No lower than 1.5?, question about lowering my car Options

[EpUnderDog]

Hey, i have a 95 celica Gt and i just put 18's on it and theres about a 3 inch gap from my tire and my wheel barrel. So i wanna lower it, and i called this locally owned place and they definately know what they're talkin about. But they said that you arent suppossed to lower my kind of car more than 1.5 inch's or u can do damage and possibly bottom out. Would it make a difference since i got bigger rims tho? I think my car is about an inch or so higher than the stock height now that i got the 18s instead of the 15's. So would that meen that i could safely lower it about 2inches or so? Please reply back i would really appreciate it. Thanks

[SiKBOY]

You've asked a lot of questions there and other issues that you probably havent thought about.

To me it sounds like your suspension guy knows what he is on about and you should listen to him. A 2 inch drop sounds a little dramatic to me, but I'm sure that some people have done it on these boards. I have heard of drops of up to 4 inches and they have troubles turning from lock to lock and rubbing, scrubbing and bottoming out. Also remember that when you get some new springs, ( I hope you are and are not cutting your original springs) that they will settle down a little bit (get even lower) after the initial install. People might disagree that new springs dont settle but I believe that they do.

The 18 Inch wheels shouldnt make any difference in ride height if your tyre shop fitted the correct size tyres. It should have the same rolling stock (overall diameter of the tyre and wheel combined) as your 15 inch stock wheels. Notice that you have a thinner profile tyre on the 18's and a thicker profile tyre on your 15's. This should cancel each other out when measuring the rolling diameter. That said, your car should sit pretty much the exact same height as you were on your 15's.

Now the issues that you might not have thought about. If your into looks, Slam the hell out of it! Everyone knows that the lower it is the better it looks. If you do though, Your bump stops will be getting wakeup calls everytime you hit a pothole and I dont think that your car will like it too much.

If you are thinking in the ways of improving handling, By memory you should go for a lowering of about 4 to 5 millimeters. Its another bag of goodies that you are getting yourself into though because you have to think about spring rates matching your shocks and all kinds of other technical crap.

Hope this helps.