How Low Can You Go?

[ultimatepowder]

Ive posted this in the general auto section, but here goes aswell

Just hoping someone can shed some light on ride heights?

Whats legal? Whats Defect-able?

Can a car be left at stock height yet have very low skirts?

Does it vary between makes/models? (My brother wants to have some fun with the astra in my avatar...would this ride height be different to an R32/R33/R34?

Any help would be great thanks guys (and girls)

[morlock]

The rule is that there must be at least 100mm of clearance from the lowest point of the car to the road. Whether this be the skirts or the mudflaps or the muffler.

This applies unless the vehicle's lowest point was less than 100mm when shipped from the factory.

[ultimatepowder]

thx mate, now i have sumthing 2 work with

cheers

[Steve]

To get a little more technical, you must have at least 2/3rds of the original suspension travel too, and you must have the same height front and rear - ie the car must be level, so you cant just lower the front.

Different cars will have different ride heights from the factory - there are a couple of different measurements to assess this. One is from the centre of the wheel to the guard, another is 'eyebrow' height, as there are now ADRs which state the minimum height from the road to the headlights - once again, this may be exceeded if the car was manufactured with a lower eyebrow height than specified.

It would be worth checking your local rules, which are available on the RTA website - as for example here in SA, they require engineering certification if the car is lowered at all from stock - but I am pretty sure most states are not that strict.