Left/Right ride height issue

[bnewport]

Thanks to Tim Comeau for delivering my car. I am worried though about the right side of the car being about an inch and a half higher than the left. Any one any idea why this would be? Besides this, the car looks great and I'm looking forward to driving it.

 

Here are some shots:

 

http://forums.rennlist.com/rennforums/showthread.php?t=356451&referrerid=33397

[Spec-944#70]

Have you measured with you in the car? It maybe Tim setup the car with your weight added to the drivers seat. Just a thought.

[bnewport]

He did, they put 180lbs in the drivers seat and this is the way it balanced.

[Spec-944#70]

And it's still 1.5" high? Maybe Tim has a reason or maybe something happemed in shipping? I'm sure Tim will help you out as he's a stand up guy.

[bnewport]

No worries about Tim, he's cool. I think Tims alignment guy just screwed it up. A rennlister said the rear torsion bar might not have been quite right and without going back to fix that, the corrections on the front caused the extreme ride height during corner balancing.

[mfoley]

Mine is the same way and I've driven it this way for more than a year. My shop assures me this is correct for our cars. They've explained it to me more than once but it doesn't make sense to me .. I just drive it .

[bnewport]

Any photos? One side is an inch and a half higher?

[Packfill]

No way is this right....

 

1/2"? maybe... although we have always gotten mine within 1/8...

 

By the way.. when you sit in it, it will just be worse?

 

PS: Nice looking car... Tim sure makes em pretty!

 

Foley, your car is not 1.5" different... (and if it is... get it to me, today!)

 

Did you look at his pics??

[mfoley]

Jim,

 

You're up early. Still on Monaco time? We missed you at the lake yesterday? I'm recovering this morning with a few Advil

 

If you look at my car from the rear when it's on a flat surface like in my garage it looks just like bnewport's picture. Your post caused me to go measure it and mine is 3/4 inch lower on the driver's side. I know Pete's is the same way because we've talked about it several times before.

 

I'd bring it to you but I plan to keep you busy with the Boxster. When do we start?

[Packfill]

Yeah, still on Monaco time... I am up at 5:00 and cant sleep...

 

I have countered weighed a TON of these cars... I have NEVER had one I couldnt get within a 1/2" or so... Steve Alarcon gets them MUCH closer. I have had him start the whole process over, because the ride height got more than 3/16" out...

 

Check it out!!

 

Hows that for a timed shot....

 

Mark, you going to Willow this weekend?

[bnewport]

Yep

The car looks great, some jealous people here.

[Cory M]

mine is about 1" lower on the drivers side, balanced w/ 220# in the drivers seat....

[mfoley]

I'm planning on going to Willow but I haven't signed up yet. I'll probably do the Sat leave at 3:30 or 4:00am thing as usual. Are you going? Are you driving?

[Chuck T.]

are you going to MAM this month ?

 

Chuck

[944-Spec#94]

Yeah that does not look right.

[Tim Comeau]

Billy and I are working together on this issue. Thanks for the positive comments on the car, guys. It was alot of work and looks great, but that's been overshadowed by it's current stance.

I, like Cory and Mark Foley, have had the Zebra car aligned and corner balanced and it came out noticably lower on the driver's side as well, though not this extreme before. Seems counter intuitive, especially when you ADD the weight of the driver on that side, but I've been assured by guys who've done this much longer than I have, that it was correct, as far as balance goes.

It's possible that we indexed the torsion bars incorrectly (one or the other) , but we had the whole rear end out of the car and measurements from left to right were made easily and accurately. This is the simplest explanation. If we did this step incorrectly, we can't blame the alignment guy, because the balance numbers were great.

Anyone heard of Sway-a-way brand torsion bars not being matched well for springing strength? I haven't.

When I purchased the car, I saw no evidence of a big crash anywhere on the whole chassis, so I can't believe it's bent.

Let's see what Billy's local shop finds out.

[bnewport]

The local shop has fixed the problem. It turns out the sway bars were fighting against each other and the ends were 90 degrees wrong, if this makes sense to the mechanic types. The shop reattached the sways and this corrected the problem. I'll post exactly whats wrong with photos when the shop sends em to me.

 

Bottom line, after fixing the sway bars, the car is now looking normal, the left rear is .5" down but weights and cross weights are really good with driver in car. The next step is an alignment followed by corner balancing using the sway bars to move weight around.

 

Billy

[Tim Comeau]

Thanks for the quick post Billy. While I can ease up on questioning myself and my ability, it seems the issue has been pushed onto my alignment guy, (BTW, NOT Black Forest) which is still my responsibility. I gave him the car with the sway bars on but loose because I knew he would disconnect them first thing. I also gave final settings for him to use when tightening the slider clamps down. Let's wait and see what the pictures show.

[Packfill]

Alignment, ride height and corner balance are all done with the sway bars disconnected. I can see where the car could be cornered, the ride height set, etc. and then the sway bars where (inproperly) (re)installed and this upset it all?

 

The sways should be connected after all else is done and the car is on the ground under full weight... the sway bars should be set to zero preload...

 

Hope this helps...

[Cory M]

All of my balancing was done with the sway bars detached and my ride height is still uneven. I started the process with an even ride height all around and I could only get it balanced right with the uneven side heights (about 1"). I'm sure the 220# in the drivers seat is part of the problem but other than physically moving weight around on the car I'm not sure how to fix it...

 

I've driven it both ways and it handles better with good corner weights and an uneven ride height than it did with more even heights and bad corner weights.

[944spec92]

Before I start, Jim - Thank You! for the wonderful picture post of the F1 race car in the background action from Monaco. Can't wait to see your warm, sunny day pictures from the beach perspective.

 

With that in mind, I guess I will have to be the first brave soul to ask the question that is on everyone's mind. Here goes - is it possible to get a better close-up view of the front wing on that same blue F1 car?

 

Before I forget, "HI" to Lorraine from all of us!

 

Ray

[dartydave]

I can think of no reason to setup a car higher on one side than the other unless you are running a circle track. The roll centers will be different and the car will behave differently when going left to right. There is no reason to get one corner of a car more than 1/8" of an inch different than the others. This will sometimes be necesary to get the corner balance right. At the other end of the car the ride heights should be equal. Ride height should be measured at a suspenion pickup point, not at a fender or other body panel. Raising one whole side or one whole end of a car will not change the corner balance (unless you raise it about 6"). When chasing corner balance you can start adjusting the eaiser to adjust front springs and end up with one whole side too high. The correct thing to do at this point is adjust one torsion bar to lower (or raise) the back and start over.

Many people try to adjust the sway bar preload with the car raised and the suspenion in full droop. With a perfect chassis and identical suspension parts this should work in theory. But then there would be no reason to corner balance a car. You could just set the ride height equal and the corner balance would follow. The correct way to adjust preload is to loosen the length adjustments on the drop links, put the car on very level ground and adjust the drop link length so the bolt that connects the drop link to the sway bar goes in eaisily.

 

Now on a practical level will being off 1/4" or maybe even 1/2" be noticable to most drivers? Maybe, maybe not. But there is no reason it should be.