lowering in the rear and shock lenght

[gstuning]

now shocks have diffrent lengt rods,

If we think about it, stock springs extend the shock fully when the shock is bolted to the trailing arm, lowering springs do as well,

So how do they lower the car?
My assumption is that when the car is dropped again the lowering springs actually have alot more low stiffnes zone to allow the car to sit lower then before, this is in junction with stock shocks, or the oem springs are simply so long that when installed they are in a specific stiffnes zone where they hold up the car more,

Now if you would put in oem springs and lowering shocks, the car should lower as the max extended lenght of the shocks has shortened??

I was installing coilovers in the back on a E30 last night and noticed the car has Spax shocks with adjustable stiffnes, also the trailing arm had to be pushed up alot more then usuall when attaching the shock again,

the car has "6 springs and at least 2cm travel left and it looks like a 40mm drop at least, it´s got 215/40-16 tires and the distance from ground to fender is "23 ..


I installed similar springs on a stock shock the other day and lowered it completely and it wasn´t this low,

Are we to assume it´s because of the shock length?
Also since these are linear springs compressed, lowering the adjuster on the sleeve in the back shouldn´t even do anything really??

[Mossman]

shocks have nothing to do with ride height, nothing at all. The body sits on the springs and the springs sit on the trailing arm. If you don't believe me unbolt your shocks and lower the car, it'll sit at the same height

Here...take off stock shocks and put on Bilstein sports and the like with shortened shafts, and at rest the same amount of shock rod will be visible (between where it goes into the body of the shock and the top), however you can compress the suspension more with the shorter shafts before the shaft bottoms out inside the shock body.

Hope that made a little sense.

The only time the shock makes a difference on where the wheel is in the wheelwell is when the car is jacked up and the wheel is hanging