Lower Ride, Lower Offset?

I apologize in advance for the ignorant question...but lowering the car opens up more options for lower offsets correct?

For example...if my offset range is +40 ~ +55 (Mercedes are ridiculously conservative) and I lower the car 1.8 in. (45.72 mm) with springs...how much more room can I except on the bottom end of the offset range? Could I push the offset to maybe +35 or so? Would I have to roll/pull fenders?

Thanks in advance for the help guys...I've searched all through the 101 info and the wheel calculators before making a thread, but can't find a clear cut answer.

What kind of car would be a great help.

Mercedes C300..sorry

Depends how much the car cambers.

well you can put lower offsets now but it will looked poked out.  when u lower it it cambers the wheels in making them look more flush

if u lower it now with the stock wheels they will sink in

there are a few things to take into consideration

first is what can you take as it is?
second is for every Xin/cm/mm you lower the car, does the wheel camber at all?
so say (for example since i have no clue hoe a benz is) if you lower a car 5cm, it cambers 2 degrees. but if you lower it 15cm it may camber 7 degress

you need to pull your shock off on the bottom, and lower your car down on some blocks(under the tire) so you can see it fully tucked, and the clearances you have

then measure from the edge of your lip, to the edge of your fender, and calculate from there.
also take into account tire, you may have to put a big stretch on it or such to keep tight-fitting fitment.

^^^ also true
control armed cars camber, macphearson style dont

everything cambers short of solid axle, it's just where in the curve and how much.

offset means nothing without specifying width. An 8.5" wide rim with 45 offset sticks out less then  a 7.5" with 35 offset. Also, are the measurements you quoted directly from Mercedes, or from other Merc modifyers? 

You should be going to merc forums and seeing what others have put on their mercs - i bet some are rocking lower than 35 with decent widths

His car is a MacPherson up front...

you still get a small minute amount of camber change. its like an 1/8* but its still there

Thanks for all this info guys. I'm really looking for great fitment with my car and definitely want to get it right the first time.

I know for a fact that no one has tried offsets lower than +40...at least on MBworld.org for the W204.

I will be getting fenders rolled within the next 2 weeks and I hope that opens up some room. I want to sit flush for sure, no poke (no euro style for me haha). Will also drop on Eibach or H&R springs...about a 1.8 in. drop. Maybe I'll be able to run less than 40 offset...what do you guys think?

i think you need to get a better grip on offset (and in the process you'll see why offset is not nearly as meaningful as a lot of people like to think). example:
 
car comes with 7 +40.
 
awesome offset guy #1 uses his 4th grade education to figure out his wheels are 2" sunk so he can fit a 7 -10. he truly is awesome.
 
mr. i-know-wtf-i'm-doing sees that his wheels are 2" sunk in but also that he has an additional 2" of backspacing available. he buys some 11" +40.
 
a.o.g. meets mr i.k.w.t.f.i.d. and says "maaan bro, we got the same mad tyte fitment. what's your offset yo?"
 
mr i-know...: "+40"
 
a.o.g.: "that's sooo weak"
 
mr i-know...: "fyl"
 
fin.

LOL!

if you use a combination of camber bolts and camber plates, you can actually gain quite a lot of static camber on a macpherson.  spring rate and damper valving will determine how much poke you can run.  ive setup a bunch of mr2's lately and ive been able to get up to -5 camber by using camber bolts as well as camber plates.  you can also slot your struts for even more adjustment but make sure u torque them well.

i have found that this widens the front scrub radius, thus also widening the actual "effective" contact patch and greatly improves front grip and steering response, even with minimal toe which is a good benefit for tire life.  

sorry, i still track my car so i like it to have performance benefits.

yeah, well we don't, so scrub patches dont really matter
although i dont really see how adding camber will increase your contact patch, especially at up to -5* (btw i track a car too)
its not like a 240 where when you turn you get less camber on one side and more on the other or something...

[QUOTE=Yokotas13;281635]yeah, well we don't, so scrub patches dont really matter
although i dont really see how adding camber will increase your contact patch, especially at up to -5* (btw i track a car too)
its not like a 240 where when you turn you get less camber on one side and more on the other or something...[/QUOTE]


widening the scrub radius widens the usable contact patch which improves grip,  i dont think i ever stated that -5 deg of camber helps handling, only that i have been able to achieve -5 camber on a mac pherson...  just because someone else can get more than -1/8 camber out of macpherson using different methods doesnt mean u gotta start flaming

do you or dont u track your car? cuz you stated two different things

VIP cars...no
i dont track them, which is what we are talking about here
My other cars? Yeah
I tracked my 180, stagea, and legacy
stagea wasnt very effective though....maybe it was the 3,000lbs of wagon that screwed the pooch on that one

i plan to track all my builds.  vip, fwd, rwd, sports car, econobox, regardless of what it is, if i modify it, it will be tracked. i dont care if its 3800 lb ufc30 with a full system and interior cuz ill still have fun tracking it even if its the slowest car.  i like using my well earned $$ cuz i dun care about babying it or id have air...  

after i get working again, u guys will see more vip cars on the track.  quite possibly with manual conversions and boost

yeah......whatever you say man.
 
btw, air is a far more adjustable and superior setup to a normal coilover
well, coilover with air that is.

