Daytona ride-height and shock bushing work

Ok, just to cap-off this thread, here is a "before and after" comparison of renewing all the suspension rubber (in particular, all the crushed rubber in the shocks (spring seats and silent blocks):
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Because of the difference in lighting conditions, I had to punch-up the the brightness of the "after" shot, so that you could see the tire sidewalls, and the angles of the shots are not exactly the same, but visually, the differences are (to me) tangible, but not massive; certainly does not look objectionably "off road" with the new rubber.

Timo will be interested to hear that with the new shock rubber, the outer bushes are now well and truly lower than the inner bushes, with a noticeable "downward" angle as one goes from inner to outer. So regardless of the visual impression, the nose must be at least an inch higher than it was before. I'll take a ruler to the suspension, after it has had a chance to settle for a few months.

I've only done one shakedown drive, but the car definitely is more "giggly" with the shocks firmed-up by their rebuild; not sure whether a casual driver would find this to be an improvement. Did not notice much of a difference in corners (though shakedowns being what they are, I was not giving the car much "stick"), but really noticed that braking felt sharper (presumably, because of a reduction in dive).

 

So I finally finished redoing my front suspension as well (did all the shocks and a full rebuild of the rear suspension last year, but did not do the front bushes, nor any refinishing at the front; again, except for the shocks).

Did not come-out half-bad, if I do say so myself:
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I ran out of "resolve" and decided to leave the steering linkages for the coming winter; one major thing at a time seemed reasonable, and I did want to try and get several hundred miles in before winter comes.

Before Timo asks, here are the height measurements at the manual-specified points; all with two adults (my son was visiting, and my wife agreed to assist), full load of fuel, and tools in the trunk).

Front Suspension: Inner bolt center just a few mm higher than the outer when looked at from the front; hard to judge an exact figure, but certainly less than 5mm..

Rear Suspension: Inner bolt center at least 5mm higher than the outer when looked at from the front; again hard to judge an exact figure, but it is clearly less than a cm).

This is all on shock/spring rubber that has about a year of "crush" on it.

 

Thanks! It is certainly quite an improvement over the "before"s earlier in this thread...

RAL 3013; color of the shocks is neither as bright, nor as orange-ish as it likely appears on computer monitors.

 

Regarding "giggly", I just meant that one felt small road imperfections more. My front shocks were still damping, but they were really worn and "soft", so this came as no surprise.

I got in about a thousand miles last summer.

You make a good point about the load conditions; car was off the road for the front suspension work for about 7 of those 12 months, and during that time it was on jack-stands, so the load was off the shock silent-blocks, and the spring seat would have been on only 75% or something.