[Image] Example of Spring Drops on Stock Wheels
 

I'm currently trying to make a decision on what drop height I want with lowering springs on my stock wheels and I haven't been able to find any good image examples on Google - most either already have bigger wheels on their car or took the image at an inconsistent angles and it's hard to directly compare, so I used photoshop to emulate the drop heights.

I measured the wheel gap on my stock BRZ and converted it to the pixel amount of the stock height in this photo I found on Google. I then converted pixels to inches in order to emulate certain drop heights. I did most of the common heights, ignoring ones that were within a quarter inch of another height I already had in the image - very hard to spot the differences in those anyway.

Here it is, hopefully it helps some people:

http://i.imgur.com/jYnvczU.png

Of course let me know if someone already made something like this or if there's an error in mine :)

After making this image I think I decided on a 1.4" drop for my car, just FYI.

Are you planning on keeping the stock dampers? If so, I wouldn't go any lower than 1" at most. Any lower and you're losing a lot of travel and they will wear out pretty quick.

I can't afford better dampers or I would have just bought coilovers from the get-go. I didn't think the extra .4" would be that much added stress but if so then maybe I should reconsider... 1" was originally what I planned to do until I visualized the difference between 1" and 1.4".

Also if it makes a difference in your advice, this is my DD and I never track. Backroads are as close as I get.

If you want your stock dampers to last, don't go too low or too stiff. The Eibach Pro Kit is a popular option that gives a 1" drop. I'm pretty sure Toyota actually rebrands those for their TRD springs. For more performance, you can't go wrong with the RCE Yellows, but they only have a 20mm drop.

Another thing to keep in mind is suspension geometry. If you drop much below 1" you could start running into bump steer. Also, your rear negative camber can get pretty extreme as you drop lower if you don't have adjustable lower control arms to fix it.

There's only about 2.5" of bump travel stock, a 1.4" drop leaves very little travel. You'll need high spring rates to keep from bottoming out all the time, which is harder on the stock shocks.

that extra .4" is a big difference. Stick with the 1" drop. Comfort and handleing will be much better. RCE yellows are some of thebbest springs for DD/canyon I could reccomend. Swift Sports and Mann Engineering springs are pretty good too.

Thanks everyone for the clarification, I'll stick to 1" or less.

I like that the Swift springs are a full 1" as opposed to the ~0.75" with the RCE Yellows. Is there a significant performance difference?
Edit: After looking specifically at the FRS/BRZ spec Swift springs it looks like they have the same drop as the RCE Yellows...

Not really. Square rates vs. staggered so the swifts will be a little more tail happy in theory. get a good alignment and should be perfect on either

What's your budget? You can probably snag a set of used or new Tein Flex Z coilovers for not much more for a spring set.

Really? I could probably afford to drop $400-500 if I was getting a set in good shape. Where?

These are not Flex Z's but here's a set of ST Suspension

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showt...nsion&page=593

Although it's tempting I'm contemplating just waiting for my stock struts to wear out before I invest in some coilovers - I've only got 10k miles on the car so far so they have a while to go. Those STs are quite a deal though.