I just did a search through all of Pennock's on rear struts and what people are doing for lowering their cars down and couple inches. One of the key methods is to either cut a coil or use coilovers on the stock struts and then lower the perch placement to get the couple inches. As Bloozeberry proved out very well in his thread, when lowering and extending the rear, your suspension geometry changes and you never start at the oem designed location. You also get and increased risk of bottoming out the struts with lowered suspension. The standard or regularly used options don't address the full issue in play in my opinion, just lowers the car the desired amount

Options I can think of:

1. Shorter struts with moved pivot points
a. Does anyone know of any shorter struts that would work with the Fiero hub and maybe minor mods to the strut tower that will give the 1-2" lowering?
b. Move control arm pivot mounts on cradle up same distance
2. Oem strut with a a lowering flange attached to the hub mounts to lower the strut/hub mounting location down the desired amount.
a. Move control arm pivot mounts on cradle up same distance
3. Rebuilding the rear suspension in the same manner as Bloozeberry has detailed in his thread

That's all I have. Any other ideas?

Thanks
Don

Damn Don, when I read the thread title, I thought you had made a break through and wanted to share your findings

But you are right on all your points. Its not a simple fix to achieve the stance we all require.

You can flip the top strut plates upside-down to get some more travel out of the strut. But I think then you'll run into clearance issues with the decklid.

Also, Fieroguru makes brackets for the '88 rear suspension that drop the outer ends of the lateral arms, to restore suspension geometry after lowering. But AFAIK, there is no such thing for the '84-87 rear suspension. It would be nice if there were longer ball-joints available, like the ones Rodney Dickman uses for the front suspension.

I combined a coil-over conversion with 88 strut tower adapters to let me run wider rear wheels. I have no complaints... As for geometry, I'm running the rear bump-steer correction control arms from Held/West Shore/Aurrat... Works for me.

Thanks guys;

I saw that thread about the strut plates. I didn't read through the full thread though as there was lots of back and forth. I think moving the strut mount higher through the strut tower is valid as long as clearance is not impacted. That option won't work for Yarmouth though as he has VERY LITTLE room on top of the strut tower under the 355 rear clip unless he moves the strut top out as I did on my build. There is more room in that area under the clip than where the oem Fiero struts are mounted.

Keep the discussion going.

Cheers
Don

It's possible that with the right combination of off-the-shelf components one might be able to cobble up a new design that achieved a lowered stance with only a moderate number of modifications to the cradle. After all, that's pretty much what Pontiac did! For example, Bubbajoe's thread might be worth a closer look: www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum3/HTML/000007.html I don't know if he achieved any lowering or was able to benefit from different geometry, but he used existing suspension components from a later model Corvette and grafted them onto a custom cradle.

To improve strut travel in compression, there are several options:
**Flip the upper hat- may have clearance issues on notchies.
**Try an early 90's dust buster minivan (transport/apv). Their struts are listed as being shorter... but haven't confirmed they are. The mookey (sp?) Ebay guy was selling shorter and stiffer and I think they were from this application.
**Raise the top of the strut tower (done on some GT40 kits)
**Lowering the stut/upright attachment might work as well, but clearance to the CV will be tight.

To correct the geometry when lowering:
**Raise the inboard pivots or just raise the whole cradle. 84-87 really need it tilted to reduce the pro-squat anyway.
**On 88's use my lateral link relocation kit.
**Lowering ball joints won't work - geometry is based on the suspension pivots and lowering ball joints raise the pivot and you want it to be lower.
**Do something completely custom

[This message has been edited by fieroguru (edited 07-23-2014).]

What are the negative effects of dropping the lower end of the strut down on the spindle with a custom adapter to gain a little strut length.

[This message has been edited by Yarmouth Fiero (edited 07-22-2014).]

It seems like the further away from pivot center line the strut rod is the more wear it will experience, could bend or break from a bad pothole too. That's my only thought on it.

keeping good geometry is a tuffy. but i can't see the need for average driving use. If doing some serious track time its worth the effort but everyday driving?
I just redid my rear with koni struts, coilovers kit and eibach springs. Gotta say she drives like a dream. i flipped my top strut mounts to gain a little travel and ended up welding a ring on them to keep my springs centered. though be warned even with a gt you run into some clearance issues with flipping the mount. the top of the strut's adjusters are just shy of poking through my back vents. still waiting for the springs to settle before i start lowering her down

n/m

[This message has been edited by fierosound (edited 07-24-2014).]