What's your ride height? -GAZ GHA owners-

[ripp]

Hi there,

Just made some last (I hope!) adjustments to the car after fitting the gaz coils couple of days ago and I'm under the impression that I'm too low on the front, although I've seen here some silly low clio's
I'm having 32 cm from the center of the front wheel to the top of the wheel arch and about 11,7 cm from under the front splitter to the ground
I've taken some measurements and with the height as it is at the moment I may have about 2 cm left before the front shocks will hit the bump stop. Is this ok? I really don't know how those really low cars are going (probably with the bump stops removed?
some pics:




some other GAZ owner may take some measurements pls? would be helpful
thx!

 

[ripp]

meanwhile I found a old note of mine, in which the std ride height was written.
So it looks like I lowered the front 30 mm only..
Given the fact that now I have about 20 mm of travel left how on earth others go much lower? as it looks like the maximum lowering is 50 mm- sort of saying because I'll be riding on the bump stops then. Even GAZ say that maximum recommended lowering is 60 mm, how could I even go that far if 20 mm lower I bottom out?
Help pls?
car has no other suspension mods except for poly antiroll bar bushes and k-tec solid mounts

 

[ripp]

ok this is a pain in the arse puzzle

I went to the garage and lifted the car on axle stands to get a clear view of the suspension. I will share a link towards an album containing the pictures along with description to every pic.
So,
before lifting the car I measured the distance between the center of the wheel to the top of the wheel arch as shown in the "ride height1" pic- about 31,5 cm

"on axle stands" shows the same points measured with the car on the stands- about 39 cm
"1st setup" pic shows the position of the adjuster rings relative to the top of the mounting bracket
"top mount view" shows the ruler being placed under the top mount in order to measure the entire length of the strut
"strut length" shows about 48,5 cm, but I measured it later once again and it was 48cm
"bump stop-shock distance" this shows the gap between measured in the next pic

"about 8,5 cm"
So in this setup, getting the car off the stands to the ground means 39 cm - 31,5 cm = 7,5 cm of compression. Given the fact that the distance between the bump stop and the shock is 8,5 cm when lifted, on the ground this would mean 8,5-7,5=1cm left between bump and shock.
I decided to get the adjusters up a bit and take some measures after; so the ride height came as in the "ride height 2" pic. But even in this case, when the ruler shows 33,2 cm, there are still 5,8 cm difference to the off the ground value (39 cm) and 8,5-5,8= 2,7 cm left between the bump and the shock which still looks too little (to me at least)
In the "ride height 2" pic the car is 22 mm lower than standard (I measured according to a cliosport repair manual which gave the standard ride height)
I wanted to measure the standard strut, out of curiosity to see the difference, and made a drawing of the two struts - "strut dimensions vs standard" - one next to each other for comparison. To be said that the measurements on the GAZ strut are the ones taken after I got the adjusters up again.
In this point I can't really see what's wrong, and getting the car to say 50 mm lower than standard and still having travel left seems impossible(hope I did something completely wrong and it will get sorted!)

the album link:
http://s194.photobucket.com/albums/z273/rippttor/gazz/
Looking at the pics I hope that someone clever will slap me and show me what I did wrong here..
so uhhh... HELP?!

 

[stephen chadwick]

the hight with it up on axle stands ? i dont see the relivence of that. if i were you id give k-tec a ring on +44(0)1202 820800 all the times iv had a question they are more than happy to help and verry friendly. they run gaz on there cars so im sure there pretty clued up on them

 

[ripp]

of course it's relevant! that way I can see the available travel, then when back on the ground I can determine the amount of travel left
Any way, I emailed GAZ and they advised to cut in half the bump stops.
As the car is about 25 mm lower than std on the front atm I could look under the arch and see that no more than 30 mm of travel were left.
So going lower you should really cut the bump stops, that's the way I see it.
In fact I imagine that people that run this kit lower and describe it as being "crushy" might just be hitting the bumps quite often
EDIT: K-tec were kind enough to help me set up the damping and would probably investigate the ride height matter when they'll have a chance