I'm wondering how I can go about setting my car's ride height in my garage. I noticed that my garage's floor is sloped towards the door, I'm guessing for water drainage.

I know that simply counting threads or putting a caliper to the collars on the coilovers won't net an even ride height across 4 corners

Is there any other way to set the height accurately other than finding a perfectly level ground to work on?

 

Bring a tape measure (and your wrenches) with you next time you go to the grocery store and adjust em there.

 

If you really want to have a perfect level surface, there is a way to adjust your floor to make it happen. You will need to buy or borrow some things.

1) Laser level. One powerful enough to cover your garage.

2) 4 pieces of wood a few inches tall, cut as flat as possible.

3) Generic commercial floor tiles. These can be had at Home Depot for about $.70 each.


Setup each of the 4 pieces of wood where your tires will normally rest. Take the laser level and put it where the beam shines on each piece of wood and set it level. Measure the height of the beam at each block of wood. Those measurements will tell you how much height you need to add at each wheel location to get a level surface. The shortest measured location will obviously need only a pair of tiles. The other locations will need more.

Now, the reason you use the commercial floor tiles is that when you place a few sheets of newspaper in between them, they act like slip plates, allowing the cars suspension to settle after you jack it up to lay the plates or change the vehicle height.

If your heights are very different, you may want to use something thicker beneath the tiles, so you arent resting on a stack of them.

That was a real quick version, but hopefully that helps. This also lays the groundwork for doing your own alignments at home.

 

I've never been one to work on cars in the public

Thanks for the tips, I will give this a go. I think I'll improvise and use a pair of Dixie cups rather than blocks of wood to determine the level height.

Regarding the commercial tiles and newspaper to act like slip plates, could you elaborate on this? How does this work exactly? It is another interesting topic because the other half is needing to figure out a proper way to settle the car's suspension. Taking the car on a brief drive to settle the suspension is inconvenient (especially in my case if I have to set up the leveling tiles prior).

In the past I've resorted to bouncing on the car to settle the suspension, but for whatever reasons I don't think this is a very consistent or accurate method.

 

Take them to a race shop and get them corner weighted.

This is what you're supposed to do with coilovers anyway.

 

Corner balancing a Street car is rather pointless, in my opinion. Let's be real, most people are bypassing typical strut + spring combos in favor of coilovers nowadays.

My goal is just to achieve an even ride height & an alignment, and call it a day

 

I've never been one to try to adjust my ride height on a hill, but to each his own, I guess. Good luck and God speed!

 

It's not pointless if you're taking it to the track. You can fix left/right balance issues that came with it from the factory, which improves handling. My MR-2 is much heavier on the right (it's RHD) and it hurts performance in left hand turns significantly. You can also get the front/balance even closer to 50/50 with you in the car, and with gasoline and fluids in it.

 

I agree with you, except this car won't be taken to the track

 

Just put one tile on the ground, then put a few sheets of newspaper on top of it, then put the second tile down. Something about the ink and newsprint-paper under pressure turns it into a lubricant. Given whatever newspaper you have might determine how many sheets are needed. I haven't done this in a while, since I now have friends with shops and alignment machines.

You can use grease instead, but newspaper requires no cleanup.

I share your views on corner weighting as well. I even track my car, but as long as I have a passenger seat and give rides, and drive on the street with a passenger what's the point? When I put my car on a friend's scales, the weights were really close anyway, after just adjusting for ride height (without passengers in the car, but like I said, I usually have a person in the other seat).

 

In that case does it really matter how accurate you get the ride height? Just measure from the pinch welds on a reasonably flat surface and make sure they're all reasonably close. Then get an alignment and you're good.

 

Thanks, but what is the whole purpose of allowing the tiles to "slip"? I'm guessing it is to help the tire grip less when lowering the car onto the ground, and allow the suspension to fall back into its natural place? If I lower the car onto these slip plates, will simply bouncing on the car be sufficient in fully settling the suspension?

 

Yes, just like the bearing plates on an alignment rack.