ugh. ground clearance.
 

so ive learned a few things about my brz:

1) you cant drive 'over' anything in the road. if you see it and drive over it you will hit it.
2) you cant use the 'alternate lane' or go off the marked lanes on a road, your car will scrape on potholes that dont even flex out your suspension.
3) if the road turns from paved to gravel, stop and back up. you will scratch over the smallest of grade differences.

ive never had a car with such a low ground clearance and im still learning how to compensate. i love my car but its like shes a high maintenance gal that cant kick off her shoes and have fun.

(and yes, ive lowered her about 3/4 of an inch with eibach prokits so im not blameless but jeez!)

And some brave souls lower them and drive in the snow...

Yep!
Almost two inches and plow everywhere I go. Ok when nice light fluffy stuff no matter how deep but when it gets rutted and frozen solid then going through it (as the obviously lowest car to pass by) it sounds like the bottom of the car is getting ripped out. You get used to the sound.

Hey, your car's a happy BRZ now!

At first I was all "what?" and then I saw it. It does look BRZish with the snow filling in the sides.


http://www.ft86club.com/forums/attac...5&d=1324574461

at least you're not low to the point of being unable to go over speed bumps and gutters like some of the hella flush/stance people out there

I don't know what his roads are like but from the description of what happens with his 3/4 of an inch drop then the hella flush crowd would be screwed. I have none of those issues and I have at least an inch on him.


http://weknowmemes.com/wp-content/up...r-problems.jpg
http://jokideo.com/wp-content/upload...car---meme.jpg

I'm lowered by 1.4" on Eibach Sportline springs. You get used to it. Just learn to avoid and keep an eye out for hazards.

You just get used to swerving all the time. Some people might think you're drunk, but in reality your avoiding pot holes and bumps.

Yup. Saves your alignment too.


... And it's fun. I make a game out of it lol

With all the big chunks of wheel well ice on the highway right now I probably look like I am doing AutoX on the highway every day!

I wanted to post something similar to this...but decided it might be too d i c kish. I'm glad someone else did it for me. :clap:

edit: When did the mods decide to start censoring posts?

D1ck and pussi are automatically censored by the site. You have to go by Rich if normally are called ****.Sort of strange since motherfucking shit cocksucking prick are ok!

My last car scraped everywhere, destroyed and rebuilt the fiberglass lip 3 times, sideskirts used to pop off on awkward angles.

This car is 4x4 as far as I'm concerned :bonk:

3/4 of an inch barely qualifies as "lowered". Four people in the car probably give you almost that much drop.

For sure. I feel my rear suspension hitting the bump stops much more frequently in the winter when I carry a 40lb bag of sand in the trunk, right over the rear axle line (stock suspension).

PS, I'm sure the weight of the sand doesn't do that much for ice traction but it makes me feel better and, if I really got stuck, I could spread sand on the ice.:bonk:

No need to go to the track!

Had to run out the Wellington Rd Canadian Tire today. None of the back road have been plowed yet around here and they were a mess. Come to a 4 way stop and a young dude in an older WRX pull up Justas I do. Can see them point at me and laugh. He then pulls out and proceeds to put a show on for me with his all mighty AWD. Normally I would just ignore him but they laughed at me damn it so I kept up to him at safe(ish) distance and matched him manoeuver for maneuver and corner for corner. Well we get to Canadian Tire (where else is anybody gong in this shit) and he comes over and says "Shit Dude (I thought that was just an internet term) that was sick. I thought you would get stuck for sure".
The point of this story is that if I had sandbags in the back I would probably still be spinning in circles down the middle of Millbank. I like the balance as it is in the snow. (Sure was fun tough)

In the spring and fall it is dead racoons and skunks so I get to slalom most of the year. Believe me you DO NOT want to scoop a squashed skunk up with a lowered car. It takes days to clean up.

yeah its most definitely that very last 3/4 of an inch that brings out all those difficulties.

i really want to lower the car, but i love driving stock height, the clearance is pretty good for what it is. kinda tired of driving my last car lowered.

with that said, im kinda disappointed at how low the car sits and feels, but yet the wheel gap is so big :(

the wheel gap makes me want to lower the car, but i probably shouldn't for daily driving sake...

wheel gap is kind of important for a car to function. Switching to 16" tires and wheels for winter actually made my car able to never scrape. I might never go back, or go crazy and find some lightweight 15's that fit.

true, but for a sports car can't they decrease the gap just a little bit?

bunch of people mentioned this, but bmw/porsche do a great job of wheel size and wheel gap

How did switching to 16" rims raise the car? My 16" rims and snows are the exact same outer diameter as my17" summers. Did you put bigger tires on?

