This is what I now have with Eibach Prokit springs, no isolator, and probably heavier with mods. Anyone else with this height? How is it with speed bumps, scraping underneath etc?

I'm at 25" in the front and 26.5" in the rear. If my exhaust didn't hang so low I would be just fine. The air damn scrapes all of the time, but that is no big deal. If I find a steep incline I have to take it at an angle otherwise my front gfx will scrape. I have just conditioned myself to take all bumps/inclines at an angle to avoid even the possibility of scraping the undercarriage of my car.

How is it so low riding on a pro kit? I understand you have no insulator but 2" lower than mine? I want a 3/4" drop on my pro kit... I'm planning on cutting a small portion of a coil.

I dont know? Theyre only about 5 years old, hardly any miles. The isolators will lose maybe 1/2"? Im thinking the extra weight of the TH400, 9" rear, subframe connectors, Procharger, intercooler and a few extra things?

Also C5 17" wheels

what's your tire height?

Haha I'm at 28.5" !

I'm at 25 5/8" front. rear depends on how much gas is in it. lol. No issues. Don't really have speed bumps around here. I love the stance at this height with over 3/4 tank. I was always careful at stock height so its been easy getting used to the new height.

25.5" fender height up front is about where I'm at for my race height and alignment. Street height is 23.75"

my 85 iroc sets at 26 3/4 front & rear i do have a sub box & amp in the back stock springs & 245 50 16 stock tires wheels got 87,000 on it

Why does EVERYONE measure ride height incorrectly? You can't compare your car to mine like that unless you have the SAME tires, at the SAME air pressure.

The proper way to measure against another car is to measure from the axle centerline to the fender/quarter opening. This is dependent on the suspension and is independent of the tire hieght

Everyone is a bold statement. The fender height comparison is going to tell you how low all the "dragging" parts will be. You are correct about it won't tell you A-frame angle and other details. It's just another way to compare.

No, it's not. You can't use fender-ground height because most cars are not going to have the same height tires. Even if you are running the "factory" size tire all manufacturers make the tires different, so tires from different manufacturers are different heights. So unless the people asking about "how high" is your car and then says a number for the ground to fender height is going to be different than another person's car. The overall height and tire pressure can vary a lot, so it isn't even a usable comparison. Then throw in a wheel size and it can get even further out.
The ONLY way to compare two cars suspension height is to measure from the axle centerline to the wheel opening.

Most people use ground to fender height as a measurement of how low the vehicle is overall, rather than using it as a reference to how much it's been lowered.

If you just want an argument, GM would say you're both wrong, they defined points on the chassis that you should measure against, in most cases non moving points like suspension mount/pivot points.

As far as most conversations here, most people care more about appearances and when their exhaust will start scraping all the speed bumps... fender lip to ground height is appropriate. In addition, most people are running front tires on these cars in a very small size range, I'd bet that 95% of the front tires on this forum are 25.6-26" tall, and 99% or better in 25.5-26.25", so that's not a big variation of tire height or suspension height.

I would argue that threads about "what springs for this height" type questions should list springs and tire sizes with fender lip heights to have useful information, but if you're going to start nit picking and wanting to make it more accurate, I'd skip the fenders entirely since they are sheet metal, people have bumped them in parking lots, lifted up on them to get cars on ramps/tow trucks, idiots have jacked by the back seam... they're all bowed slightly differently, and you should instead measure between 2 points in the suspension, like ball joint center to top of strut tower, installed spring height or between the bump stop mount point and it's contact point on the frame. Of course then engine weight isn't accounted for...

back to fender to ground heights...

Well the actual proper way to measure suspension is from the center of the control arm pivot to the center of the ball joint pivot. But if I started listing out those numbers most people wouldn't really grasp their meaning because they have no frame of reference. Ground to fender is something that has caught on throughout the automotive culture and stuck, hence the reason why even I use it.

For what it's worth here's a couple of my measurements when I was at 24.25" front fender height. (Approximately .5" higher than current)

Ground to center of a/arm to k member bolt : 6" exactly

Ground to bottom of ball joint: 8". Center of ball joint: (8.5"?)


Ground to center of front LCA bolt : 5.75"

Ground to center of rear LCA bolt: 9.5"


This was also before I installed my 1" extended ball joints, and my Lower control arm relocation brackets.

Duh, but that's not at all relevant to measuring ride height and comparing one car to another.

Exactly, that's what I was getting at. My wheels are very close to stock size as well. The relevance for me is how low my exhaust now is

I don't see what the point of that would be. Because when I changed my tires, the height I'm looking at changed. Even though using suspension points only, it would be the exact same.

Besides, if we're talking strictly about how much did lowering springs change the height, an A/C delete IROC is going to weigh less than an air conditioned GTA which will weigh more than a V6. So we're never going to be able to say that this spring lowers the car by this amount and that spring lowers it by that amount and have exact numbers.

I have a stiff back so when I measure ride height I go from fender to ceiling. My tires are stock with a 10' high ceiling. 93.5" is about where its sitting right now.

Old thread I know but where to you measure to on the fender? There's the flat section at the top of the radius however it's about a 1/2" wide. To the bottom I would think, yes?
Don't need to know about the model, mods or whatever. I'm just curious as to how low the fenders are.

Got any pics of the car with 28.5" tires? I just ordered some 20s with 295/35 tires and I'll be joining the 28" tall tire club soon.

Unless you did a lot of chassis cutting, I bet those are some short tires, AND it's practically sitting on the ground.

I'll repeat, the _only_ correct/accurately comparable way of doing this is to measure vs the defined chassis points in the GM body manual (basically measuring a set point of the frame) to the ground on a flat surface.

Fender to ground can be greatly influenced by tire size, and control arm pivot to ball joint is not only a pain the butt, but doesn't account for things like drop spindles, ceiling to fender... well that's just silly

Looked through your pics, nice! But no thanks. I can't stand scrapping on things and I can't even understand how you got the tires to seat and seal on those rims.

I don't understand why people don't understand this

25.25" measured the conventional way.