47-59 How low can you go

[MD2020]

How low can you go on any car/truck?? NO AIR RIDE
speed bumps and driveways

[mr48chev]

Legally you can't be below the scrub line. Meaning as a state patrolman told me, "I don't care if you have 20 inch wheels and rubber band tires as long as nothing touches the road when you have four flat tires and I can push it off the road". That won't keep you from getting hung up on driveway entrances and speed bumps but is legal.

The front end of my 48 was actually this low with the camaro subframe under it. Here with my aunt at a family reunion at my house. I was quasai legal with 14 inch wheels on the front but would have been legal with 15 inch wheels .

[joedoh]

i was just getting these pics ready for a sunday throwback, this was 2" spindles 3" coils, 5" leafs and 2" blocks. it was so low on crowned roads the front bumper would scrape. last pic is raised up 2" front and rear, it looked great on the ground but was almost undriveable.

[leegreen]

In N/A I think the standard max for speed bumps is 3.5" but my son's Camaro with a low point of about 4.5 between the wheels scrapes on most if you don't slow to a crawl

[mr48chev]

Roads for sure have a lot to do with how low you can comfortbly be. I got hung up on a grocery store driveway in Bonteful Utah and in that town stock height might be low for some rigs.
I broke my oil pan on my T bucket on a speed bump in Texas. The 48 wasn't that low when I lived there though.

Hete in the PNW potholes are real along with the speed bumps. My own driveway is probably the thing that says how low I can go as my grandfather just laid a layer of gravel over the dirt path and never actually had a proper driveway built with a solid base of heavier crushed rock. It keeps the riff raff out though.

[dsraven]

how low you can go is also determined by how long your vehicle is. I would say the height of the average speed bump is about 4 inches and some goofs have them at 6 inches. some are also fairly long.
I would grab a short piece of 2x6 lumber, a bleach jug or something that is close to 6 inches tall, stand it on the skinny side (if youre using the 2x6)or the 6 inch tall side, whatever, and see if you can drive over it slowly without it bumping on anything. if it (the 2x6) gets bumped over then your vehicle is low enough to drag on some of those goofy bumps. if you aren't to the driving stage yet then simply get the vehicle down on the rubber, attach a rope or something to the block so you can drag it along and slide it across under the lowest part of the vehicle and/or the midpoint between the wheels as that is the high centre point to watch out for.
how low do you wanna go?
another thing to watch for is that the body parts along the middle area are slightly taller than the frame, or fab up some frame sliders, so if you bottom it is the frame that drags and not the body. I did a frame swap and made sure the body is at or above te frame rails just to be sure. rocker panels bend easy, usually.

[dsraven]

I also have a steep concrete driveway into the attached garage where I would park on the driveway. that is another go-no go gauge.
my brother in laws corvette has sliders or rub blocks so they hit before the body. it sounds terrible when they hit but then the next time you look a little better at the bumps.
we have a shopping area nearby where the "engineer" designed speed bumps so big a stock vehicle, like a common Honda Civic, would rub the rockers. they had so many complaints that some bumps were shaved down and some removed completely. sometimes the snow plow/grader also does us a solid. lol.

[MD2020]

Thanks for the info.

[MD2020]

Originally Posted by joedoh

i was just getting these pics ready for a sunday throwback, this was 2" spindles 3" coils, 5" leafs and 2" blocks. it was so low on crowned roads the front bumper would scrape. last pic is raised up 2" front and rear, it looked great on the ground but was almost undriveable.

Will you measure from the bottom of the running board to the ground for me??

Thanks

[joedoh]

Originally Posted by MD2020

Will you measure from the bottom of the running board to the ground for me??

Thanks

i sold that truck in 2015 but it was 3" the bumper was less than 2!

[MD2020]

OK thanks

[joedoh]

i have done a bunch and 5" running board is a lot more comfortable

[mongocanfly]

I was thinking what Russ just said, past discussions on here seems to point toward that 5-6" range as being most ideal

[vintovka]

So no one reports about damage from road debris like rocks, tree limbs and other stuff??

[joedoh]

Originally Posted by vintovka

So no one reports about damage from road debris like rocks, tree limbs and other stuff??

I never get the chance to tell this story and i cant resist with such a perfect setup.

i was on my way to my friends dads place in the country for a 4th of july party in my hooper nissan. it had hydraulics on the front and was before I added accumulators so it rode best with no lift, the torsions were turned up just slightly and kept the truck just skipping 1-2" over the pavement.

I had only been there once before, so i was a little unsure on the turn coming up. there was an s10 blazer in front of me doing 10 under the limit but I knew if I passed him I would notice the turn halfway through the pass and have to turn around. I just stayed there for now and tried to press his accelerator with my mind.

while i was concentrating, the blazer now only about 30 ft in front of me, did a lazy little avoidance maneuver, just a little half a juke, and from under his yards of ground clearance passed the biggest, deadest, bloatedest racoon i had ever seen. like I said it was july 4th, so he had been cooking a few days on the road, one arm raised straight up in protest of death.

I didnt even have time to swear, let alone reach down to the center console where the hydraulic switches were. rocky hit the front bumper at 50mph and the truck jumped. banging and thumping ensued as he rolled around under the front suspension, knocking and rattling. a full 5 seconds of it before i hit the switches to raise the front suspension, whereupon he got caught up somewhere in the middle of the truck a while before spitting out the back, scalped by the roll pan and looking nothing like a raccoon any longer.

whoops there is the turn! a half mile on dirt and into the drive, I parked well away from the party and my friend ran out to tell me to come further into the driveway. and stopped. the smell had reached him and he started to retch, waving me to back up even further.

I spent about 40 dollars at the jet wash the next day and left carnage in the drain that would scar a combat vet.

other than that Vin, i have driven impossibly low vehicles for 30+ years and never had a problem

[vintovka]

Lost track of road debris issues. 3 stick out.

83 Nissan Maxima diesel. Vise flew off service truck. No way to avoid. Took out steering , damaged driveline and put a huge hole in tank.

2012 VW Passat Sel. Wife backed up to allow downhill car to pass on our one lane road.
When we left later I said I smelled diesel. She said i was imagining it. Went down and got on hwy to town. Looked in rear view mirror to see a trail of diesel 2 feet wide and like 10 miles long. Something had ripped the fuel lines out of the tank and the rtn line was spraying big time. $2000!

Neighbor hit a 6" rock and tree debris in his new mustang at 35 MPH. Steering, oil pan driveline and rear end damaged.

Maybe its being rural but lowered cars are rare around here. Now everything is lifted but still get pucker when i see something in the road.

[dsraven]

late '70's, early 80's maybe. v8 vega, hooker 3 piece headers, driving through Calgary on the trans Canada highway enroute to fort mcmurray. hit a pothole, one of many in the city but really? the trans Canada highway? drove it up on a tall curb and crawled under to check damages. flattened the one pipe on the headers, dented oil pan slightly. `drove it on to home, another 8 hrs roughly. then after work the next day started the teardown and repair. those headers took a lot of abuse due to being so low. I swore I would never do that again...2-V8 vegas later I moved on to a tire smoking square body truck. no more low slung stuff for awhile after that. well, I did have a monza spyder but not for long.

[e015475]

My '49 is set up so the front of the running board is a beer can's height above the pavement, which is 4.8"

At that height, my front and rear suspension are in their 'nominal' factory heights so they operate as originally designed.

I only have a few hundred miles on the truck, but seems to be working out ok as far as driveways and speedbumps

[MD2020]

5" sounds good,---------------------------- well maybe 4-1/2",--------------- 4-1/4"---------, 4"