Lowering Kits

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来源:    日期:2014-10-8    浏览次数5388次

 The opposite of lift kits - lowering kits. These are designed to (wait for it....) lower your car. Also at the other end of the scale - lowering kits are almost exclusively used on cars, whereas lift kits are almost exclusively used on trucks and SUVs. (Having said that, the number of pimped-out low-rider trucks on the road does seem to be increasing by the day.) Lowering your car will similarly affect the handling, just like a lift kit. But again it’s the opposite end of the spectrum - a lowered car will typically handle much better than factory suspension, and it will lower the centre of gravity, making it less likely to tip or roll in an accident. I’m a European, and as far as I’m concerned, if you’re going for pose value, lowering your car is the quickest way to do it, hotly pursued by larger wheels and tyres to make the car appear even more ground-hugging.

Lowering kits typically consist of shorter, stiffer springs and gas shocks - often nitrogen-filled. Don’t do it by halves. Get a matched kit from someone like Spax or Jamex. Matched kits have springs and shocks designed to work together. If you get shorter springs, your factory shocks will be under a lot of stress because they’ll be operating a much shorter throw than they were designed for, and ultimately, they’ll normally fail much quicker. Similarly, don’t get shorter shocks and cut the springs. Cutting the springs is the epitome of A Really Bad Idea. You’re weakening the spring’s structural integrity and the chances are that when you’ve finished a ham-fisted attempt at hacking off all 4 springs with a grinder, the result will be 4 springs all slightly different lengths.
There’s something else worth mentioning here - do not try to disassemble a shock absorber. Ever. Those things are like little bombs, and unless you have all the right tools, you could easily loose a hand as the shock explodes into its component parts when you get that last twist off the collar. Please - just don’t. I know your mate Guido might have told you it’s a "sure fire" way to shorten the shock, but he’s lying.
Matched lowering kits typically assume you’re going for sportier handling, so a lot of times, you’ll get a whole slew of new adjustments which you never had before. Spring height, rebound damping, compression damping etc. My recommendation is to leave everything as it is to start with. Right out of the box they’re normally set up pretty well. The following renderings show an example "before and after" of a lowering kit fitted to a car: