[demoe]

I had the shop raise the rear of my Spyder today, after it was lowered to the point where the rear Quarterpanel was lower than the top of the tire.

the shop actually raised the rear a bit too much, so it is almost where I started from. ..

what I learned is that the system is adaptive, when the car was lowered too low, the system detects it, and to prevent it from bottoming out, tightened the suspension so tight that it was almost like driving a race car. the handling was unbelievable, however I could probably feel a dime lying on the roadway if I ran over one....seriously, it was so damn stiff, ...there was almost no up and down play in the car. I hit a bump and was thrown up in the air off my seat, and I am 6'1 230lbs.

So, I picked up the car today with the car raised, it almost drives like stock, perhaps slightly stiffer than stock. the car looks nicer, the handling has improved slightly.

I guess the moral of the story is, if you plan to track the car, you can lower it to the point which the system will be in total stiff/race mode with almost no play in the suspension.......having lived with this for 6 days, I can say that it would be impossible to live with the car in that stage...i could also imagine increase frame flex, bending with the suspension at that point.

 

[willie]

this is very interesting...

so what your are saying is that for example i could take my car to the track and adjust the suspension to be really hard and low, and after i am done lapping all of the cars i can go back and set it up in stock mode again?

that could be really cool man.

now i have read that some people complain that the handling is actually worst that stock when you lower it. it would be good to get some first hand comments on the subject.

-willie

 

[STARDOC]

The first time I lowered the car is was done incorrectly. The left and right side were not set to the same height. As a result, the car rode EXTREMELY unstable at high speeds. It was almost wobblier than my Accord on freeway banks. Once it was corrected to proper height, the Skyhook hunkered down handled far better than stock. To this day I do not know why Maserati has chosen to leave such a large gap in the wheel wells.

 

[CCPotenza]

US DOT regs require a certain, specific height above level pavement that all US cars' bumpers must ride at. It's to unify them to enhance the 5 mph safety crash worthiness standard, as well as all of the other crash standards. That's probably why everyone wants to lower their Porsches, BMWs and Maseratis to the same height as in Europe, where they also handle better because the center of gravity is lowered closer to the axles.

By the way, newer and upcoming US crash standards are also inspiring more of a raked front hood and radiator area to protect pedestrians who are hit by cars. They idea is that a sloped hood might launch a struck pedestrian up and onto the hood and windshield (and hopefully roll off or bounce onto the ground next to car) instead of being struck forward, down and run over by the car. A much better chance of the pedestrian surviving the accident.

 

[Glenn Wallace]

How did they lower and raise the car?