I want to lower my mk3 golf on 17 inch alloys, how low can i go and still have a practical car?
Answers:
60mm would be the most I would lower it.
Mine is down by 45 - but I will be lowering it again.
In the meantime here are some pics of a 60mm lowered Mk3 Golf.
Go for it!
go as low as u want.just be careful on the bumps..
i had my prelude lowered by 60mm and had 17"s put on it..i was driving around like a snail when it came to side streets with humps on it..takes the piss..every hump would be followed by a nice scrape of my exhaust on the floor..
damn the roads..
I had an M3 with lowered springs and 18 inch wheels, the ride was crap and it used to ground out everywhere, think on
I guess when the VW engineers designed the car, they designed it so it was ALREADY practical. Anything else is in Chav territory.
Oh yeah and remember to tell your insurance company about the mod!
you can go very low and still retain driveability. lowering springs? yeah, yawn yawn. apply yourself in lowering the car around the suspension so you retain the majority of the travel.
sounds complicated, but is simple. you need a set of ride height adjustable dampers for a start. remove your (front) top mount and look to mount it atop the suspension turret as opposed to the underside of it. once you visualise what im rattling on about, you will appreciate that by buying spherical bearing top mounts, measuring the space available between suspension turret top and underside of the bonnet, it is possible to have machined (cheaply) aluminium spacers to maximise the benefits.
You are basically taking the suspension top mounting point higher into the bodyshell, allowing you to run the car lower without removing the suspension travel. so car still stiffer, far lower but without the bottoming out.
mk3s are still on beam axles so just wind the back down to match the front. IF you go as low as is possible however, you will change the negative camber of the axle into toe-in. but thats a different question all together!
its simple. on a mk1 you can gain 2 inches back this way, and thats before you extend the bottom ball joint downwards to create the same effect top n bottom.
enjoy!
I put 17 inch wheels on instead of 16 and it spoiled the ride. Great handling but you could feel every bump and ridge on the road. I also kept going though headlamp bulbs, perhaps because of the vibration. You could just fit stiffer springs?
Any speed humps near you?
Provided the tyres are no wider, and of the same effective rolling radius, than those originally fitted to the VR6, then you can go as low as the VR6 was, maybe 15mm lower still if you're very careful with spring and damper rates.
If you increase the effective rolling radius of the tyres you'll have to get your speedometer recalibrated.
If you go for tyres of greater width or radius than the largest VW designed the car for (those fitted to the VR6) then you may have to modify the bodywork and/or restrict the lock on the steering rack.
In any case, if you lower the car you'll probably make the ride worse, so reducing the speed at which the car is stable on bumpy roads (e.g typical UK B-road).
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