help With lowering car.

[braien334]

Hello im new here.I have a problem:i have a 1/24 revell porsche 944 turbo,i havent builded it still.If someone can give me some advice then give.And another thing how can i lower the porsche?The porsche looks like that: http://ecom.jatek-makett.hu/pictures/n/07363R_N.jpg
Im

[skoda_norman]

type 'scalewikki' into google and go on there and have a look at the tutorials.

[hirofkd]

Strut suspension is one of the easiest to lower. For the front, shorten the shocks absorbers and carefully bend the lower control arms. For the rear, shorten the shocks absorbers. Good luck.

[chato de shamrock]

i just posted a question regarding lowering the car but yet again no one has answered. I've looked through the tutorial one of our automotive friends posted here and on wiki. i've also read through threads about the issue. I've read everything over several times and have things memorized already. However, there is one thing that wasnt clear, and one question i've posted in several threads on the site. Hopefully someone will answer this time. How do you bend the control arm? Whats the best way to bend the control arm or suspension arm? or which ever you'd like to call it. Is cutting, adjusting, and putting back using epoxy the only way to adjust the control/suspension arm? I have seen it bent before and i've tried heating a piece of plastic but it melts and deforms very easily. Hope someone has an answer.

[braien334]

Ok im almost ready with the car,i haf to finish the engine add some little details like mirrors and numbers and paint the interior and add glasses.I painted the car to black and i painted the front lights to black because i glued the to early

[MPWR]

Originally Posted by chato de shamrock

i just posted a question regarding lowering the car but yet again no one has answered. How do you bend the control arm? Whats the best way to bend the control arm or suspension arm? or which ever you'd like to call it. Is cutting, adjusting, and putting back using epoxy the only way to adjust the control/suspension arm? I have seen it bent before and i've tried heating a piece of plastic but it melts and deforms very easily. Hope someone has an answer.

That's because there is no good way to do it. Lowering the suspension on a model (at least doing it well) is major surgery. It's much harder than replacing the muffler, rolling down the side windows, adding a wing, opening a sunroof, doing a custom sound system, etc, etc.

If you tamper with the lower suspension arms at all, it will dramaticly reduce the strength of the suspension- parts that frequently arent that strong to begin with. A better way is to move the post that the brake disk gets mounted to up the strut a bit- but again, it's at least surgery, and at most full on scratchbuilding.

The Hasegawa/Revell 944 is such a nice little kit that it seems a shame to hack it up, unless you're really sure of what you're going to do with it....

[chato de shamrock]

Hey MPWR thanks for your response and taking some of your time to do it.

[willimo]

A lot of people, myself included, build the wheel/brake assembly together, and test fit it to the chassis and suspension. Then, we cut, add, remove, and manipulate the suspension parts so that the wheel can fit how we want, and we eopxy it in place so the car rides right. If you flip the car over, it looks awful, but if you leave it sitting, it looks just fine. Just like MPWR says, there's no real easy and good way to do it. You have to know what you want, and try to figure out how do get it in a way you're willing to live with, because no matter what you do it's gonna be tough, you're going to cut a lot of stuff, and unless you make actually work, it's probably not going to look perfect.

[MPWR]

Originally Posted by chato de shamrock

Hey MPWR thanks for your response and taking some of your time to do it.

Sorry I can't give you a more useful answer. It's a question that appears rather alot, and it's usually posted by newer modelers. Sure, lowering is one way to customize a build- but there are many other easier modifications. Unfortunately, I think it probably happens to a good number of newbies that they see a tutorial somewhere and believe "hey, that's got to be easy- I'm gonna lower all my builds!" But have you ever seen anyone post actual pics of the underside of their build after doing one of these mods?

If you don't know how to do the surgery, you can do as Willimo says- hack up the suspension components, and try to recombine them all with epoxy or CA, and if you're lucky, you might wind up with a stance you like. But the wheels won't steer, might not roll, and the underside may not bear much resemblence at all to the underside of a 1:1. As for the surgery, it's almost the sort of thing that if you need to ask how to do it, you're probably not ready to take it on (and I really don't mean to discourage questions).

If you want a really good example of how to lower a car well, get ahold of a Tamiya 635CSi Gr.A (not the M635!) or the 911 GT3, and study them. Both kits have lowered suspension, and both also have the original unlowered suspension parts (from the M635 and stock 996), so you can essentially choose to build it 'regular' or 'lowered'. Look both sets and notice the differences. Once you're confident you can fabricate these kinds of suspension parts, you're really ready to lower a kit.

[RallyRaider]

My advice regards lowering (and raising for us gravel rally fans!) would be:

1. Test fit the parts (before any other work like painting) and use your ingenuity and imagination to devise a way to achieve what you want. All kits/cars/suspensions are different and will require a different solution.

3. Make sure your solution is strong. If you cut and shorten damper arms then drill the ends out and glue in a cut down pin to reinforce the joint. A plastic or super glue join will not be strong enough on its own.

2. Test fit some more and adjust as necessary, so you are sure you will not have any problems later when everything is freshly painted and clean. Then test fit again.

[MPWR]

Originally Posted by RallyRaider

My advice regards lowering (and raising for us gravel rally fans!) would be:

1. Test fit the parts (before any other work like painting) and use your ingenuity and imagination to devise a way to achieve what you want. All kits/cars/suspensions are different and will require a different solution.

3. Make sure your solution is strong. If you cut and shorten damper arms then drill the ends out and glue in a cut down pin to reinforce the joint. A plastic or super glue join will not be strong enough on its own.

2. Test fit some more and adjust as necessary, so you are sure you will not have any problems later when everything is freshly painted and clean. Then test fit again.

5. Repeat steps 1, 3, and 2 as necessary!

[hirofkd]

I'm sure I posted these before, but I don't remember as the question pops up so often.

The is one of many ways to lower the strut type suspension.
As you can see, the front of the Fujimi FD kit sits too high, so it has to be lowered.




Cut the strut, drill holes and insert a metal rod as shown.



This is the top side of the k-member / control-arm assembly. In this modification, I cut the parts that stick out, so the whole piece sits higher.



Unmodified (left) and corrected (right)


Lowering the strut is basically the same. If you don't have a small drill bit, you might want to cut the top of the strut and add a pin, instead of cutting at the middle.

To support the raised struts, you can 1) carefully bend the A-arms with pliers when the bending angle is small, 2) cut and relocate the A-arms, using metal reinforcements (for significant relocation), 3) add washers (cut out from styrene sheet and drill a hole) between struts and A-Arms (when wheels are big enough).

[chato de shamrock]

Hiro, rally, willimo, MPWR, thanks for your help guys. This is my first time i attempt to lower a car. I have three Integra's that i want dropped and i want to get it as perfect as possible cause i love that model and dont want to butcher them, but i guess its ok cause that model is still fairly easy to find. I have a few low riding cars already done but it was much easier with those cars because i built them as lowriders, and mounting small wheels was all i had to do to lower the car. I also built a JACCS kits but those are already low. The only "surgery" i've done is to raise the back of a 59 Impala. Pegasus wheels require you hold them with a metal wire; however, I cut off the back part of a set of Pegasus wire wheels and glued them to the brake pads. I also raised the back axle so the front of the car is dropped and the rear is raised. Thats about as much surgery i've done. I think its much easier raising a car as opposed to lowering it. Ive never drilled a hole on the shocks and add a small piece of metal to reinforce it. It does sound like something id like to try. My dremel has some drills but i think they may be a bit too thick. Im going to look at it tomorrow. Thanks again to the four of you guys for all your advice and suggestions.