Have Questions about lowering car
 

I've searched and read that many owners buy panhard bar, rear strut bar, motion plates, and lowering springs to lower their car. Is it neccessary to install all that when wanting to lower your car?? becuase i looked and its going to cost me about 1500

RE: Have Questions about lowering car
 

It all depends on what you plan on using your car for and how far you drop it. If you want to just cruise it on the road, or maybe the super occasional trip to the track or something and you don't mind not being on the razors edge of having every single bit of suspension geometry right... then no, no issues just dropping the car.Also, as told to me by a Ford Tech that I trust, the way the suspension is set up, most drops won't have an effect on the handling where most drivers use the car. That is to say the effects will be so small that the average driver won't ever push the car to where it would be noticed. The other thing to look at is how far are you dropping the car? An inch or inch and a half should be within the realm of the suspension to compensate somewhat on it's own. More than that is where I would start looking for other pieces to start correcting things.

Also, I think you may be a bit confused on what some of these parts do...
panhard bar: Will help re-center your rear axle after lowering it. Depending on how much of a drop, your axle may not even be that far off. I dropped my rear an inch and my axle is only 1/8" of an inch out of center now.

rear strut bar: More correctly called a rear shock tower bar... All this does is tie the tops of the chocks in the rear together to help maintain proper geometry in hard turns. Improves cornering and lessens understeer. Not needed at all in lowering a car.

motion plates: Umm... I am assuming your talking about Charge Motion Control Plates... These are in the engine, and have nothing to do with suspension... thus not needed to drop a car.

The big pieces most guys will suggest when lowering a car are simply: the springs, Adjustable Rear Lower (or upper) Control Arms(to adjust pinion angle), A Panhard Rod (Tpo recenter the axle), and MAYBE some new shocks, depending on how low you put it. Without the shocks, your looking at maybe $600 if you install them yourself.

RE: Have Questions about lowering car
 

from my experience you may want to consider strut mounts. My stock ones failed pretty soon after I lowered my car, and the camber was way off. Strut mounts take care of both of these problems.

RE: Have Questions about lowering car
 

Adding a bit more to the above advice:

- Dropping the car up to 1.5 inches you won't *need* anything else for the rear. The car will work just fine for most applications.
- As mentioned, lowering the car will cause the rear axle to move off center to the left slightly. This probably will not be a problem but it depends, for example - if you have wide tires it may be noticeable, the left rear may be closer to the left fender than the right. At any rate, you can drop the car first and add the PH bar later if you want.
- Pinion Angle - your stock drive shaft is two-piece and will work fine with a lowered car. You really don't *need* LCAs or UCA just to lower the car. Again you can wait on these parts
- I've never heard of a *rear* strut bar, are you thinking maybe a front strut brace? If so...its not needed.
- The front is a little bit different story. Lowering the car will cause the car to have negative camber on the front, i.e. the tops of the front tires will lean in towards the motor. This has pros and cons - some amount of negative camber can make the car handle better (this is something racers commonly do) but it comes at a cost of tire wear, the insides of the front tires will wear quicker. You have three solutions to this: 1) camber bolts (cheapest) - these are special bolts that connect the front struts to the spindle and allow adjustment of camber. 2) camber adjusting plates (http://www.steeda.com/products/steed..._adjusters.php) these give you lots of range of adjustment but require slight modification to your struts and are difficult to adjust (good for set it and leave it) 3) adjustable upper strut mounts (http://www.steeda.com/products/heavy...nts_street.php) - expensive but IMO best option. Replace the stock strut mounts (which are plastic) with heavy duty ones (the stock upper strut mounts have had numerous complaints about noises - pops).
- Adding lowering springs will by nature tend to be a bit more stiff (smaller spring needs to be stiffer to prevent bottoming out). Your stock struts and shocks were not designed for this. Some springs like the Eibach Pro are real stiff and will overpower the stock dampers. Again, depending on your useage this may or may not be a problem but it will wear out the stock units quicker. You don't *need* new dampers right away but in time you probably will.
- Finally - add the cost of alignment into your equation - when lowering the car you should have the front end aligned, ~$60-90

RE: Have Questions about lowering car
 

If your looking for good results and dont wanna break the bank id at least do shocks and strutswith the springs, then get a 4 wheel alignment. Then after you get some dough you can do the sway bars,LCAS,pnahrd bar etc..