Griffin92rs

I've been wanting to lower my car just about an inch or so so that it looks a little better with the 15" wheels that are on it. Wondering if just a small drop like this would be okay with just lower springs or would i need other things to? hoping for a cheap way of doing this.

Not really concerned with great quality because I'm redoing everything under that car later on for an engine upgrade.

just looking for ideas right now.

turd_gen

Well the cheapest way would be to cut your springs, which a lot of people here do, but I wouldn't recommend it.

I'll be buying Vogtland springs for my car soon, I think they're about a 1-1.5" drop and they have a good reputation. Founder's Performance sells them and they also have lower control arm relocation brackets for very cheap, which is highly recommended if you're lowering a third gen.

Griffin92rs

Thanks, I'll look into those, which ones are you getting? was hoping to avoid cutting the springs anyway, to avoid rubbing on bumpy roads or anything. If that would be a problem with just an inch lower.

pontiacandi

The thing is most Lowering Springs advertise 1-1.5 lower ride hight,but that's measured against Factory ride hight. Can be dissapointing when you find that your 30+ year old springs have already sunk 1" or so,and fitting Lowering can make little difference looks wise,hence people end up cutting them. New springs will improve ride though.

sofakingdom

iTrader: (1)

"Lower" doesn't work like, you open a can of "lower" and pour it all over your car AS IT SITS RIGHT NOW, and it just instantly jumps {insert "lowering" spec here} closer to the ground.

Imagine, you could open say, 3 or 11 or 41 cans of that, and pour em on one after the other (kinda like the r¡cers when they "add" HP to their mighty 4-cyl crap) and it would be ... below ground level. Keep opening and pouring cans and before long you'd have a tunnel borer. No doubt that would be "cool"; but I'm far from the final judge of crap like that.

"Lower" is a COMPARATIVE type of word. That is, it means, "lower" now, than some other "low" (or not) it used to be.

"Lowering" springs therefore have to COMPARE themselves to some kind of a USED TO BE status. That DOES NOT mean, where your car sits RIGHT NOW. More than one person has taken some old wore-out car with sagging trashed collapsed stock springs and put "lowering" springs in it, and their car sat HIGHER (opposite of "lower") than it did before. An inevitable consequence of the "before" vs "after" thing.

Most often, "lower" in "catalog" terms means, "lower than original". In which case, it's instructive to recall what ORIGINAL looked like, since let's say 1½" lower than ORIGINAL, might not at all be what you're looking for. You might want, say, 6" "lower" than OE. Who knows. Maybe you would just like trashing your car's nose the first time you drive into your driveway. NMP.

Start here to understand what your "lowering" springs are going to "lower" xxx inches FROM. https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/hist...hotos+van+nuys

Feel free to ask for clarification.

Griffin92rs

Do you know what the factory hight is? and where is this measured?
Tired of my front looking higher than the rear.

sofakingdom

iTrader: (1)

Did you look at the photos in the link I put up for you?

They show cars at the factory(s) whereby you can see the height.

Griffin92rs

Yes, and thank you, but it shows some that may be the same height as mine but many are definitely lower. Pictures don't show precise height in comparison to mine, numbers do exactly that. If you know what the factory hight is that would be very helpful.

sofakingdom

iTrader: (1)

They're all different; depended on the weight of the options installed on the particular cars.

A 6-cyl Camaro would have sat higher than most of the better cars, not least because the motor weighs less. But also because typical as-built, as-bought, as-sold V8 cars, were sold to people that demanded a bit more performance than similar 6-cyl cars were sold to. Typical 6-cyl buyers were dads buying graduation presents for their daughters. More interested therefore in image and such as that, less in "performance".

Of course anybody interested in "performance" wouldn't have tolerated 15" wheels either; not even back then. They were already obsolete. I recall it being REALLY HARD to buy good tires for my 83 L69 car (exact same wheels as yours) by the late 80s; NEAR IMPOSSIBLE in the 90s. I bought some take-off 16" IROC wheels in maybe around 93 or so to help out with that. I put the 15"s on an old El Camino I had that had come with 14"s. Of course by 2002 16" wheels had become just as tough in that regard as 15"s had been in the 90s; so I bought some 17/18" Vette ones in about 04 or so.

If you want your car to "look" "modern", a better plan than messing with "lowering" to hide the old stuff, is to FIRST, do away with those shopping-cart things your car came with. Then kinda go from there. Personally I'm not a "looks" guy, I'm a FUNCTION person; but FWIW that's my $0.02.

Griffin92rs

Are those year model vette wheels a direct fit?

JdubRS

You need spacers to use them.

sofakingdom

iTrader: (1)

Right, sorry: I used 2" adapters both front and rear.

Griffin92rs

thanks, do you know how they would fit if i had 4th gen rear end? any spacers needed then?

sofakingdom

iTrader: (1)

Typical 4th gen rears are 1-5/8" wider on each side. They might fit OK, but also might need a bit of space. In my car those wheels just almost fit with 1¾" adapters, but the tires occasionally rubbed the place where the front of the control arms bolts up... not something that can be cut or bent out of the way. Different tires or slightly different car tolerances or ride height or other variables might produce different results. It'll be pretty close either way.

Griffin92rs

Good to know, guess I'll see how it goes when i get new wheels to go on hopefully late this summer. thanks for the info