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suspension question - raising ride height



its 'doable', but consider these points:

- softsports dont unwind as much as stock springs, you can just remove the
center nut and jack that corner up to remove the spring, with no effect on
alignment either.
- they sell these rubber block 'x' looking things at the auto parts store. i
temporarily gave myself another inch of height back when i had 8v softsports
on a 16v. they are easy to install, just jack up that corner and slide the
rubber as far as you can get it down the coils. you put 2 of them on per
side, opposing eachother.
- going up by an inch from the softsport height will give you a sliught
change in toe and camber. toe will go out slightly, camber will go negative
slightly. shouldnt have much of an effect on tires if its for winter driving
only.
- shimming the bushing downward is a BAD idea, as those studs are already
nearly at their shear limit in a hard turn/braking situation.

hth
Al

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Drew MacPherson" <drew@scirocco.cs.uoguelph.ca>
To: <scirocco-l@scirocco.org>
Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 2003 12:38 PM
Subject: suspension question - raising ride height


>
> All this talk about suspensions and lowering reminded me of a question I
> was going to put to the list.
>
> Currently I have Neuspeed soft-sports (or something like that) on my
> Scirocco - the overall drop is nice - works on the crappy roads that I
> drive on, but takes care of that ugly gap between the top of the tire and
> the fender lip.
>
> There is a (slim) chance that I may be driving my Scirocco through the
> winter, when lowered is bad, and raised is good.  If I end up having to go
> this route, I need to get the car back up to stock ride height (or higher,
> preferably) with as little effort (and no cost) as possible.
>
> Raising the rear is not an issue - I can either reinstall the stock
> springs, or shim the lower spring perch up (inner races from rear wheel
> bearings work well for this)  without too much effort.
>
> The front, however poses an issue - reinstalling the stock springs means
> the potential for messing up the alignment, plus having to muck with
> spring compressors etc.
>
> The only thing I can thing of that doesn't involve mucking with replacing
> of the front springs would be to install a shim between the strut bearing
> and the body of the car.  In order to be effective, it would probably have
> to be around an inch thick, which would mean longer strut bearing bolts
> would be required (not an issue as long as knocking the old ones out isn't
> that hard to do.)
>
> Does this sound doable?  I'd be concerned if it will have drastic effects
> on the car's handling (to the point of being dangerous.)  The goal is to
> significantly increase ground clearance (to get through the snow, eh?)
> and I don't mind giving up some handling, afterall, it is winter, and dry
> pavement is pretty hard to come by... :)
>
> Comments?  Suggestions (no, I will not consider buying a sport brUte,
> nor, unfortunately, can I move to California.)
>
> Drew
>
> --
> /=============================================\
> | 84 Wolfsburg Edition TurboDiesel Scirocco   |
> | http://scirocco.cs.uoguelph.ca/gtd       |
> \=============================================/
>
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