^^ pm me about this air stuffs.  maybe u can learn me a few things cuz i dont understand the concept of how a bag is better than real springs regarding handling.  dun wanna take this thread further off topic but i must kno

just search my posts
a bag over coilover that is able to be revlaved is way better IMO for someone that doesnt have the resources to have 10 different sets of springs or whatever.
 
granted your struts wont always match the theoretical spring rate of the bag, yu can get it close enough to work for the weekend warriors most of us are.

[QUOTE=Yokotas13;281656]just search my posts
a bag over coilover that is able to be revlaved is way better IMO for someone that doesnt have the resources to have 10 different sets of springs or whatever.
 
granted your struts wont always match the theoretical spring rate of the bag, yu can get it close enough to work for the weekend warriors most of us are.[/QUOTE]

i would imagine an inflated bag oscillates differently than a spring so a damper for a bag must be valved totally different than it would be for a real spring.

over the last decade of tuning suspensions on different cars, i have accumulated springs in different rates to experiment with, would you say that i am still better off with bags?

depends on your situation
if you dont have to EVER go over a bump, driveway, whatever, then nah stay with coils
but if you are havign to sacrifice ride height due to driveway, roads whatever, then id say a coilover and bag setup is the way to go.

[QUOTE=Yokotas13;281675]but if you are havign to sacrifice ride height due to driveway, roads whatever...[/QUOTE]
sacrifice ride height? never! sacrifice car? maybe...

If you scrape it enough times, either the bump, or the part on your chassis, will wear down so that it no longer becomes a problem ;-)

I keep scraping the hell out of my resonator on my F50.  Eventually I'll have no exhaust.  It will sound cool and no more scraping haha

1* of negative camber increase adds roughly 5mm of clearance.

you have to find out how much negative camber increase you get from lowering your car.

show the math....

Here ya go Grant... Hope this was a useful utilization of my lunch break...
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v257/dbloemhard/VIP/Cambereffect.png[/IMG]

Note i estimated the horizontal distance between the wheel mounting face and the lower ball joint, and the vertical distance between the wheel center line and the lower ball joint but it doesnt change the calculations too much. If they were both 50mm, the result of 1 degree of camber is 6.5 degrees

nice one dom. illustrates the point that there is not a one size fits all camber/clearance number. x and y are variables rather than constants.

awesome, finally see some math behind it!

Hahaha who said highschool maths was useless! Love my trigonometry :)

Here's the calculations used (and some simpler options)

VBJ = Vertical distance of Ball Joint to Centre of wheel
RAD = Wheel Radius = Diameter/2
HBJ = Horizontal distance from Ball Joint to wheel mounting face
FSP = Front space of wheel = (Width in MM/2) - Offset

X = VBJ + RAD... OR Vertical drop from fender line to ball joint (use plum bob)
Y = HBJ + FSP... OR Horizontal distance from Ball Joint to fender (use plum bob)
Z = Square Root of X^2 + Y^2... OR Diagonal distance from Ball joint to fender lip

Distance gained = Y - (Z * COS( Inv.Tan(X/Y) + 1) )

awesome math!  would that change with unequal upper and lower arm lengths?

No that is not important. The upper control arm was just drawn in there to make things easy to recognise - the important bit is where the camber pivot point is... 
 
The same calculations would work for the front of the Y33s for example, which adjust camber by the top of the strut, but still pivoting on the lower control arm.

[QUOTE=Dominik;282005]Here's the calculations used (and some simpler options)
 
VBJ = Vertical distance of Ball Joint to Centre of wheel
RAD = Wheel Radius = Diameter/2
HBJ = Horizontal distance from Ball Joint to wheel mounting face
FSP = Front space of wheel = (Width in MM/2) - Offset
 
X = VBJ + RAD... OR Vertical drop from fender line to ball joint (use plum bob)
Y = HBJ + FSP... OR Horizontal distance from Ball Joint to fender (use plum bob)
Z = Square Root of X^2 + Y^2... OR Diagonal distance from Ball joint to fender lip
 
Distance gained = Y - (Z * COS( Inv.Tan(X/Y) + 1) )[/QUOTE]
 
Holy flying Fu** batman...
 
Sweet work...  I'm going to have to try that just for shits and gigs :giggity: