Going in for a alignment. What's the recommended alignment specs for maximum tire life? I don't track it. My 355 has 19's and is lowered one inch.
The alignment shop will have the specs on alignment and camber. If they don't, then they have not done the 355 before. Go elsewhere.
I use a string and level after doing suspension work. Then I drive it to alignment shop where they tell me its perfect. Laser eyes.
Eric, The most common suspension mods are lowering and stiffer springs. Those two things often destroy handling and change the intended suspension compromises built in by the factory. A lowered and stiffer car can feel better but actually be slower. That said the WSM clearly lists the target settings including engineered rideheight. As a racer there is no question more can be had with careful changes and on track testing. It is also possible that lowering a car or altering the settings can unknowingly change the performance envelope and cause unpredictable handling especially at limits or during panic maneuvers. Non-stock Changes should be done with careful thought. Stock oem settings are proven positions and were done that way for good reasons.
Stock ride height has 4.2 inches of <minimum> clearance to the road. I can't believe that you can drive a car at 2.2 inches of ground clearance on public roads and don't scrape the bottom basically all the time. -----------but I digress---------------- In any event, the roll centers do not move uniformly when lowering (or raising) the car. The roll center at the rear moves 1.6 times as fast as the roll center at the front. The roll axis inclination is the line drawn between the front and rear roll centers. Get this at the right angle and the car is perfectly balanced in oversteer/understeer. Change it significantly and you will be looking at either different tire sizes to rebalance the car, or different anti-roll bars to rebalance the car. Lowering the car induces understeer. Lowering the rear by 1/3rd as much causes exactly the same change in oversteer/understeer balance. If you want the car to understeer, lower it as far as possible.
I believe the front US ride height was (1") higher than euro, mine is lower than euro. See pic in my profile. It's 1.5-2" lower than stock US ride height. I'm unsure the total amount of rear drop but it appears to be a little less than the front. The car is low for sure. It's scraped a few times. I can tune under/over steer with tire pressures, so it's fairly neutral. I can measure ride height when I get home if you want, just let me know where, but last I measured it was 4.5" to the (metal) floor of the car in the radiator vicinity. Given the side skirts hang down below that another inch or so, I'd say the clearance is around 3.25" at the low spot right in front of the rear wheels. The PO did damage the corner of one of the side skirts, but he was running even lower(!). As to the handling in that configuration (with stock alignment settings), here is the biggest test I've put it through - wet autox. You can see that the car is extremely planted and well behaved. I finished 5th out of 60 cars, only one rear wheel drive car was faster that day, the rest were AWD: [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMzddIpseDc[/ame]
Through trial and error over the years, I have found that anything under the 4.00" ride height will scrape in far too many areas of roads, ramps ect. Many love the lowered look but its only good on the track. Its funny because when we were young, many lifted their cars and lowered cars were a joke. Now its the reverse. Funny how fads come and go. I prefer staying as close to factory spec as possible as that is how these cars were designed to run...on the road anyway.
WSM uses the same ride height spec for F355s worldwide. Which tire sizes? Ride height is measured at the center of the pivot bolt (through the bushing) rear chassis pick up point on each A-Arm. Front 162-171mm Rear 182-191mm BTW the lowest point on the chassis at stock ride heights is where your feet are in the cabin.
