Ride height

[MSPERBER]

Posting here for some assistance, I have some dedicated folks who are advising me and I am just looking for some more knowledge. Changing springs on my front driver, ride height with current springs is right at 5.5-6 for the car at the pinch weld. The front used 8" springs and the rear used very soft 7" springs. I put new standard 8" springs in without doing anything to the front and the rear goes sky high, ok, thought with an adjustable perch we could bring it down. Put 7" units in but now where near the lowering we had hoped for. So the question is ride height, what is ideal for a front driver, using the traditional spring rates of high in the rear, big bar, no bar up front and less spring rate in the front as compared to the rear. The car is an ITA unit, front struts, independent rear, weight from the GCR is 2680, so it's heavy. With a junk set of eBay springs 5.5 " the car still sat higher than on the orginal set of H&R's which were cut by the prior owner. Is there a recommended height for the rear, cause on the old setup I thought the car sat great, I hate the 60's muscle car look of ass end up.

[cjb25hs]

When i ran in ita in a neon i used short springs. Both 7" front and rear if i remember. Had truechoice shorten and revalve the struts to get the car down. That may be what you need to do as well. How are your perches placed? Are they just sitiing on top of the stock perches? I cut my perches off and lowered the ring that the perch on hence the shortening. Might help if you can tell more about your particar car to see if someone can provide the easy button.

If i remember dont you have the ex spec focus from asheboro?

[T Broring]

Not khowing the car I would just say that strut type suspensions can get the control arm angles out of whack if lowered too much. On VWs we keep the ft arm level so camber is not reduced too much over the suspension travel range. If the outside end is pointed up too high the effective legnth becomes shorter as the angle increases. Some cars have better suspenssion design than others. I would think the fully independant rear is not as critical for height but you could stull have same issue to some degree. The correct spring rates can sometimes be more important than having lower.

[MSPERBER]

Yep that's the car, 2005 ford focus, ex spec from the NASA series. Front Macpherson struts, independent rear. The rear has a stand alone spring with a traditional shock. We have a single bar which is non adjustable, at least for now. Car weight is set for 2680, a big old fatty for the class on 16" wheels.

[cjb25hs]

What springs do u have on the back now? You probably need some shorter springs. My neon had struts all around but converted to coilovers. 2450 weight in its but i rane front and rear bars with 500 pound springs up front and 700 in the back. Was a little twitchy but rotated well.

I had an st focus on the street which is what your car is from what i remember. I would say that you need at least 500f 400r to start as far as rates with the biggest adjustable bar out bavk you can find. What shocks are you running?