[Mk2] [NA] Measuring ride height

[Ste2]

A few questions:

What is the OEM Front and Rear ride heights for an N/A?

Should the difference in F/R ride height (say 20mm) remain the same if its dropped?

Any tips on where to measure from? - Floor to arch centre?

Mine has been dropped by the garage but I wasn't confident that the ride-heights on my BC racing coilovers were set correctly 'out-of-the-box'

thanks

[Nic]

Ride height is usually measured vertically from the centre of the wheel to the underside of the wheel arch.

[shinny]

Ride height is usually measured vertically from the centre of the wheel to the underside of the wheel arch.

By hobbyists with tape measures, perhaps.

That assumes things like the body actually being symmetrical so that measure is the same on both sides. (I remember being told about an asymmetry on Nova's where one side's wheel arch was significantly lower on one side than the other, so people modifying them might lower their car, get the wheel fitted on one side easily and then not stand a chance of getting it fitted to the other!) There is also wiggle room at the front as the wings are just bolt on. Oh, and the wheel arch is a long curving thing, so picking a consistent point on all four corners is tricky, as if finding the correct centre point of each wheel (ignoring inaccuracies introduced with camber and caster).

The racing engineer who corner weighted my car was using a set of calipers between a point on the sill and the ground (well, his purpose built, perfectly level, flat platform). Not once in 7 hours of manual setup did he measure anything from the wheel to the wheel arch. TBH, if you really want to measure ride height accurately you should be using a point around the suspension, probably where the lower arms meet the chassis / rear subframe... which is rather tricky, hence why we fell back to the sill.

However it's still easier to take a tape measure between two poorly defined points and then tell yourself you've actually measured something

[bobhatton]

A few questions:

What is the OEM Front and Rear ride heights for an N/A?

Should the difference in F/R ride height (say 20mm) remain the same if its dropped?

Any tips on where to measure from? - Floor to arch centre?

Mine has been dropped by the garage but I wasn't confident that the ride-heights on my BC racing coilovers were set correctly 'out-of-the-box'

thanks

It all in the BGB

[Ste2]

A few questions:

What is the OEM Front and Rear ride heights for an N/A?

Should the difference in F/R ride height (say 20mm) remain the same if its dropped?

Any tips on where to measure from? - Floor to arch centre?

Mine has been dropped by the garage but I wasn't confident that the ride-heights on my BC racing coilovers were set correctly 'out-of-the-box'

thanks

It all in the BGB

thanks Bob found it

and Shinny - thanks for hosting the BGB!

[shinny]

No problem... where in the BGB is it?

Edit: Found it!

It's on this page: http://shinny.co.uk/toyota/MR2_SW_1993_ ... imaryi.pdf

Told you the way to do it was from the lower arm mounts. Really handy to have the official numbers though, so an accurate drop can be calculated. May have to try this out some time, if I can find a clean enough, flat enough surface

[bobhatton]

Should the difference in F/R ride height (say 20mm) remain the same if its dropped?

Yes very important to keep the difference the same.
Adjust the height with the drivers weight in the car if he is the only one in it most of the time.
Also adjust the height on the coil over NOT on the spring length as that changes how the spring works.