[STARDOC]

As you guys know, I lowered the car about 6 weeks ago with mixed results. Great looks but mushier handeling. Well a couple of weeks ago I noticed some vibration on the highway. I knew that the car was not lowered evenly but never had the time to take it in. Well yesterday just got the car back after having the front and rear driver side lowered to match evenly throughout and now the car drives like its on rails!!! I cannot believe the difference. The suspension is even more nimble than before and the tires seem to give in before the suspension does. Not sure exactly what this has to do with the Skyhook calibration but the drive is incredible.
I'll take it out for more testing this Sunday including a possible race to be taped against my friend's M3. Will give everyone details.

 

[Andrew]

I am confused. How did you manage to get only one side lowered in the first place? Was there a noticable lean in the car?

 

[STARDOC]

The car was not noticeably leaning. Infact you couldn't tell that the ends were off unless you measured them off the ground&wheel rim, which is what I ended up doing one day. Thats when I realized that it had been lowered unevenly and possibly why it acted so erratic in high speed corners. My bad for not doing it right away but I erroneously assumed that it was done correctly in the first place. The dynamics are now considerably different, even when driving straight over ripples. Just an observation.

 

[Andrew]

The car was not noticeably leaning. Infact you couldn't tell that the ends were off unless you measured them off the ground&wheel rim, which is what I ended up doing one day. Thats when I realized that it had been lowered unevenly and possibly why it acted so erratic in high speed corners. My bad for not doing it right away but I erroneously assumed that it was done correctly in the first place. The dynamics are now considerably different, even when driving straight over ripples. Just an observation.

It is amazing what a few milimeter will do, isn't? I'm glad you got it figured out and it is handling better. I'm curious, how much was it off by?

 

[bloodsnatcher]

I want to lower my new maserati, but I don't know, 1-Inch is it enuff or what?

 

[STARDOC]

We decided to be pretty aggressive in terms of the distance lowered. The tech initially spent a good afternoon tweeking the car. He said that initially it was lowered by just under 2 inches throughout. But when I later measured, the front and rears were off by a good 11-13mm and the 2 rears were off by about 6-8mm. Funny thing is that I was concerned that after lowering the car further, that I'd get an even softer and non-responsive ride. To my surprise the opposite occurred. My theory is that the Skyhook can now function more predictably with the spring lenght being more even or consistent.
My advice to members is to lower the car as much as possible and then align the car. Oh, and don't take the tech's word..measure the car yourself.

 

[demoe]

Hi Stardoc

can you post pre, mid, final photos?

thanks for the update, i have been wanting to lower the car for a while but avoided it due to concerns over sofening of the ride....now I have no excuse..

could you monitor your tire wear? just curious if you will be getting uneven tire wear like i get on my other lowerered vehicles. im not expecting much time out of my soft Goodyears, so if I were to add uneven wear to the mixture, I could be talking replacing them every 6 months

 

[maserati of minneapolis]

That's an amazing variance amount for a technician to have missed. I can't imagine how strange that ride must have been.

- Mark