So I'm renting a house with two friends, who both have become smitten by the whole "stance/hella flush/superslammedscrapeovercaterpillarslow" scene and have built there cars accordingly. One has been driving a mkIII golf millimeters from the ground for years now, and is so low he can't take his girl to certain places for dinner, and often plans his weekend fun on whether or not someone else is driving. The other recently slammed his loaded Forester, and we had to cut out the inner fenders just so it would move. Both drive these cars daily, both have broken axle shafts in the past, and after riding in both its amazing how bad each car bottoms out and scrapes over invisibly small imperfections in the road.

Is there a right way to go about these things and still maintain a drive-able car? I agree that the cars look great with proper fitment and the low ride etc, and I even wound my coilovers down to see how the RX-7 would look so low. I drove up and down the driveway and immediately pulled back into the garage to wind the coils back up, if it doesn't handle and risks tearing up fenders I'm just not interested. After grinning ear to ear from a spirited backroad drive in the fb, I can't imagine it being as much fun to drive a car that sits so low. To each his own, and I still entertain the idea of a VIP style Cressida or similarly boxy ride just for fun, but I can't imagine driving such a vehicle could be all that exciting.. am I wrong? Perhaps I'm just too old for my own generation, I think dubstep sounds like Optimus Prime having a seizure..

I can't stand dubstep but I do love a stanced car that is built properly. In addition to the RX7 I have a stanced Miata. It's got more skidplates than a Jeep, rolled fenders, and a good setup on the coilovers that makes it feel like you're practically riding on a cloud right up until you hit that expansion joint going 50. If I want to tear up backroads I take the RX7; if I want to drive around town looking cool I drive the Miata. I couldn't handle having a car that low as my only car...

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-Cam
1980 Toyota Celica
1984 Porsche 911
1988 Mazda RX7

So it can be done without ruining the car? I love the way they look it would just be nice to have a stanced car that also handled like a boss...

Yes, but ir's MUCH easier on an older RWD Japanese car than on a modern FWD car.

The key is being that low and still having suspension travel, which they do not.

Also air ride. Drive around with it up, park it with it down. If I were wanting this look for a modern FWD car, that's what I'd do.

You can only see it when it's parked anyway.

When I read/hear the word stance I think of ghetto or trailer park kids. Its just that around here every "stanced" car is a honda with some kind of a system that costs more than their car inside driving around at 5000/6000rpm but only going 30mph down my block and in my apartment complex.

Not really inline with the "stance" thing, but the Riverside wagon is about as low as it gets, but I'm fairly sure it gets driven around with bigger tyres for any reasonable distance.

http://gx61.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/img_0584.jpg

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The kei
The Celica

Airbags are the way to go. I've owned an '89 Toyota Crown import, although standard bags suck balls you could do just that. Drive around normal but dump the shit out of it parked Any after market kits will ride really well, but they do get bumpy when aired out completely. Function should come before form, not the other way like stated on Stance:Nation's blog

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I hate the non functional crap with the wheels turned sideways, you are supposed to roll on the tread not the sidewall, at least they can't get much speed out of them or they would kill someone. I need to jack up my car to roll over a speed bump but it's HELLA FLUSH! it will die like the fast and furious look is doing and the other stupid fads, it eventually comes back to real drivable cars

I daily mine

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-Cam
1980 Toyota Celica
1984 Porsche 911
1988 Mazda RX7

Cam - We want pictures! Here is a recent video of my friend's aforementioned Forester..

http://vimeo.com/48779469

I wonder where you got that song from lol.... , but it flowed better with the other car. Some of my friends want me to slam the wagon, I'll lower it but I just can't bring myself to slam it. The aforementioned reasons above are exactly why I won't slam it, I prefer to be able to drive my cars where ever I want, when I want, and not be concerned about speed bumps lol. Some cars, mostly J-tin and euro cars can pull it off smoothly, but most modern cars to me just look like poop .

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91 Galant VR4 1350/2000
76 Colt Galant Coupe
75 Colt Galant Wagon
77 Colt Galant Wagon

This might be a dumb question but back in the 80's did guys just cut their springs? Was there any aftermarket applications available to lower cars?

Yep, we cut 'em. Some people didn't even bother taking the springs out first but that was just silly. Also a gas torch to warm the springs and then a few mates sat on the car would do it too.
Things like this weren't dangerous in the 80's, along with smoking, drinking and just about everything else fun.

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I don't mind, I just want to know why.

People still do all that crazy stuff now.

And plenty of people back in the 80s did it the "right" way.

These type of coilovers have been around for many decades.




And lowering/performance springs have been around for the more popular chassis since the early 70s.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8008/7484 ... 0a50_k.jpg (bigger)


I rode across the state of Michigan and back one day this summer in this. Wasn't bad at all- I fell asleep a few times. It did definitely scrape... a lot... and even on nearly flat pavement dips in the ground would scrape. But it wasn't that bad. Going over curbs and bumps was weird, if done slowly you could feel it move over top the bump through your ass. I believe it was lowered by extending the strut tops, and it still rode stock struts and cut springs somehow. And he drove it everywhere as his daily transportation like this for about a year- delivered Jimmy Johns in it most of that time too.

Tyler (Sven7 on here) also has a pretty damn low Rabbit convertible that he daily'd a bunch before he bought his Probe to keep the Rabbit out of the snow.



It never scraped when I rode in it (he maintains it's never scraped at all anywhere), and the ride was pretty good. It's not really hellaflush/stanced though, I suppose.


Either way, I suppose it depends how you go about it, and your personal tolerance level. I've wanted to do it to my Escort for a solid year or so, even have wheels for it... I just can't bring myself to do it until I have other tranport. The car is too useful as it is and I hate to lose that. But Tyler photoshopped it anyhow:



The rake makes it though. Would need rake.

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I shouldn't forget this though-

Same guy who built the Civic built this '81 Aries too. This one wasn't even as low as the Civic, but it's caused a lot of problems for it's many owners in the past year. It's got the 2.6 Mitsu motor and an automatic... pans for both hang very, very low. And scrape EVERYTHING. Even with people welding skidplates on both, it has smashed many, many trans pans and oil pans. It's been several people's daily transportation, a friend's brother was carjacked while driving it (and the carjacker got about 2 miles before smashing the trans pan and dumping the car), etc. It's lead a hard life in the past two years for what was a creampuff western car.

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I kinda dig that Aries...

Also, hopefully Cam doesn't mind me sharing, this was his slammed Miata- I believe he sold it to fund his Celica project.

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It is/was really damn cool. I came very close to buying it myself a few times, haha. It doesn't look that low in the picture, but the trans pan was less than an inch from the ground like that.

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