I just picked up my car a few days and for my first mod I am planning on replacing the stock wheels and tires and going with some 18x9 black bullits and I'd like to drop the car a bit. I'm thinking I only want about an inch drop, nothing too radical. What are the best springs for me? Eibach Pro? Thanks for any help.

 

I have the Steeda springs installed and they dropped the car just a little over an inch.

 

Did you need camber plates for those?

 

Did you need camber plates for those?
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tech brings up a good question that I meant to ask in my original post: is there more that needs to be done after installing the new springs? or can you just put on the new springs and be done with it? I'm assuming you would need a new alignment at the least right? Sorry for the newbie questions, I've never had a car dropped before.

 

I bought them when I bought the springs. I didn't want to put them on and then find out that I need them. There were a few people that put the springs on and said the alignment went well. I also bought the adjustable panhard rod and the LCA's.

 

Lowered my car with the Eibach Pro's. Brought my car to a local shop to have the alignment done, which they did and said "It is fine". I could tell just looking at the car that the camber was off. Went to another shop and they said "We can't align it because we don't even have specs on this car", and this is from the so called best alignment place in town. Went to FORD and sure enough, it could not be aligned without camber bolts. So the front is fine but the rear is out by a little less than 1/2" and the only way to correct that is with an adjustable panhard rod. It shows on my car because I have wider rims and have them out at the edge of the wheelwells.

 

Adrenalin,

Something has GOT to be wrong! You lowered the car about 1 inch. Heck, give it 2 inches for the sake of the argument! The panhard rod is, what? 48" long or so? Assuming it was level with stock springs and then 2" high (see assumption above) after installing lowering springs, you end up with basically a right triangle (remember A^2 + B^2 = C^2?):

A: 2" (from level to 2" high on the axle side)
B: unknown: But this is how far over the axle is after lowering
C: 48" (panhard rod is still 48" long...)

Solving the classic equation for B and solving gives you a B of 47.96" That is a side to side difference of ONLY 0.04". That is 4 HOUNDRETHS of an inch... That is a bit off from 50 houndreths you mentioned above. Are you sure everything is a'ok???

 

I agree here. There should be no need for the adjustable panhard.

Spoken like an engineer. You and my dad should go bowling....

 

Crunch all the numbers you want but all you have to do is look at my car and several other cars that have been lowered. Anyone that has put on wider rims and lowered the car has stated that they notice the axle has shifted to the left. So to say something has got to be wrong, I agree, the panhard rod needs to be adjusted. Why else to you think the manufacturers sell adjustable panhard rods for lowered cars. Now, I am not a math genius by any means but for a simple test take a pencil. Draw 2 lines intersecting each other at a 90 degree angle. . Lay the pencil on the piece of paper with 1 end at the cross section of the lines and the other end at approx a 30 degree angle.
Now, keeping the end of the pencil furthest from the crosshairs in the same position move the other end 1" up from the cross hairs. You should now see that the end of that pencil is now close to 0.25" away from the line. So, since that is basically what a panhard rod would do when it shifts how is it possible that you think it would be only out by .004 of an inch when a simple 6" long pencil is out by 1/4"? Like I said, I am not a math genius but this makes simple sense to me that the axle would shift to the left and that the panhard rod needs to be shortened to center the axle again.