550 575 is the ride height adjustable ?

Yes. Spring perches are adjustable

 

Yep. Not a huge amount of adjustability, but definitely some
Cheers

 

I did a few searches and this was the closest I could find to my question, so I apologize if I've missed an answer that was already given elsewhere.

So, I got my steering track rod / inner rod end replaced on my 1999 550M, and I'm going to finally take it to my friend's shop and mount the Michelin Pilot Sports that have been sitting amidst stacks of Hoosier race slicks for the past 6 or 8 months. Then we'll check the alignment, and at least set the front toe that I'm sure will need it.

So - while the ride height of the car is aesthetically pleasing (tires filling the wheel wells, rake looks nice) it's annoyingly low anytime I'm on a back road (many of which I have to traverse to come and go from my house) or crossing an intersection with more than a miniscule change in grade. When I pulled off the front undertray to change the track rod, I found about 10 pounds of gravel from my driveway in there!

The car is a ball to drive, but it's a GT car. Touring. Not racing, or tracking, or anything involving ultimate grip in a corner - at least in my mind. Counter to everything I've held dear all my automotive life, I'm wondering about raising the ride height - at least in the front. I just want to be able to drive down a less than flat, level road without slowing to a first or second gear crawl, making sure the left wheels are precisely on the crown, to keep from grinding the $1300 undertray to bits, filling it with gravel, or tearing yet another retractable license plate mount to pieces.

When I'm under it I see coilover shocks with adjustable spring perches. There appears to actually be quite a bit of adjustment in my opinion. And I'm thinking that even a half-inch higher ride height will make a huge difference.

Can anybody tell me what the factory ride height should be for this car, and where it is measured? Front and rear? The rake looks nice, and I'm sure if I take a little more out by raising the front only (front wheels are definitely closer to the wheel arches than rear) the car will understeer more than the pig it already is (don't flame me - I'm just talking about chassis balance) but I don't really care...I just don't want to raise the car such that the suspension gets into an area where the geometry is all flaky, and it starts bump steering or something stupid like that. I'm not scared about tweaking the heights - we'll just scale it like the race cars and get the corner/cross weights right.

Any help on where it should be...and especially experience on where the ride can go to successfully if anybody has such experience, would be hugely appreciated.

Or just tell me that's how it's supposed to be - deal with it. I expect that, but just didn't want to leave the question unasked with such a wealth of resources here.

Best regards,
Eric

 

Henry- Yes it is. Requires a full four wheel alignment to go with the lowering, but ride height is adjustable. That is why they quote ride height in the specs. A real four wheel suspension alignment requires juggling everything until you get it right.

Taz
Terry Phillips

 

Hi Taz,
I just ordered the "Ferrari Factory Workshop Manual" on CD from GreatWorkshopManuals.com. I hope it is the authentic thing as represented here:

http://www.greatworkshopmanuals.com/ferrari-550-maranello-workshop-and-owners-manu.html

I presume this will give me the info I was looking for on ride height per your post, and I can at least tell whether I am at "factory" settings now. I have seen where people have posted that there's a difference between US and Rest Of World ride heights...do you find that to be the case? Got me to wondering which specs this manual would show...

Perhaps a previous owner just really lowered this one, and bringing it back to stock will fix my issues.

Thanks.

Best regards,
Eric

 

Henry, Our friend Craig told me that if you lower (just) the rear end of a 575 by 20MM it will handle very much like a FHP car.

 

Eric- It will. Wish I had known you needed one because you can download it for free on the site below. Note they also have most of the 550 owner's manuals.

I posted the ride height information for the 575s, but not the 550s. There are differences in ride height for the FHP cars, although US ride height specs for FHP 575Ms were the same as non-FHP, probably because of headlight height requirements. The FHP springs are shorter and stiffer than the regular springs.

Using Euro FHP ride height specs is probably a good idea for improved handling.

Taz
Terry Phillips

http://www.ferraridatabase.com/The_Downloads/Downloads.htm

 

Actually, these cars are quite tuneable for whatever you want. You have nearly free reign with tire choice, wheel selection, springs, shocks, sways, and suspension ajustments. I have very little problem with daily driving at factory ride height. If the ride height is changed "rake" should remain factory unless you know what you want and any ride height change must be accompanied by setting readjustments back to factory or whatever you are trying to accomplish. Remember that these suspension settings change as the the wheel moves through the operational range. So you can run out of travel or have unpredictable results if you raise or lower a char too much outside of the design envelope. You even have to worry about how ride height effects the steering linkage otherwise you run into problems like "bump steer."

 

We live in California. Our roads, while bad by our standards are nothing like the ones in his part of the country. If I lived there I would have a 4x4 for a daily driver. I am not surprised he is having ground clearance issues.

 

Thanks for all the information, gentlemen. Greatly appreciated!! I will take a look at the manual when it gets here, and see where the car sits, so to speak, right now, relative to factory stock specs. If it's way off, I'll reset it. If not, then I'll have to decide whether messing with it is worth the effort.

