Ride height

[chris.richard]

Could some kind people weild a ruler and measure their ride heights for me so that I can get an idea?
Height of front and rear wheel arch above ground would be fine (Stradale rear), or height of rear corner of chassis and front corner at radiator mount (on Hawks) would be useful. I seem to be riding a bit higher than Nico and Gary when we met up at the weekend.

TIA

[Steve Strain]

Hi Chris

In a previous thread on corner weights I asked the same question (but got no reply).
I was also curious as to what ride height others had.

When setting my car up I started with approx 160mm on each corner measured from the floor to the underside of the chassis. This is easy to measure on the back corners but on the front I measured from the floor inside the front wheel area.

The 160mm height was no magic figure but was dictated by setting the front suspension as low as it would reasonably go then adjusting the rear to match (1 cm of thread left on the front Spax shocks).
I asked this same question as I thought that to start with the underside of the car should be approximately parallel to the ground i.e. not overly higher at the front or the rear.
On my 1989 Spyder chassis I have found that there seems to be little scope for further lowering of the car but plenty of potential to raise it.

Having since played around with the corner weights (and using a few bags of cement to simulate my weight and a passenger) this may have all changed slightly.
Looking from the underside rear the wish bones still appear roughly parallel to the ground.

I hope this helps

[Martin K]

The choice of ground clearance depends on a number of factors, but usually it will come down to your main use of the car.

If you mainly use the car on the circuit you will probably want the car as low as possible without running into problems like either the chassis hitting the ground or the suspension bottoming out (at either end of the car).

If you are running on rough special stages you will want ground clearance that allows the car to miss rocks.

If you are only running on the road then I guess you want the car to be at a similar height to the original Stradale setup - maybe someone on here will know what that was.

For road use I would always look at the suspension travel to help me decide; you need about twice the travel in bump as in rebound when the car is setup. i.e. if you have four inches of travel in your front damper, you want 1.3" of droop travel and 2.6" of bump travel, before you hit the bump rubber.

Also a car will be more stable at high speed if the rear is slightly higher than the front, so I would set the rear up after getting the front height correct. This 'rake' will reduce front end lift from air forming a 'wedge' under the car which will be noticed as the steering feel lighter and the car beginning to wander at high speds.

Finally, if you set the car up by corner weights to give optimum handling, bearing in mind that the Stratos the engine weight is offset as is the driver weight (if you are driving alone) then neither the height at the front or the rear will be the same side to side, so giving one figure for ride height is pretty difficult! When corner weighting the car is usually set up around the corner that will have the least ground clearance - and that will almost certainly be the front offside in a right hand drive car.

[Ken Tomblin]

Chris

6.25" rear & 5.5" front, measured under suspension pickup points


Regards

[Martin K]

Chris

6.25" rear & 5.5" front, measured under suspension pickup points


Regards

I could park my car under that!!

[Sando]

Chris
15.5cm rear - to chassis cross rail under rear bulkhead.
15 cm front - to chassis under footwell behind front wheel.

I'd Ideally I'd like the front slightly lower but the front coilovers Chris J and I bought are a bit long to drop down anymore and keep some useful bump movement. I think the taller TB's will lift the back up a little when I fit them though, so will give me back the rake I want. (I've had to wind about an inch more on the rear already just to get it sensible after fitting the 24v . I agree with Martin this does make a difference, but I don't want to go too high at the rear. These heights suit me for the road (speed bumps) and is ok for sprints as I'm not that serious that I'm going to change it all for a days thrash.

cheers
Rob