoms out.
Car looks much better as well.
Mike

 

[STARDOC]

The dealer that underestimated the work on my car ended up eating the hours and charged me $400. One other word of caution, make sure that the car is evenly lowered on all corneres or the car will handle like #%&!.

 

[bundas]

lower

please tell all about your low experience, will this give you a high?

 

[M!]

I was at my local gas station who does repairs and he looked at my Spyder today to see if could lower it. He suggested a Porsche repair place a mile or so away, Bauer Porsche.....

smart choice taking the maserati to a gas station for suspension work in the first place!! i guess you are lucky they are honest enough not to touch your maserati.

let us know how the bauer porsche guys set up your suspension now. did they corner weighted your car? how much lowering is done at each corner? what alignment is it in afterwards?

 

[PacoSaca]

Lowering the car is no rocket science, you can do it yourself!!!
I bought the tools for US$100.00 and did it with my mechanic in one afternoon.

Here are some tips I'd like to pass on:
- The nuts or cups are very tight; use a lubricant like WD40 to soften them a bit, but even with the lubricant don't expect them to be easy to loosen... remember that the spring is pushing the suspension down and the cup will always be hard to turn.

- Don't meassure it in inches, do it by number of turns... inches will be the end result.

- Do one side and then move on to do the same amount of turns on the other side... I went 5 turns at a time and if I remember correctly I ended up lowering it 20 turns.

- Don't pay any attention to the rubber piece sitting below the cup as the lubricant will make it turn with the cup.

- The only thing you need to dissasemble or dismount is all four tires to give you more room to work.

- Use a pipe to give you more leverage and make the unscrewing easier... the longer the pipe the more leverage you'll get.

- You do not need to do alignments everytime after you lower it a bit... lower it to the point where you are satisfied and then do the aligment... one single alignmet will do.

- Lastly... I will say that yes, it is a lot of work but the end result is...

...well worth it...!!!

I was also told by many that the ride would soften... I drive 100% of the time on sport mode and have not felt it any softer... what I've felt is that now it turns almost as if it was on rails...!!!

One last piece of advice is, think about getting rid of the catalytic converter if you are going go park on a grass field