From: Wally Plumley [wplumley@avana.net] Sent: Friday, February 18, 2000 8:49 AM To: 928 Subject: [928] Re: Ride height To measure Ride Height: 1) What and Where. Front: There is a small flat machined area on the bottom of the cast bracket that holds the rear of the Lower Control Arm, between the ribs. This pad should be 180mm +/- 10mm from the floor. There should be a max difference of 10mm from left to right. Rear: There is a small flat machined area on the aft bottom of the large u-shaped bracket that holds the lower transverse control link (the large flat blade). This pad should be 173 +\- 10mm from the floor. There should be a max of 10mm difference from left to right. 2) How to Measure. First, and most important: You CAN NOT measure, jack the car to change the ride height, lower the car and remeasure! You MUST either measure, jack and change, then drive the car for at least three or four miles before you remeasure; OR measure, change ride height WITHOUT jacking the car, then remeasure. The 928 takes several miles of driving, or using special tool 10-222A to pull the front end down 60-70mm for one minute. Yes, they are serious. Yes, if you don't do it one of these two ways, you will screw up your ride height - and the same thing applies to front end alignment. You will need a tool that you can use to measure the ride height points while manipulating it at arm's length under the car. One possibility would be a pair of yardsticks, bolted together near the centers using a wing nut, making a kind of three-foot scissors. Slip this under the car to the machined pad, put one tip on the floor and one tip on the pad, being sure to keep them plumb, tighten the wing nut, pull it out and measure the height. 3) How to Change the Ride Height. Most 928 springs are adjustable. These have a round, notched, threaded nut around the shocks under the lower spring seats. Ed Ruiz found a tool to adjust these nuts - a "Motion Pro Single Shank Nut Spanner, 08-029" at a motorcycle shop for about $16. (Someone bought one of these tools by mail order from a motorcycle dealer in Pittsburgh (tel. 800-860-0686). They refer to it as an "ATV Shock Tool" part no. P529. It's made by Motion Pro whose own part number is 08-029. Cost was about $14 plus shipping.) Turn the front wheels all the way left or right, lube the nut area well with a penetrating spray lubricant, and turn the nut right to raise, left to lower. You can get to the rear (also lubed) with only a little stretching. Adjust the height all the way around and remeasure. When you think that you have it right, drive the car for three or four miles and remeasure. If your Spring Struts are not adjustable, the only way to change ride height is to change springs or to disassemble and add a maximum of two spacers to the lower spring seats. 4) After you get the front ride height set, adjust the toe-in. Easiest way is to "string" the car, ala NASCAR. Use any four convenient objects to securely hold two strings that run beside the car, an inch or two from the tires. Warning! The track is rarely the same front and rear, so don't use the rear tires to set your string! Measure the distance between the strings in front of and behind the car, and make these distances identical. Make the distances between each rear tire and its string identical. Make the distance between each front wheel center and its string identical. Straighten the front wheels with the steering wheel. Measure the distance from the front of each tire to the string and the distance from the back of the tire to the string. Try to be very consistent on where you measure from on the tires. Do the simple math to get the difference between the front and back measurements on the front tires. Adjust the tie rods on the steering rack to get the tires almost straight ahead, with the smallest amount of toe-in that you can measure. This will be close enough until you can find an alignment shop that will align your car WITHOUT JACKING IT UP. If your alignment shop can't or won't do the alignment without jacking the car up, find another shop. 4) Personal Opinion Set your car at the factory ride height. This is where the suspension was designed to work. My car was lowered by the Previous Owner. Raising it to standard height very noticeably improved both the ride and handling. Low may look cool, but it doesn't work well! Wally Plumley 928 Specialists From: Walt Konecny [wkonecny@uswest.net] Sent: Saturday, June 03, 2000 8:14 PM To: 928 Subject: [928] Re: Any ride height tips? -----Original Message----- From: Curt Nichols Subject: [928] Any ride height tips? >So, I've armed myself with the factory specs, a handy tip page >(http://www.928.org.uk/height.html) and a little knowledge (DANGER!). What >I'm still lacking is a handy tool for turning the nut to adjust the height >and any sage advice from those who have gone before me Motion Pro Single Shank Nut Spanner 08-029. Available at motorcycle and RV shops