We are actually pretty competent at chassis setup, and do several dozen major chassis setup changes a year on my formula cars...you roll one four times and there's lots to do!! But, I do understand the effects of pretty much all of the various settings, and how they might impact other settings. And we have the equipment to set corner weights, and check bump steer, in addition to the normal caster, camber, toe, etc. I'm not that smart, but my friend that does the chassis and aero engineering for my racecars is a chassis engineer for Chrysler during the weekdays, so he's pretty much got it going on. And he had a ball burning tires off the 550!!

Yep, rifledriver, some of our roads aren't so good as many in Southern California, but at least I don't always have someone in front of me! LOL

One more question - once I get it straight, if I want to replace the front undertray, is Ricambi the best place to get it?

Thanks again guys - I'll check back in and let you know what I find out.

Best regards,
Eric

 

Well you are not going to do better than that from fchat. I'm aT1 scca racer so I suspect you know what you want in car handling. Specifically the 550 is set-up understeering as you would expect. I have found going with wheels the same size all the way around and square set-up on lame dot race tires like r888's work quite nice on the road or a very light trackday. Then add tuning the rear rideheight to your liking kills the understeer. I know the 550 is a streetcar but I'm running - 1.5 front, -2.0 rear, 0 thrust, 1/8" toe-in rear, 1/16" front toe out, about 6 equal caster. If you want much more its shock and springs or shocks and giant rollbars which would be my first try.

 

Ricambi is a great source for pretty much anything Ferrari but I will say this, you and he are not very far apart so shipping may not be an issue. On something that big ask him for an all up price. Buying it closer might be less.


And I am not in So Cal. We dont have their traffic....or air.

 

Thanks, FBB. Great info. One of my good friends races T1 and T2 here in the SE. Mostly Vettes and Honda S2s. So even though formula car guys are racing snobs that think real race cars don't have fenders, I go both ways, so to speak. Even won a 13 hour race driving with him at VIR in a T2 (I think) 350Z a couple years ago, so I get touring car racing. It's all the same...racing's racing, right?

Sorry, rifledriver...didn't pay enough attention to your profile to realize you were in the top end of CA. Never been there, but I always heard it was nice. I'll call Ricambi about the undertray... Maybe I can stop by to or from a race in Atlanta or Sebring and just pick the thing up! Do they let you have rifles in the Golden State? I remember looking at their gun laws a few years back, and if I moved there with my stuff, they'd put me under the jail. Belt fed Browning M1919A4, M16, etc. that I have are frowned upon out there! LOL

Thanks again, all. Great forum - hope I can help someone someday.

Best regards,
Eric

 

Eric- There are a couple of underbodies on E-Bay, but I would not worry about it too much. The 550 tends to drag its spoiler more than the 575M. One FChatter even put a 575M front bumper/spoiler on his 550 to keep it from dragging. If your car was lowered, bringing it back to stock height may cure it. It seems to be the spoiler outside edges that drag, not the undertray. The lowest part of the radiator is lower than that undertray, which is something else to ponder.

Here are the ride height numbers. Looks like they are measured from the center of the rear end of the bolt for the front flanblock on the front suspension and the center of the front end of the bolt for the front flanblock on the rear suspension. Makes up for anti-dive and anti-squat geometry, I guess.

Taz
Terry Phillips

 

The rifles I specialize in I only need one round. I have plenty of those.

 

Thanks, Taz. Big plastic undertray is pretty scraped and gouged up, and it looks like someone cut out some of the louvers for better access to the oil filters...??? Didn't see any ground contact with any other components.

OK -I've been working on street cars and racecars in a non-paying capacity for most of the last 35 years, and earned a Mechanical Engineering degree along the way (although they STILL won't let me drive the train...) and I must say: "WTF is a flanblock???" From the context of your post it sounds like where the control arms are bolted to the frame and pivot about, or what I'd typically call a "pickup point." I guess I'll figure it out when I get the shop manual.

I'll report what I find...it'll be a few days: sitting in the Philly Hilton, having a couple of drinks and reading Fchat. Army/Navy game tomorrow. Go Navy! (Well, I wouldn't care except my cousin, Kenny Niumatololo is the headcoach for Navy, and we are sitting in his box!)

Thanks, again guys.

Best regards,
Eric

 

Eric- The flanblocks are the bushings in the suspension arms, sometimes also called "flanblock bushing". I thought I gave you this website, but I passed it out five or six times today, so could be wrong. Free 550 WSM.

http://www.ferraridatabase.com/The_Downloads/Downloads.htm

Navy winnning is fine by me, the AF already won the Commander in Chief Trophy by beating both Army and Navy. Probably not a good idea to bring that up to Kenny. First time AF has won it in a long time, but we have a pretty good team this year.

Taz
Terry Phillips

 

Hi Taz,
Great link! It's in my favorites under "Ferrari Stuff" now. Downloaded both volumes, and started reading about ride height when work got in the way...I hate that! Of course I get home and my $30 CD came in the mail today. Go figure. I'll check it out this weekend, and get the tires and alignment done before Christmas.

The ball game was a trip. My cousin gets a box there as the Navy coach, and they treated us pretty darn nicely. Wish I could make it out to the Poinsettia Bowl with them in San Diego, but we are headed for Guam.

Thanks again for the help - folks on this forum are superb, and you are one of the best among them.

Best regards,
Eric