[kjewer1]

This is apost I wrote a couple years ago in response to a specific thread. But it adds to what I said above.

OK here is my humble but experienced opinion on drops and alignments. First of all you say you dont want any negative camber but want to know how low to go without needing a correction kit. Well you need one or the other. A one millimeter drop will increase negative camber. The question is at what point will it affect tire wear and handling and how much of each do you want. Tire wear first. You can get pretty extreme with neg camber and not wear tires too badly at all. It's toe that scrubs the tread off your tires. All front suspensions have adjustable toe, but not all rears do. Unfortunately I can't help there because I drive a mitsu, mine doesn't let me adjust rear toe (or any camber at all front or rear). I dropped my car two inches and completely ruined both front tires in a matter of weeks before I got an alignment. After just adjusting front toe the tires have not worn noticeably in 5 or 6 months. So if you dont drop more than about two inches and can adjust toe on your car, tire wear is not much of a problem. Handling however will be more sensitive to camber. If your car rolls a lot in corners you need some static negative camber. But remember the lower the car is the further you are into the agressive portion of the camber *curve*. This means that at low levels the suspension thinks the car is leaning excesively and gives more camber almost exponentially. Its not a linear curve. The flatter a car corners (from upgraded suspension), or the lower it is, the less static camber you need. A low car with neg camber and flat cornering characteristics will do a little better. The point af all this is that lowering a car changes how the suspension works compared to how it was designed to work. You need to compensate for those changes if you go lower than an inch or so (where the curve is slow). Sure many people dont change anything and thier cars still run and may even experience no major tire wear problems, but it wont handle at its full potential. Of course if you are only lowering the car for looks then all you need to worry about is tire wear. You can go up to two inches or so if you can adjust toe. Also, I lowered two inches and my 2.5 inch turbo-back exhaust hits everything. As far as the harsh rides people are mentioning here, it depends on the combination of spring rate, shock characteristics, and the weight of the car. If you know what wheel frequency is you know what I mean here. Many people complaining about harsh rides with coilovers are lowering them to the point that they are always on the bumpstops. I only went two inches with eibach springs and my Tokicos are on the bumpstops all day. Thats also due to the design of DSM front suspensions. The only way to get around this problem is to use short-body shocks, and those only come with the expensive "real coilovers". They have actual threaded bodies also and not just a sleeve that slips over a regular length shock. Custom upper mounts also increase travel. Even very stiff springs and shocks will give a good ride if they are properly sized and matched. A lousy setup can be both soft (bouncy) and harsh, though most people think those two extremes are opposites and mutually exclusive. It's all about finding the combination of those things that works well together and works well with your car. It also depends on the intended application. This got a little long, but I hope it helps.