Question on dimensions of F car - please read

i had a difficult time figuring this out. had to try it and see. I had the opposite problem, my drive was too steep down. would depend on a lot of factors including tire pressure, whether you are driving straight in or backing in (i have to back into my driveway), ect.. I would imagine you could check the angle between the front of where your tire touches the ground and the bottom of the spoiler. best to actually try it with your car though.

 

This is something that SUV makers calculate all the time. I don't have the answer to your question, but if you search a bit on the Jeep and offroad sites you might find what you're looking for.

You don't list a car in your profile, but FWIW there are significant differences between models. 308s (without the optional front spoiler) have an almost 'normal car' approach angle. The 328 effectively has the front end of the 308 with the spoiler, so is less forgiving (but not bad). The 355 is extremely low, has lots of overhang in the front, and has no forgiveness -- i.e., you scrape paint immediately.

The newer cars seem to have less overhang. Again, you need to specify the model.

 

I believe in SUV specs I have seen this called "approach angle" and "descent angle". I have never seen it posted for F-cars either. It may come down to doing the geometry for your particular car and then adding a safety factor. If you use a 355 or TR geometry your "should" be good with others as I believe they have the most front end "overhangs" - I know my TR will drag the lip spoiler very easily, ergh!

CC

 

Which Ferrari?
current cars have this info well-diagrammed. i can provide for 550.

 

I understand what you need to do. It’s fairly simple actually.

Fill in these measurements for your car, use the basic trigonometry that you were suppose to learn in high school, that you said you would never use again. Take the lower of the two angles you get, subtract a few more, for when there’s weight in the car and it rides lower, then give this number to the architect for you driveway entrance and exit angle of slope. I will even help you out, fill in the numbers for me and I will do the math for you, post it here for all to correct, if I were to be wrong, then there you go.
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Just saw this thread, but it's been something I've been a little concerned about.

Haven't made the purchase yet but wondering if I'm going to DIE the first time I try and get my new ride (either 355 or 360) into the garage.

Any way to mitigate this effect like kick all passengers out of the car and have my 90 lb niece pull it into the garage for me?

I've read that the 355 and TR is about the worse in regards to nose scrape.... anyone have some specific measurements so I can mock something up so I won't be in for the nasty surprise? How about a 360's nose measurements? Anybody?


edit - can anyone compare one of these cars' dimensions to, say, a mid 90's 300zx? Used to own one and it was fairly low with a bit of an extended nose, but I was able to mange it without too much scrape. thanks

 

no 300zx but i can say a stock 360 (not cs) has more clearance under the bumper than a 99 VR4 lowered about 1.5 inches.

 

I had a similar problem. I told the contractor to regrade my driveway so I could get the 308 in the garage. Our neighborhood does not have sidewalks so it was one continuous slope from the driveway to the garage.

My recommendation is to hire an experienced paving contractor and let them figure it out. They see these problems all the time and after paving driveways for 20 years or so they've seen every thing.

The contractor graded and rolled gravel until it "looked right". Then I slowly drove the 308 into the garage. He then regraded one area he didn't like and completed the paving.

These guys never had much use for trig when they were in school either.

 

+1

The only way to know for sure is to check it BEFORE paving.

 

I asked a similar question about 6 months ago when I was considering a 355...

Heres the thread:
http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=155853

Just posting to help...

James in Denver

PS I missed that 355, dang it was a beautiful car, but my 308 negotiates those angles and downgrades fine as long as I approach at an angle as I'm entering the downslope, and no grunts.

 

I wasn’t implying you needed to know trig, and yes an experienced, good, contractor should be able to do it by look. X2BOARD started the thread with wanting to know what angle to tell the architect and contractor. You would have to use trig to get an exact angle. That’s all.

In all actuality the architect would just designate a note on the site plans / grading plans stating that the slope would be no more than a 3%, or whatever the number is, and the contractor would have to figure out how to make it work anyways.