But it also changed spring rates, suspension travel, and suspension geometry. So yeah, pot holes are ZERO problem with a stock suspension. You can hit a pot hole mid turn and not be thrown off your line. My modded Miata would jump all over the road if it wasn't smooth. The BRZ drives right through turns without issue on non-perfect pavement. And yes, that 3/4" - I clear parking curbs by the thickness of a few sheets of paper. Dropping down almost an inch would make my bumper hit if parking too close to a curb/stop or even opening the door when parked next to a curb.

So yes - your complaints are due to you lowering your car and changing the spring rates. The suspension can no longer perform like it was designed. Might work better on a smooth track now though. Track suspension =/= street suspension.

I came to this car from an Outback, expecting to scrap all over the place even at stock height (and this being a Series.Blue I have the front lip as well.) So far in a year of ownership, I've minorly scraped a handful of times. It's way more practical than I thought it would be (basically a non-issue.)

Having said that, coilovers are going on come spring, and I intend to lower the car 1". I suspect that quite a few times when I didn't scrape something that I thought I might scrape, I only barely cleared it. It'll be interesting to see how big of a difference the 1" drop makes. This is Chicago, too. Not the best roads, lol.

Eibach Sportlines and DD in a snowy climate checking in!

For people like us, STI Pinks. They only lower the car 15mm, but that 15mm will make a difference :)

http://s22.postimg.org/y2li2wzk1/STI_Pinks_15mm.jpg

my issues dont have to do with suspension compliance or geometry, they have to do with realizing that the car, lowered at a reasonable for most cars 3/4 of inch is scraping paint on uneven or semi offroad type roads or when hitting a deep pothole and also not being able to drive over branches or anything of the like without them catching and bouncing off the undercarriage shield. thanks, though.

i like the way you think!!

my last car i was lowered about 2" with 19x9.5" wheels, it was all for looks. and it looked great haha. but this car i wanna stick with practicality and performance. so at most a minor drop, and maybe brz sti wheels even though specs are weak haha.

Yeah, my Subaru WRX had Cusco coils which were very stiff and ruined the enjoyment of the car on normal during conditions so I don't want to do that to this car.

And yeah! STI rims are very nice :w00t:

I know right, mine is lowered to shit and I live in Quebec and I'm fine.

I don't know what kind of area you live in. However I've driven in Montreal, where there's literally foot deep pot holes on the main highway and never had any issues with scraping on "uneven roads".
Most people also do their best to avoid potholes. Hell, even if I'm driving a truck I avoid them!.

Also this isn't a Jeep. Why do you want to drive over branches? lol

Sounds to me like you need these suspension mods instead.

http://s8.postimg.org/r1ywvun11/maxresdefault.jpg

I'm on BC ExtremeLows and there's still more to go.. #slammed

http://i.imgur.com/iphBYEe.jpg

I can drive around downtown Houston lowered this much AND with a front lip. It's kind of a pain, but totally doable.

http://i.imgur.com/4nV4R1x.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/SnomYsL.jpg

I dropped my daughter off at a friends house last week and couldn't get more than ten feet into the driveway. It hadn't been repaved in over 20 years and the tire tracks were "well worn" and I high centered. Stock height wasn't nearly enough. I had to pull the shit jack out, lift the car, put blocks under the wheels, lift it again and add another block then drive it off :mad0259: It was that or rip the front bumper off. That rally height makes sense sometimes...

People wonder why I have maintained OEM suspension. Too low is a huge pain in the ass. Plus filling the gap with nice 18x9.5 wheels and tire looks good IMHO.

Why not both?
http://puu.sh/n9k8d/889f817a40.jpg

In this picture, it looks like you're running positive camber on the front wheel. Maybe its the lense, though.