Its Chey

I have an 04 A/T . There is a difference of 3/4 of an inch from floor to the top of the wheel arch in the rear. I did a search and couldn't find anything about it. Is there something I can do? I always allow 3/16 to 1/4 for sheet metal tooling and such but, 3/4 is too much.

swoope

iTrader: (5)

the floor of what to the top of the wheel arch?

have no idea what your are talking about? photo?

beers

DOMINION

Back when I had my 2004 WB AT (R.I.P.) my friend installed some tanabe gf210 springs. About a month after I was washing my 8 seen the samething. Its norm on all 8's that dont have coilovers. My friend that installed my springs looked at his car a 2005 MT and it was the same. He too has lowering springs. How ever my other friend with coilovers on his 8 was not like ours.
Odd yea.

Its Chey

Dominion cleared it up Swoope but, to be more detailed........ When my car is parked in a garage on leverl ground, there is more wheel gap on the right rear than left rear. If you measure from the garage floor to the top of the wheel arch on both sides, there is a 3/4 on an inch difference. Its plucking my nerves and not helping that there is nothing I can do to correct it at the moment.

swoope

iTrader: (5)

ah,

that is a bit much the way to do it correct is to measure the frame rails below the car..

but really 3/4 " is very unusual.. i would look for a leaking shock on that corner..

beers

Its Chey

I looked for anything that could have been wrong or just plain not right but, found nothing. I'll try to get more in depth with it to just make sure there are no hidden problems.

teknics

the exact test is from the middle of the wheel center cap to the point of the wheel arch directly above. Spec is 14.5" in the rear IIRC. with allowance's of i believe .5"+/-

I've seen it on a few cars, inexplicably new shocks seem to fix the problem even tho in reality shocks shouldnt have an effect on ride height. Also you may not always find a visible leak but it could still be bad.

if you go to a dealer and they say its normal go and compare to a new car.

kevin.

Razz1

You may think the garage floor is level but it isn't.

It has a slant to drain water by 1/4 of an inch.

Best way to check it is on, from lift to frame. That measures the frame height.

you can measure the shock and coil height using the other metod.

I believe you have a bad spring or shock.

DOMINION

Telling you guys its all good. If the shock is blow it will make odd sounds and what have you. I know I had one go out on the at I use to have. But like I said; all my friends 8's are like this but the guy with coilovers lol odd yea?

teknics

I've replaced bad shocks/struts on cars where the owners never had any idea it was blown....i fix stuff on cars all the time that people have no ideas about.

As for your friend with the coilovers, of course his will be level...he sets the height himself.

a "tipping corner" is not a design strategy mazda employed for designing a car that in stock form can tackle a road course pretty nicely, it would make cornering somewhat loose. Nevermind the fact that there is a spec for what the rear height should be and they specify the tolerances, which off the top of my head aren't more then a 1/2". 1/2" is somewhat hard to narrow down on a mass produced vehicle due to slight differences in every spring made etc. The spec IIRC is with the car parked on a level surface measure from center of wheel to lip of fender - 14.5" that's to check for excess suspension "droop" or a jacked up suspension, to align an rx8 on the Hunter Alignment Machines they make you insert that measurement before aligning the vehicle, which is something you do for no other common vehicle.

All your friends 8's have an inherent problem that should be fixed if out of spec, just cause something is common doesnt mean its normal.

kevin.

DOMINION

Its normal

teknics

if you knew how to drive it'd effect you enough to notice it's abnormal.



kevin.