I lowered my car with the steeda ultralite springs thinking it would be fine, but as I learned it has caused a few issues

First off, does lowering the car an inch or so screw the pinion angle up, will I need new adjustable UCA's? I haven't heard any wierd noises or felt anything thru the shifter or floorboard that might indicate a problem, what should I look for if there might be an issue?

Also, why would I need adjustable LCA"s as opposed to non adjustable, is this just a drag setting, or is it something I will need with the lowered car?

To fix the geometry since I lowered the car I have done an adjustable panhard bar, I have LCA relocation brackets and BMR LCA's on the way. Is there anything else I need to look in to, to get the geometry right?

Thanks for any help ahead of time!

 

Sorry I can't help with your question, but I'm curious about this as well...

By the way, you said it caused a few issues, what did it cause?

 

Everything should be fine. You will know if you have a problem. If you drag race and run anything other than street tires you may want someone to look at the pinion angle. Sounds like your next mod should probably be an upper control arm anyways to control any unwanted wheel hop. Just get a good adjustable one and set it at the stock length for now.

 

Hope all that helped.

 

Thanks for the help guys.

The few issues that cropped up Scott were the rear end sticking a good inch out the driver side wheelwell, which I got the panhard bar for. Camber was off past adjustable amounts, so I had to get camber bolts and wheel hop *seemed* to get much worse. I'm not positive on the wheel hop but it sure felt worse, so I went with the billet LCA's from BMR with the relocation brackets.

Now I just have to figure out why its pulling to the left so bad, even after alignment.....

 

Wow, sticking out an inch? I havent measured mine to check exact measurements, but just eyeballing it, it looks identical to when it did stock, except lower. Nothing seems out of proportion.

Wheel hop does suck though, I just havent done anything about it yet.

Again, sorry I can't help you, but keep us posted if you figure out what it is.

 

The change in angle is more severe for a two piece driveshaft. For the long haul, life of the u-joint may benefit by getting it closer to right, and gas milage too if you are worried about that, because you are giving up some small amount of driveline efficiency. The short UCA aggrivates the pinion angle change (rolls the pinion down), more than just the ride height change when lowering the car.

The BMR brackets mainly will help re-establish rear suspension instant center, which will reduce the more squat on accelleration you probably have now.

If you go with solid bush UCA or LCA, as mentioned above expect more suspension harshness and noise. Solid bush and soft bush combo at axle and chassis respectively might be a good compromise.

Pulling to the left still ... tire pressures even side to side? Did your alignment shop give you a printed report indicating before and after?

 

I brought mine in because it was creaking after installing the eiback pro-kit. Some of the bolts on the strut tower were loose. I can't believe I did not find that myself. Anyway I have a slight pull to the right after the alignment. I have a spec sheet from the work and I guess I should learn a little about this. Just because it pulls a little does this mean the alignment is off? I have heard people say just because it tracks straight does not always mean it is aligned. If it is aligned should it always track straight? I have never had a new car aligned and they have always tracked very straight with no uneven wear with many miles put on most of them.

 

Well, the rear end centering was exaggerated by the fact I put 275-40-18's back there, that in combination with the drop really threw the rear off. Some people have had zero issues with the rear end center but mine was pretty bad. When driving the back felt like it was stepping out(not sure how to describe it) and it felt pretty unsafe hehe so I got the panhard ASAP and it helped a bunch.

Yea the shop that did the alignment gave me a printout, everything looks in spec according to the sheet. Though it wasnt a 4 wheel alignment and to be honest the pull doesn't totally feel like its the front end, thats why I was asking about some of the other rear suspension parts, I am not sure if the geometry is fixed in the back, or maybe something else is messed up I need to check back there. The pull is pretty noticeable and I want to get it fixed hehe.

 

Was your caster also verified?

See if you can find a high performance alignment shop that deals with corner balancing.

It's odd that you required the adjustable camber bolts with the Ultralite drop. At an inch or less drop (7/8" for me), I was still within factory specs.

 

Mellow Yellow

Unless you have adjustable LCA's its hard to get the rear axle out of alignment. If you have the BMR LCA lowering brackets, it might be possible to mess up the axle alignment if they are not installed correctly aligned. Have you checked that? Are yours the weld on or bolt on type?.

simple06

Stock alignment has some pull built in to compensate for the crown in most roads (freeways don't have much crown comared to country roads). For a performance set up (caster / camber) you generally don't want the compensation. The compensation is usually dialed in with unsymmetrical caster side to side. When lowering the car, the panhard bar may have some effect of vehicle tracking because of shifting the rear axle ... depends a lot on whether the LCA's are parallel to each other or not