I'm just kidding (sort of). Personally I have never understood why someone would slam a street-driven car. For shows, yeah, that's totally understandable. But on the street... you know it's gonna tear up your car and that you're gonna burn through tires constantly. I guess I just value my car too much to subject it to that.

When someone says "lowrider" the first thing that comes to my mind is huge sedan from the dark ages of American automobilia ('74-'92) that's been painted mettalic gold, tinted with a mettalic-rainbow film, and is riding on gold-plated 130+ spoke 13" wheels. Often times, with the hood, trunk, or both adorned with an air-brushed nekkid beauty riding a jaguar and carrying a sword. If you make you're car look something like that then I'll give you props as a lowrider... but I'll still laugh at you.

 

drop the standards a lil and a Porsche will do fine.

 

Really? I'm pretty sure there are things other than lowering the height of your car that affect tire wear. Camber.... yea that can affect it but just dropping it doesn't do anything (with proper fender work to prevent cutting).

 

That's exactly what I was referring to. The camber and the fender.

 

^Depending on the suspension that is run on the car the wheels will camber more negative the lower you go, that can be fixed by an alignment after you set you lowered height. The tC does need an alignment when you lower it(as well as most cars).

 

Right. I was referring to the people who have their car riding super low, but still insist on running 19" or larger wheels so they set their camber to something ridiculous. Something like this:


Or this:



Sheesh... I was just making a joke. I didn't mean to get y'all riled up and defensive! I wasn't trying to insult anyone, and I apologize if I did. I made the comment "slammed is the new ricer" because, even if nobody wants to admit it, they do have something in common. Both make modifications to their car strictly for aesthetic prurposes, despite the fact that it does more harm than good. And now, just to take the focus off of me and my apparently insensitive comment: BOSUZOKU xB!!

 

Those are child's play.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVU-oXEwfIs
There are pictures of this car around on the forum.

 

General rule of thumb is having the control arms completely parallel to the ground. Well atleast from what i've learned.

 

lol i can out-corner ANY slammed tC... i think they should all get the air suspension, that way they can just slam it at the show instead of killing themselves on the way to it

 

who's killing themselves? do you have any proof of any slammed tc on here ever wrecking because they were slammed? probably not...

 

this may be the DUMBEST thing anyone has ever said about being slammed

IN THE HISTORY of SLAMMED CARS i have NEVER heard of someone killing themselves for being slammed. that was just dumb.

and im pretty sure you can "out corner" anyone else who's slammed, but chances are while your "out cornering" them there laughing at you trying so hard while there cruising

this isnt a fad this has been around from dumped rat rods to low riders. to everything inbetween.

 

I don't think he actually meant killing themselves. Just slamming being a massive PITA and potential killing your ride if you're a rookie driver.

 

ehh. when i read "killing themselves" im gonna take it as such LOL

 

FONGMAN!

 

I don't think anyone could kill themselves driving slammed, they're to busy slowing down at dips and bumps to lessen/prevent any possible damage to their car. LMAO

 

Well, grip is lessened when slammed like that, so the chances of breaking loose and leaving the road is higher if you push the car. Slamming them like that means you have to realize that you probably have less grip that stock and should drive accordingly.

And it is not just getting the control arms level exactly. I covered a lot (but not all) of the items involved in lowering a car here:
http://www.yoursciontc.com/forums/in...howtopic=26448

Camber curves, affects on roll couple, etc are all part of it. But in general, yes, keeping the control arms parallel with the ground at ride height is a good start. A few others have done the calcs on the system geometry and found a closer to exact number to be around 1.4 inches of drop.

In other words, stechs and htechs are too low ;) Not to mention, they are horribly mushy for the drop. But that comes from this culture of wanting it low and "riding good".. aka handling like crap. Even if that much drop wasnt too low, they should have spring rates around 3 times as high as they do. The general customer base however, has no clue about any of this and just cares 100% about slamming the car and not riding too rough.

 

Nice write up ..

 

If you are truly going to slam the tC and still want performance, as with any car actually, it involves more than just slapping some springs on the car and calling it a day. To really perform well you should change everything to meet your desired ride height goals and performance needs. This includes control arm, spindle, ball joints, bushings, sway bars, springs, struts, and often other locating arms. You need to completely redesign the suspension geometry as mentioned and leaving anything stock is asking for a weakness or a handicap. In the end 90% of all scion mods are done for looks in the parking lot and not the track.

 

Yep, re-engineered spindles can be used to relocate the mounting points and lower the car properly. However, if you compete with the car (the only reason it usually makes sense to do this) it many times will change your classing. For example, that would throw me into a class (for autox) where I would have to do a TON more to my car to be competitive. So I work within the geometry it starts with. Plus, our ST class (including myself in my car) beat well over half of all cars and classes in raw times, so you can prep the tC to handle pretty darned well without going that far

 

Hands are for the inexperienced, use your teeth.

Back on topic though.

Engifineer - Since you seem to be extremely well versed in the subject of suspension, for a daily driver and show car with aftermarket coilovers what spring rate would you recommend with a drop between 1.4inches and slight tuckage? 450 is what the coilovers are set to right off the bat but custom spring rates are optional so I was curious. Just looking for a range rather than an exact number as I'm sure it relies on much more than my meager mind can muster.

Great write-up by the way. I tried to figure this question out myself but I fear the information has gone way over my head.