My car is lowered .75 inches and I still rub with a conservative wheel setup
 

Hello s2ki,

As the title states, I am rubbing on only the passenger side front fender even though my car is lowered only .75 inches on Ohlins DFV coilovers (serious, only .75 inches lower than stock). I hear a noticeable rubbing sound when making an almost full lock left turn from the passenger side front fender, and the rubbing sound is also noticeable whenever I make a left turn during spirited drives. I also hear it under heavy braking. This happened after a rock hit one of my suspension components, and then escaped the car while hitting my fender lip outwards in the process (hence why I rolled the affected fender).

My wheel setup is 17x8 +54 on the front and 17x9 +63 on the rear (not a typo). My tire setup is Bridgestone S04 Pole Positions 225/45/17 Front and 255/40/17 Rear.

My alignment specs are -2.1 degrees front camber, -2.4 rear camber, 6.0 degrees caster, -0.01 degrees toe.

My car is only .75 inches lower than stock. I measured it by using a caliper measuring from the height adjuster knob to the spring preload adjuster, as stated by the Ohlins DFV manual.

The only modified suspension component is the Ohlins DFV coilovers. Everything else is OEM.

Here is what I've done to the passenger side front fender (only side rubbing): Rolled the fenders, removed the fender liner (will put a new one back on and trim it), adjusted the preload to the specs stated by the Ohlins DFV owners manual, raised my car from 25mm (1 inch) lower than stock to .75 inches lower than stock, increased negative front camber from -1.7 degrees to -2.1 degrees. Still hear that annoying rubbing sound. What baffles me is that the drivers' side front fender still has unrolled fenders and fender liner still intact and it did not make any noise at all even when spirited driving.

The only thing I can think of is to check if every suspension component is in decent shape and if every bolt in the suspension system is tight, but I think all of them are in decent shape, hence why I am confused. But, I am going to try to take a closer look to see if any of them are not in decent shape. Any parts I should take a harder look at?

Thanks for reading, and hopefully we can come up with a solution to remedy my fender rubbing problem.

Edit: The reason why I posted this is because all of the fender rubbing problems I found on Google comes from S2000s being too low, which definitely shouldn't be the case with my S2000. My S2000 is far from being "stancenation" (God I hate stanced S2000s).

Was the car in an accident in its history? Maybe its the fender itself that is off alignment rather then the suspension? Looking at the front of the car flat on the ground with wheels totally strait, how does that side look compared to the other side, is there a noticeable difference in where the wheel sit/protrusion/gap relative to the fender between both sides, even though the alignment spec is the same?

You can remove the spring on the offending corner and then use a jack to compress the suspension and check for interference. This way you can learn where it's rubbing.

^^ adjust for compression & droop for offending

The car has not been in an accident according to the car's history. But, the front bumper has been replaced before (no VIN tag) and the car might be damaged before (front license plate is damaged before I took it off). The fenders looks like they have been resprayed before, but they still have the VIN tag.

Both sides have equal 3 finger gap.

The rubbing incident only happened after a lone rock hit my car, which is months after the coilovers has been installed.

Edit: I only checked for equal finger gap. Do you also mean to also check if both sides of front camber looks the same?

Check interference as in using a jack to compress the suspension, then putting the wheel back on to see where it is rubbing?

Adjust for compression & droop for offending as in measuring vertical movement of the offending corner's coilover? If so, how to do that? Checking the position of the bump stop? If this is related, I already checked the preload of my suspension and it is at 2 mm I believe.

With the car on jack stands, put the wheel on, then compress the springless suspension up to the bump stop using a jack on the lower control arm. Turn the steering wheel lock to lock and check for interference.

Got it. Thanks. I'll definitely look into that

Does the Ohlins have a damping setting?