Minimum ride height run on the road
Discussion
I take it you're on about a Caterham.
I measured my car at around 65mm (at the sump) and thats fine on the road. You could even go lower.
As the low point on a Caterham is between/behind the front wheels you get away with a lot more than you would with a tin top where the low point is a fair distance infront of the front wheels (say the front bumper/splitter).
>> Edited by Shred-head on Thursday 15th December 14:37
I measured my car at around 65mm (at the sump) and thats fine on the road. You could even go lower.
As the low point on a Caterham is between/behind the front wheels you get away with a lot more than you would with a tin top where the low point is a fair distance infront of the front wheels (say the front bumper/splitter).
>> Edited by Shred-head on Thursday 15th December 14:37
you're having a laugh 
I'm the proud new owner of a Superlight R, which has been uprated to a r400 spec.
On collection the previous owner said he had been advised to raise the front suspension height as it is too low for road use. I drove back no probs but did scrape it going into my drive (no apparent damaged
)
Being a caterham novice how do I adjust the front shocks to raise the height. They are Bilstein on the front at the moment. What height do I set it too and taken from where ( bottom of sump I assume)
On collection the previous owner said he had been advised to raise the front suspension height as it is too low for road use. I drove back no probs but did scrape it going into my drive (no apparent damaged
) Being a caterham novice how do I adjust the front shocks to raise the height. They are Bilstein on the front at the moment. What height do I set it too and taken from where ( bottom of sump I assume)
dutchy said:
I'm the proud new owner of a Superlight R, which has been uprated to a r400 spec.
On collection the previous owner said he had been advised to raise the front suspension height as it is too low for road use. I drove back no probs but did scrape it going into my drive (no apparent damaged )
Being a caterham novice how do I adjust the front shocks to raise the height. They are Bilstein on the front at the moment. What height do I set it too and taken from where ( bottom of sump I assume)
On collection the previous owner said he had been advised to raise the front suspension height as it is too low for road use. I drove back no probs but did scrape it going into my drive (no apparent damaged
) Being a caterham novice how do I adjust the front shocks to raise the height. They are Bilstein on the front at the moment. What height do I set it too and taken from where ( bottom of sump I assume)
Congratulations on the car. Mine is similar spec. Be very aware that if the car has a low ride height and is dry sumped, the dry sump pan is VERY vulnerable to making contact with low objects. In extremis, this could result in a knackered engine!!
The shocks should have a collar to adjust the spirng preload. This is used to set the ride height. The best bet, to ensure you don't upset the handling is to get the car properly setup. This involves a technique called 'corner weighting', where a set of digital scales are used to ensure equal weight distribution over the wheels. This is especially important over the fronts to ensure good bevaiour whilst braking. As the ground needs to be perfectly level to do this, it is also known as 'flat flooring' the car. I would recommend a cacterham race team set this up for you, as they have a lot of knowledge regarding how the setup they put on the car affects ride and handling.
There are loads of opinions on the ideal setup for the road, www.blatchat.com is a good place to get some of these. Beware however, that the posts are a mix of those who are in the know and those that aren't, and sometimes much of the knowledge is passed on 2nd or 3rd hand.....
PS my car currently runs 60mm clearance, but is exclusively used for racing and t/days.
Edited by fergus on Thursday 26th October 14:38
Dutchy, I run 65mm under the sump, you need to try and get around 15mm rake front to back. So measure back (in front of the rear wing) front, forward of the rear wing, where the bottom chassis tube changes shape and direction, just in front of where the floor pan stops. Get the rake correct and then check the sump clearence.
If you live in Portsmouth, get along to the West Hants meet in Brook, New Forest, my mate who lives in Romsey, has corner weight scales and will setup your car, for a small donation towards the cost of the scales. I live in Salisbury, there are plenty of guys around who will be happy to help. Under sump clearence is a little subjective, if someone runs 55mm and another 65mm, is 10mm going to make your car not hit the sump on a bit of debris in the road, probably not, unless you are lucky. My point is, get the car setup and then worry about sump clearence.
If you live in Portsmouth, get along to the West Hants meet in Brook, New Forest, my mate who lives in Romsey, has corner weight scales and will setup your car, for a small donation towards the cost of the scales. I live in Salisbury, there are plenty of guys around who will be happy to help. Under sump clearence is a little subjective, if someone runs 55mm and another 65mm, is 10mm going to make your car not hit the sump on a bit of debris in the road, probably not, unless you are lucky. My point is, get the car setup and then worry about sump clearence.
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