for under $20. Spray plenty of WD-40, LPS or other suitable "loosening agent" on the threads and try to clean as much crud off them before you start trying to turn the nut. Keep bandaids on hand for the inevitable slip of the wrench. wk From: Dr. Bob [dr.bobf@worldnet.att.net] Sent: Sunday, April 16, 2000 11:23 AM To: 928 Subject: [928] Ride Height Adjustment -- A Warning! Fellow Shark Chums: About a year ago I adjusted the ride height on my S4, and published a comment that one could measure the height of the fender lips to see if their car was excessively low. I gave the measurements. That was apparently a Very Bad Thing to do! Those numbers are being kicked around here like they are God's Truth, which they are not. God's Truth involves a measurement from the pads on the suspension mounts to the ground. This is the Only Way to get the height correct. You car may not be an S4. Hans may have fitted the bodywork on my car, while Fritz may have fitted yours. Your car may have had body or frame damage sometime in the past. Different years may have different fitment dimensions in original construction. Your tires may be different from mine. They may be worn differently than mine. All these possible variations save the tires could contribute to a different relationship between the fender lip and the measuring pads. To measure the ride height with original adjustable suspension bits, I used some wire gauges cut from some handy welding rod. You can as easily use wire coathanger, cut with a pair of heavy pliers. Make them different lengths, and mark them with masking-tape flags in mm length. I made mine in 5mm increments, plus one each at the exact correct dimensions. With the car settled (drive it around for more than a few miles...), reach under the back of the wheels and use the wire gauges between the pads and the garage floor until you find the one that fits best and the closest one that doesn't. Measure both sides front and rear, and Write The Numbers Down. If you need to adjust, turn both rears the same amount, and both fronts the same amount. This will keep the corner balance the same as when you start. I raised the car up on stands and removed the wheels for easier access while adjusting. I also sketched the suspension with dimensions and tried to apply a little geometry to get the turns-to-ride-height-change relationship worked out. It still took me three tries to get it all correct, including reinstalling the wheels and driving the car between adjusting sessions. I sprayed the threads on the shocks as well as the spring perches and contact points with copulous (new word...) quantities of WD-40 prior to trying to move anything. With all that original cosmoline on the suspension parts, it was still a chore getting the rings to move smoothly. The old spring compressors came out of the tool cabinet and were used on the rears to unload the adjusters enough to make adjustment more easily possible. Remember, measuring the ride hight from the fender lips is a yardstick measurement only, in the most literal sense. If you need to adjust anything, do it the right way, the factory way. If you have changed shocks or springs, consider having the car corner balanced to get the wheel loads dialed in just right. It's quite possible to get the heights correct with diagonal corners carrying more than their share of the car's weight. And put some weight in the driver's seat while measuring ride height and wheel loads no matter what the method. That's four 50# sacks of sand to simulate this driver's own curb weight. Someplace in my picture archives I have shots of the pads and also of the wire gauges. If anybody is confused about procedures, e-mail me offline for more info. dr bob From: Doug M [ziggymeredith@home.com] Sent: Friday, September 07, 2001 10:39 PM To: 928 Subject: [928] Re: Ride height check Go to the following link for a complete ride height adjustment procedure.http://www.928.org.uk/height.htm From: barryorlando@hotmail.com [mailto:barryorlando@hotmail.com] Sent: Saturday, April 19, 2003 3:49 PM To: 928 Subject: [928] Ride Height Adjustment Tool I adjusted the ride height on my car. I found a spanner wrench at the local plumbing store that fit perfectly. Cost for the tool was under $10. The tool sells as a sink drain spanner wrench. Your kitchen sink drain strainer nut just happens to be the same size as the adjuster nuts on both the front and rear coilovers. I've got Boge shocks with adjusters all the way around. Some cars don't come with adjusters, but most do. Here's a link to the tool I used: http://www.superiortool.com/photos/specplumbtool/03845.htm I found this supplier who has the same tool, priced $15.11 for plumbers, but his price to high for Porsche owners. Notice this supplier also sell a simpler spanner wrench on the same page for $5.51. Here's the link: http://www.plumbest.com/searchenginevisitor.html?http%3A//www.plumbest.com/catalog/g07.htm Barry 90'S4, Slate Metallic