Lowering your 430

interested in this myself... hope to hear from members

 

To the best of my knowledge, the strut would be removed in order to adjust the ride height the coil over is removed from the car.

The issue is space, even with the correct tools, it ends up being quicker with them out of the car.

S

 

I did mine myself on the 360. Not sure how different they are. It helps to have tools. I actually replaced the springs.

 

Simply loosen the coil spring perch jam nut, then loosen the perch nut. Four full turns will be about 1 centimeter. No need to "pull" the suspension, but not even sure what that means.
Lowering the factory springs will give you a bit more negative camber, which is a good thing. But you will likely need to check the toe on front and rear.

 

This really comes down is this for looks or track setup ? I have attached a photo that you clearly do not need to remove the shock from its location FYI, so the part they want to remove it is going to add a significant amount of labor for wallet.


so now you need to understand about a couple of things
1) Camber
2) Caster
3) Toe
4) Corner weight balance.

once the alignment is done drive the car for a couple of miles and see how you like it
*DO NOT* go stomping on the throttle and drive the car all nutty, alignment setting are fine tuning the car and it takes a couple of tries to get it right,

if the alignment place or dealer is going to get pissy with you about bringing the car back in for minor adjustments then find a place who wont.


also others should chime in on this.
*when getting an alignment are you doing it with the weight dry.
*dry weight - meaning no weight compensation, such as like driver, passenger and full tank of fuel ?
* are you doing an alignment on new or worn tires ? etc

really like to hear the guys who were running F430 Challenge Cup cars who did alignment setups ?

I have no affiliations with titan and will leave it at that. Just used that picture to show you do not need to remove the shock from its location to adjust it.
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DIY thread:

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/360-430/415959-diy-lowering-scud.html

 

more info
http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/360-430/237511-lowering-360-430-a.html

 

Honest Question: How do you keep the rubber insulators / perch in place when you make the adjustment with the spring still loaded in the car?

I had a tech attempt an adjustment in front of me just now and when he did, the rubber bound and actually allowed the metal spring to make contact with the metal spring seat.

Turbo360: I also note that in the picture supplied as an example, aftermarket coil overs are shown, which is not exactly apples to apples comparison, as aftermarket ARE adjustable on the car and designed as such, yes?

S
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This is no big deal at all. Just like the others said above, there is no need to pull the suspension and it is just a matter of loosening the jam nut and then lowering the perch nut. I always move the jam nut the amount I want the perch nut to go down so I have a guide. You will however need the correct spanners to do this.

As far as the alignment, it will change depending on how much lower you go, you're only going to change the camber and toe, no caster. Camber isn't a big deal, you will induce negative by going lower which will increase your turn in and give you more contact patch during the turn itself, it will however wear the inside of the tire faster than the outside. Toe is something you want to be concerned about and this will need to be addressed in the alignment, but in my experience, doesn't make the car unpredictable or unsafe until you have it done.

Someone mentioned corner balance. If you lower the car equally at each corner from where it stands now, the corner weights won't change much if any at all. Certainly not enough to worry about on a street car.

We do this often in my shop and we charge $400 before the alignment, I wouldn't think a good independent in your area would be a lot more than this. Either way, you shouldn't be intimidated by it, I think its a worthy improvement to the 360/430 chassis.

 

Pulling the coilover out of the car to do adjustments is pretty easy and a shop might just prefer to do it that way... especially if the spring is preloaded. No major labor cost. Just a disconnect of the sway bar and 4 bolts and out it comes.... Mark, turn turn turn, back on car. Check alignment, then dial in if desired with a corner balance, and an alignment (which was probably wonky before anyway). Couldn't really be easier to change the ride height on a car, unless you had air bags

 

The 430 actually has a lot of spring preload and simply turning the collars down isn't really possible without getting the shock out and the spring compressed to take the load off of the adjustment collars. there simply is not enough room and you run the risk of the threads galling on the shock. Even with the preload removed ensure you clean the threads and lubricate them with WD-40 or equivalent.

 

I respectfully disagree, I've done at least 20 360/430's with no issue. I won't argue they're a little tough to move the first couple of turns, but with proper lubrication, it's a non issue.

There is certainly nothing wrong with removing them, just an unnecessary step IMO.

 

Since you have done 20+ OEM adjustments, would you mind sharing your trick to keeping the rubber seat in it's place? ( See pic in post #10 above )
Under load ie: " In the car", one end spins with the spring while the other tends to bind and allow the spring to come out and make contact with the hat.

S

 

I noticed your post about that, sorry I didn't respond.

I haven't had an issue with this, I do make sure there is plenty of lubricant between the bottom of the perch and the bottom of the spring so the spring doesn't rotate, only the perch.

 

Right tool for the job makes things so much easier, right? Pulling from car, you can then quickly compress the spring and turn the thing super easily, then just pop back in the car. Presto bingo! Instead of struggling in the wheel well with sweat roling down your face.

 

I'm not sure about the differences between the 430 and 360, but I recently returned my 360 to factory height without much effort. I was able to get a couple of spring compressors on the spring and take much (but not all) of the preload off the spring so that I could turn the nut without much effort. Plenty of room and even enough room to operate the spring compressor using my pneumatic impact wrench.

Cleaning the threads and lots of lubrication is important. It didn't require any sweat and it certainly was quicker than removing the damper.

 

Will see how that goes on the next adjustment we perform!

Thank you for your reply,

S

 

Watch the DIY thread.
The spring doesn't rotate.
An easy DIY.

 

Why do people find the need to alter the factory specs, just for looks?

 

Some people undoubtedly do it for the looks but others will do it for performance gains on track. The handling of the car can be improved quite significantly with a few tweaks.

 

I agree as when I was first investigating this I did put the spanner on the castle ring just to see how tight it was and it was very evident to me that a lot of lateral force on the coil over will make the bottom of the strut twist hard within the rubber bushing at the lower attachment point.

I was afraid of destroying the bushing (among other things) while doing this so I chose to remove the strut completely from the car, use a pair of spring compressors I bought from a local auto parts store ($25.95), compressed the spring and was able to accurately turn the collars by hand. The strut in the 430 is only held on by essentially 3 bolts, with one more to remove the drop link to the sway bar. All in all, was a pretty easy job and all I need to do is find the proper torque requirements for the upper and lower strut mounts.

I think it would be incredibly frustrating to do this while they are on the car as there is multiple interference's, none of the spanners really lock into the castle ring very well and there is a ton of preload on these things. For me there was also risk in banging the carbon rotors repeatedly when the spanner inevitably slips off of the castle ring.

IMO removing them from the car to do the actual lowering is the proper method.

 

I would have a shop do it. It's pretty simple from what I understand they adjust then align and all good