Novitec sells a lowering spring kit for the FF. 1" front and rear I believe I live in SoCal, where I never see snow and rain is a rarity. Looking to lower the car for a more aggressive stance. Has anyone here installed this? If so, curious to hear if its a mistake. Ride comfort, normal ground clearance, etc? I have suspension lifter, so clearing obvious obstacles wouldn't be an issue for me. Thanks in advance!
It is a mistake as the car is set up with the ride heights it is delivered with and the suspension lifter is calibrated accordingly. You will also void your warranty......
So the front lifter won't work with aftermarket springs? Wouldn't it just raise the front by an inch less with the novitec springs?
The manufacturers want you to believe the car is perfect as delivered. Yet there are people who do all kinds of modifications without causing any problems. The manufacturers have compromises that you might not. For example, I believe in Europe they have to allow clearance for tire chains. Also the European manufacturers think Americans are not that smart and thus they adjust the ride height so its less likely someone will scrape the front end on a parking block. And so on. Also just about every Ferrari from the factory has pretty mediocre alignment. You should ask Novitec about the specific issues with the FF and its lifter. That said, I have found their products to be of very high caliber. You could criticize them as overpriced because they start with otherwise obtainable products from Eibach (in the cases of springs and spacers), but Notivec takes the time to test the products and make sure they come with the associated parts that are necessary to make them work. Also I've read that Novitec says their springs work just fine with the 458 lifter and I would be really surprised if they did not account for the lifter on the FF but theres a difference between thinking and knowing. I don't know. Some general comments about lowering: A cars suspension is like a mathematical equation, but with some more play built in. So every change you make will likely require a tweak somewhere else. With lowering the car you will want to have the car realigned. There is also the aesthetic part. Out of all the manufacturers, Ferrari actually uses a fairly inboard track. When the car is lowered from its stock height, this becomes very apparent. In english: the wheels and tires will look like they are too far tucked inside the wheel wells. So one of the side affects of lowering will be that you will probably want to use spacers to balance out the aesthetics. When you are done with that you will want to realign the car and also while I think spacers and lowering are completely fine for street driving, I would not recommend them for really hard driving, like what you would find on the track. The thing about spacers is you have to be very careful to go with a product that has the correct metallurgy. It has to expand and contract at the same rates as the wheel and the hub. Again, I've found that Novitec does a lot of research and they are really the only ones I would trust though I know Capristo also makes spacers. So it becomes a lot of homework for you to do. But its doable and in the right circumstances you could have a result that is better looking and sharper driving than factory.
