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I know this is on here somewhere but I can't find it....
On 16" factory wheels/tires with factory WS6 suspension what would be the distance front and rear to the finder lip to the ground at wheel center?
I had put BMR lowering springs on my car and it was a little lower than I liked (It looked good but I was scraping things too much, especially the BMR t56 cross member which hangs real low)
As an aside -- I found that if I use rear isolators from a 2000 it gives you 1/2 inch higher so I put those in the rear to raise it and for now I've doubled the rubber isolator on the front. I think I've got about a 3/4 inch rake front to rear now, debating if the factory stance had a rake to it or if I should work toward leveling it fully.
Even the factory photo shoots use weight to make the photo better, so factory published photos cannot be trusted.
Here's my car in Dec of '89 above Santa Barbara CA.
THEN, I broke my heart and drove it into a tree only four months old! - LOL
At one point I tried to compile a spreadsheet of measured fender heights for these cars with different springs, I'm sure it's in a thread here somewhere, I haven't looked. Best I can tell (there is no such thing as a stock car without some sag in the springs 30some years later), stock ride height is AT LEAST 27.5" F and R, probably about 28" or slightly more.
What got me wondering is that my '83 was lowered more than most cars on this forum and I picked up an '87 WS6 Trans Am that looked very 4x4, but after checking the suspension I figured out that it had correct factory tags on the springs. The history of the car was that a woman bought it in '87 and had been taking it to the same mechanic the whole time, she died and I bought it from the mechanic, so I have reasonable certainty that with the exception of a few things that the mechanic told me about it was all original. That car at about 25y/o at the time was at 27.5" F and R, sitting on 25y/o springs that I have reasonable certainty have never been out of the car, meaning that stock ride height for a WS6 car was likely higher than that.
At one point I tried to compile a spreadsheet of measured fender heights for these cars with different springs, I'm sure it's in a thread here somewhere, I haven't looked. Best I can tell (there is no such thing as a stock car without some sag in the springs 30some years later), stock ride height is AT LEAST 27.5" F and R, probably about 28" or slightly more.
What got me wondering is that my '83 was lowered more than most cars on this forum and I picked up an '87 WS6 Trans Am that looked very 4x4, but after checking the suspension I figured out that it had correct factory tags on the springs. The history of the car was that a woman bought it in '87 and had been taking it to the same mechanic the whole time, she died and I bought it from the mechanic, so I have reasonable certainty that with the exception of a few things that the mechanic told me about it was all original. That car at about 25y/o at the time was at 27.5" F and R, sitting on 25y/o springs that I have reasonable certainty have never been out of the car, meaning that stock ride height for a WS6 car was likely higher than that.
Sounds reasonable, mine was on stock ws6 springs but after going to an aluminum ls1, t56, tube k member it was sitting high in the front. So I put BMR 1.25 inch lowering springs but it dropped it more than 1.25 in the back and even more in the front. It's a good bit lighter than stock now so that is life. I may go to weight jacks next year after I do a 9 inch so I can dial it in.
Numbers are all over the place, but 27.5-28.5in ground to fender is what the stock height was.
they were VERY high off the ground in factory new condition.
Many guys install lowering springs only to find that the lowering springs raised their car because the original springs were sagging so much.
Ironically, I drive my 1992 RS under that Redwood a few years back, THAT day it was blown over after being alive like like 200yrs.
FWIW, attached are the only two references that I've found in the references that I have. Keep in mind that specs can change even when released to the assembly line.
Numbers are all over the place, but 27.5-28.5in ground to fender is what the stock height was.
they were VERY high off the ground in factory new condition.
I've been tempted to say around 28.5", but that's really high and I haven't seen any evidence of one sitting that high. 27.5" is typically in the range of where you see posts "I think there is something wrong with my car, I installed new springs and it sits like a 4x4."
Many guys install lowering springs only to find that the lowering springs raised their car because the original springs were sagging so much.
I really need to dig up my spreadsheet. I had a bunch of fender heights for various aftermarket springs also, in a few cases multiple samples.
Originally Posted by paulo57509
FWIW, attached are the only two references that I've found in the references that I have. Keep in mind that specs can change even when released to the assembly line.
Those are interesting. The '83 FSM actually has data points for multiple points on the car and how to measure them for body/frame repair. The next FSM I have is the '87 one that got rid of those. Either way, it wouldn't be easy to figure out a factory ride hight from those because they were relative heights (things like from this pivot to this pivot) and didn't take into account tires.
Yours do, but I see a few problems:
I don't believe that point A in your first sheet is measurable on a Firebird, definitely not a TA/GTA without disassembling the front end
The first only shows 2 options for ride height, the second shows 4 different heights relative to the tires different option packages were equipped with. Both can't be correct
WS6 cars (and I'm assuming similar optioned Camaros) were shipped with both 215/65-15's and 245/50-16, and I've seen charts showing that they got the same springs. If that was the case why would the LCA pivot to ball joint height change? The only answer I have is that this is an error or that the performance suspension camaros weren't available with either tire in '86.
Either way, it would be interesting to put a car on 245/50-16's or 215/65-15's (the 2 tire sizes that the performance suspensions were shipped with), place jacks under the frame till a much of these line up and then measure fender heights and get what was at least listed as the factory ride height. I suspect that you'd get some conflicting numbers but I'd bet that they were all over 27.5".
Those scans are from the "Assembly Manual" series of books. Latest in the series is 1986 and they were only printed for the Camaro, but some of the diagrams are clearly Firebird. Regardless, the take away is that the extreme min/max variation is 50mm, that's just shy of two inches +/-. That's fairly definitive that there's not really a right/wrong or factory ride height. You could have two inches of difference between two identical cars right off the assembly line and it was still a pass.
