There are a range of excellent reasons to invest in a lowering kit for your car besides the obvious visual appeal of a car that hugs the road.  Lowering your vehicle can improve the handling of your vehicle by lowering its centre of gravity.  Although lowering kits are the most commonly used for this purpose there are also other alternatives to improve a cars suspension.

Coilovers can be used to adjust the height of your vehicle without actually having to make any adjustments to your springs and is achieved by adjusting the threaded sleeve which covers your shocks.

Sway bars will introduce far more stability through the joining of your suspension and aftermarket sway bars reduce understeer and the chance of rolling your vehicle by means of a metal bar which is thicker in diameter than your stock variation.  Installing these devices means that you are now able to accelerate through a corner rather than having to break or roll through them.

When it comes to lowering kits, lowering spring will not only lower your vehicle to the road, but iwll also improve the handling to a point.  Beyond that point, you will experience additional complications, so knowing just how low to go is vital.  Taking corners is much easier in a vehicle where the centre of gravity has been lowered but you do need to consider that having less space to absorb bumps means that your ride may not be as smooth.

Making adjustments to the height of your car may also mean that you need to make adjustments to your tires.  When you lower your vehicle your tires tend to wear out on one side and by installing a camber kit, you can fix this problem.  It is important to remember that each adjustment you make to your car may result in additional adjustments having to be made to get the right balance, but the pleasure of working on your car and the end result is worth the time invested.

We´ve all seen cars that have been lowered and for many there is good reason to do this, besides the fact that it makes the car look more appealing and sporty.

The main reason that people would consider installing a lowering kit is to increase the amount of handling the car has, particularly around corners.  The reason for this is that the car is much lower to the ground and it´s center of gravity is more centered.  This means that when the car turns a corner it will sit more firmly on the road.

If you are planning on lowering your car for this reason, then it is important to consider that not all lowering it good for your vehicle and if you take it too far, you will find that the vehicles performance is actually hindered by the lowering and that it can damage the undercarriage of the vehicle when travelling over small bumps and driveways.  The ideal lowering level will depend on the make and model of your particular vehicle, but essentially you should be looking at no more than an inch to an inch and a half.

Not only can the undercarriage experience some bumping, but the turn of the wheel can also be hindered by it touching the lowered body of the vehicle.

Before lowering your vehicle check to see what the effect will be on other parts of your vehicle too including your OEM struts and shocks and where possible you should consider buying performance suspension parts to counteract any issues that you may face.  Coilovers are a great option in that they have a built in camber adjustments but they are a little more expensive than just purchasing individual struts, shocks and springs.

Some of the best to prevent lowering kits problems is to ensure that you start off using the very best products on the market.  When replacing factory springs its advisable to go for drop springs from makers that you recognize such as Hotchkis Performance, Global West Suspension, Eibach and others.  These companies spend large amount of money in researching and developing and know their stuff.

If you don’t have a lot of experience in installing lowering kits, then it may be time to bring in the professionals.  Compressed springs have a huge amount of stored energy which can make them very dangerous to take out.  They have been known to fly out of the chassis if not properly installed.  A professional probably won’t charge you more than fifty dollars to get the job done properly.

Another feature that is important to consider before purchasing your kit is the type of springs that you install.  A heavy-rate spring system is not always the answer as having too much spring rate can cause the tires to lose contact with the road and bouce too much while soft spring rate might cause the entire suspensio to continually bounce.  The best way to ensure you are getting the right spring rate is to buy a kit that includes them.

Knowing the lingo is going to help a lot, so here are the three things you’ll want to ensure you understand each of the terms and know how they relate to each other.

1.  Spring Rate:-  Often rated in pounds per inch which represents the amount of fore required to compress the coil spring by one inch.

2.  Spring Load:-  The amount of weight that a coil spring can support at any given compressed height.

3.  Sprig Sag:-  This happens over time and will eventually drop a cars ride height even lower.

While lowering and lifting your car or truck suspension will definately improve the overall look.  Making use of coil springs or air suspensions sytems, you can lower the ride height of your vehicle and by adding shocks and sway bars, you’ll be able to enhance the control and performance of your vehicle.

Dropping or lowering your trucks suspension requires one of three different approaches:-

1.  Using coil springs to drop the front suspension is the simplest method.

2.  You can use spindles or a-arms to lower the factory ride height.

3.  Finally, you could introduce air suspension into the truck suspension.

When choosing the type of lowering kit, you will want to ensure that you take your particular truck model into consideration.