FR-S is too Low. A little help, please
 

Haha, different question than norm. I searched and haven't found the answer I'm looking for.

My son has a very low mileage '13 FR-S on TRD Springs. He recently moved to college where there are more elevation changes than where we live. Parking lots ingress/egress especially. He is complaining that the car is bottoming out often at school. My rough measuring is his car is sitting about 1.75 inches lower than stock.

Will installing Coilovers allow him to raise the car higher than current height (close to stock height)? Also will they allow him to lower it back to a similar height when he wants?

I'm looking at the Tein line and favoring the Flex Z's over the Street Basis and Basis models because I won't need to remove existing top hats. I need to be able to turn his car around quickly and would like to do it ourselves as a father-son learning project. Possibly Thanksgiving week when he comes home.

Suggestions welcome!

Generally speaking coilovers aren't good for raising ride height. Unless he absolutely needs to be able to adjust ride height, I'd recommend some kind of spring and strut combo. RCE Yellow springs paired with Bilstein B6 shocks are a great option IMO. That will still ride about 3/4" lower than stock but shouldn't bottom out in most cases. Or just find some stock springs somewhere if you want to be extra careful.

You guys should check out the Tein Flex A. It's a bit more expensive than the Tein Flex Z but it comes with hydraulic bumpstops built into each shock/strut. If hes driving on rough roads with harsh transitions it may be worth it.

I believe this chassis is a modified imprezza chassis that uses similar suspension setups which means hardly any suspension travel to begin with. Lowering below 20mm on this chassis is just asking for it on the street imo.

imo watch local classifieds or national for someone selling stock suspension, preferably off a 2017+ car

Cheap, will definitely raise the height and be more comfortable if it's the newer dampers.

why not just revert to the actual stock ones .. and consider larger tires/wheels to lift the car up a bit (mind you the speedo will be off by a few mph)?

smg1138: B6 are of stock height. B8 are for slight lowering.

The only difference between b6 and b8 is less droop travel on the b8, no difference to most buyers might as well save a few bucks, if you can get them since it seems like Bilstein flow to the US has ground to a halt.

TRD springs shouldn't lower the car much more than an inch at most. Could it be that the strut is blown? Hence the extra drop and scraping.

Most coilovers at their max height are pretty close to stock height. Flex Z/A are great choices under 1k.

AFAIK the b6 can take up to 20mm of lowering.

1.75 inch drop on TRD springs? that doesn't sound right at all.. i have TRD springs and I'm dropped 1" all around

Like others have said 1.75" seems too much for TRD springs. How are you measuring the drop?

Either you're measuring wrong, the springs aren't TRD, or there's something else wrong.

In all cases, go back to stock springs and get car aligned.
Check for dead shocks.

Check that the previous owner didn't CUT the springs either.

OP you might want to check ride height again. Stock ride height is approximately 26.25" Front and 26.5" Rear with OEM sized tires.