Re: lowering...in response to mgkepner's serman

["Melissa & Jim" <jadney@vwtype3.org>]

I think John understands my point of view pretty well, and I thank 
him for his note.

On 14 Dec 97, John M. Kowalski wrote:

> Jim is as passionate as anyone else on this list.  His passion is seeing the
> VW engineering artwork remain as it was designed.  Others are passionate in
> expressing their individuality by customizing their cars.  

Part of my objection, which I have NOT managed to express well is 
that I see very little creativity or individuality in doing the same 
thing to my car that others have also done.  I realize that many of 
these mods are done in this spirit, but it really does not stand up 
to any kind of scrutiny since it has all been done before by someone 
else.  Note that I do not attempt to justify staying stock as an 
expression of MY individuality.

The other objection that I have heard is that I gave no real reasons 
NOT to lower.  This is fair and I should answer it a bit.  I have 
mentioned these in some private correspondences, but I realize that's 
not enough.

When you lower your car you change the geometry between many parts of 
the suspension.  One ot these is is the relation of the steering 
gearbox to the steering knuckle control arms, so the tie rods now run 
uphill to the wheels.  This means that if one wheel hits a bump and 
is pushed up it also tends to turn out.  This gives rise to the term 
"bump steer" and it is also important in the handling of the car in 
corners since the outer wheel is pushed up and the inner wheel drops 
when cornering.  Consider what the bump steer does then.  The cure 
for this is to move the steering gear up also, but this is so 
difficult that no one does it on street cars that I know of.

It's also important to understand what camber steer is and how it 
determines the proper toe-in.  This is a very important consideration 
in lowering the rear of a swing axle car where the change in camber 
requires a different toe-in to get proper handling and road holding.

There's much more, and I'm not even an expert in this area.  The 
point that I hope to make is that it is not at all clear that simple
lowering improves performance.  I suspect that two T3s, one stock and 
one simply lowered, with the same engine and same tires will corner 
about the same, with the lowering of the center of gravity in the 
lowered car offset by the undealt-with consequences of the simple 
lowering.

There are many consequences to lowering.  Some of them can be dealt 
with and managed, some of them lead to insurmountable difficulties.  
While there have been many posts on the topic of lowering, I have not 
seen ONE that mentioned a single one of these problems or their 
solutions.  The problems with tire clearance are real, but pretty 
easily dealt with.  I would be lots more comfortable with this issue 
if I thought people where going into it with a rather complete 
measure of understanding, but so far that does not seem to be the 
case.

I would be very pleased to see some of the lowering advocates start a 
thread on this subject and start to develop a consistent package of 
well engineered modifications that would deal with the whole 
handling problem, but in the meantime, I'll stay stock.

Jim
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       Melissa Kepner                                    Jim Adney
                             Laura Kepner-Adney
                         jadney@vwtype3.org      
                             Madison, Wisconsin
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