Lowered S2k
 

Hey all, so I've seen many people stance their S pretty damn low.
So I bought a cheap coilover from a guy here and lowered my AP1 a couple inches front and back (F 13k/R 13k, stock AP1 wheels).

Looked cool so I took it for a drive. Drove it over small speedbumps, nothing. Drove it through a slightly banked corner with low-med speed, metal-asphalt grinding noise came up. Apparently the metal piece under the side skirt is the one that's making the noise.

I don't understand this, many people lower their S much lower than I do.
Is there a trick to eliminate/roll the long metal piece? I doubt this just because there are 2 jack points for each sides.

A picture might represents a thousand words.

http://i59.tinypic.com/12197v8.jpg

Any helps/input would be appreciated

Something else must be wrong with the car. For that to scrape the ground you must be leaning hard on one side for the bottom of that to scrape the ground. Are you sure that is what is scraping?

Yeah, I've never heard of that...Could it have been that particular corner? Check on another corner and see if the problem persists. Might be worthwhile to take the corner slow so you can isolate where the scrape is occuring.

Sorry to hear that, but I agree with the general population in that I do not believe that is what you are scraping. Have a GoPro?

So you installed some "cheap" coilovers and now you're rubbing on the ground when cornering? Sounds like you might've already found the answer to your problem
...

Try raising your car and see if the problem goes away.

Lol. So you want to get rid of the pinch welds? There is no way that is what is rubbing. The rubbing you are hearing is possibly a few different things. The first and most likely is the plastic piece right before the front wheels. This is one of if not the lowest part of the car and rubs pretty easily when lowered. If that's not it then your tire could be rubbing the fender liner when you are turning hard. Basically both of these would be happening long before you would hear the area you marked would be rubbing in a turn.

This thread has given me cancer. :thumbdn:

Thanks for the input guys.

Yeah I'm sure that's the piece that's scraping, I think I even bent the jack point a bit. I'll try to post a pic when I get home.
I don't think the problem persist because of the cheap coilover as I made them to sit balanced between left and right.

Describe what "metal-asphalt rubbing noise" sounds like.

Maybe I should change my wording from rubbing to grinding.

Again this means you are bottoming out the car which means all the things I listed are also hitting. You really that's basically the chassis? It is not ok to alter it at all. Something else is rubbing grinding or whatever you want to call it.

You probably hit a rock and drug it.. or a leaf.

here's a picture of the front right "pinch welds"

http://i59.tinypic.com/ru2p35.jpg
yes it's dirty b/c it rained yesterday

you can see that it has been slightly bent inward.
it happens almost all the time when I turned to the right

I was just curious if anyone would really get rid of the pinch welds just to lower their car even more, what made me think of it is because my there's still 1.5" more to lower my car; I wouldn't do that, of course.
To me it is the lowest part of my car so,
Time to raise my car a bit more :angel:

If you are seriously considering removing the pinch welds so you can lower your car further, please just park the car, hand the keys to an adult, and walk away.


I really hope this is just a giant, eloquent troll.

Are you sure the bend was not caused by a floor jack?

Jack up the rear tire under the A-arm, compress the shock completely and see if the bottom of the tire is higher then the weld.

I highly doubt it but I would think the above procedure would rule it out.

At your own risk of course.

if your front right pinch welds rub when you turn RIGHT, then you have a serious problem because all your weight should be shifting to the left side... :ponder:

Agreed and that picture does not look like it was recent. If it was there would be some shiny bare metal showing. Is there some odd contour to the road like maybe your drivers side wheels were in a gutter or something? The only way I could even see this happening is a speed bump or the left side of the car is lower and because of that it could maybe rub but that's a very specific set of things to have that happen and it wouldn't happen everywhere.

Again, I don't know what caused this. But the better option is to raise the car more since there was no grinding sound when it's sitting high.

Would it be better to leave the pinch weld like that or should I return it to they way it was before? You know, hitting it with hammer or some sort.

I'm afraid when I jack it up it will just bend even more :surprised:

That isn't the jack up point. for the fronts, there are two per side that look like jack points and you should be using the rearward of the two.

You can leave it or bend it back, up to you. Won't matter at all for functionality, safety, structure, etc.

Do you understand what a pinch weld is and what it does?

It is part of the STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY of the car, getting rid of it (which bring up another question of how the hell you plan on doing this) will basically ruin the car. If you are too moronic to realize this just because you want to have a "slammed" car with shit suspension, please do us all a favour and sell you car.

The front part that you already f@#ked up is part of the fender, not the pinch weld.

EDIT: I just saw your response Chris, my reply is not directed to you in any way, haha.

Could be your mufflers bottoming out. Either way, raise the car like a grownup

Yea I did not plan to remove it, I was just wondering whether people would do that just to slam their car. Because I've seen people slam their S, so that made me wonder what they do to their pinch weld? My car does not sit as low as theirs, yet I still bent mine. :scratch:

Beyoncé singing.

Grinding on that wood grain?

You gonna need a BFH to bend that back.

I'm hoping this is a roll bread.

any updates on the pinch weld situation?

he trimmed and relocated them just like the Bumper tab / relo DIY stated :tipwink:

Did you take into account the weight of the car on one side when lowering the car? The driver side has more weight on its side than the passenger side. Steering rack, the driver ect. Therefore you can't just lower all four corners equally or the driver side will lean more than the passenger side. Understand?

Nevermind, since I raised my car a bit there was no problem at all.
Thanks for the input though

That's 100% for sure not what's scraping. Idk if you're trolling or not. You're likely rubbing tire against fender liner tabs.

Your pinch weld for sure does not look like its been dragged. A piece of metal that gets dragged on the road with a 2800lb car on top of it doesn't just slightly get bent in.

It's not your issue. If that scraped, the sound you'd describe is "the world sounded like it was ending", not "scraping/grinding".

Your car is low enough that it scrapes. Your mission is accomplished.