Any tips for setting ride height?
 

So keep haveing trouble getting my ride heights even with coilovers. I have oem type rear and I would assume if I set the collars even side to side that the heights would be equal but I have about a 1/2 difeerence between the sides. Having similar issue in front. I have swift springs so the tolerance should be really even. Do others find themselves with different collar heights to achieve even ride height? Seems off since with oem the corners were perfect so not sure what's going on or how to get it even.

Can't help you with the rears since I have true-types in the back; however, with the front I usually adjust the drivers side 3-5mm higher so that the car sits evenly once I'm in it. It helps to have a friend if you're doing it this way.

This is probably obvious but make sure the car is on flat grounds. Also follow the instructions and videos so you're adjusting height and not messing with the preloads. Other than that it's going to take a few attempts to get to a height you're happy with.

Adjust the rears on a full tank.

The weight differences between the rears is due to the amount of gas in either side of the gas tank.

Once you have them even they will be off once the fuel runs down and sloshes around to favor once side or another due too the saddle back design of the tank.

Someone can correct me IF I'm wrong.

Im a big boy and can accept when Im wrong :)

Hmm I'll have to double check that. I think right now it's my FR corner being set to low causing my LR to be too high, as the rear are set even without a doubt but the fronts (overall length) may be a little different since it's hard to measure their total length on car. I'll give it another go.

Get the car corner balanced. Heights on all four corner will probably be different but will ride much better.

:iagree:
A corner balance would be the best bet. Each corner of the car has different weight on it. So each corner will have a different setting. Doing it yourself. A full tank of gas and patience. An adjustment one one corner will effect the opposite corner. ;)

Adding this in case anyone comes across it moving forward so there are some baseline settings.
Keep in mind I primarily autocross my car so my setup is based around that. On the 18's it's pretty low.. I might have to bump it up some if I'm consistently scraping at events. I've ran similar alignments settings so I tried to get those close to what I had previously before installing the coilovers.

Measurements taken @ 33.3Psi, 285/30/18 (RE71) SQ'd.

Alignment

Front
Camber: -4.0
Caster: 8.7
Toe: 0.0

Rear
Camber: -2.7
Toe: 0.15

Heights (measured from wheel center to fender)

FL: 13.25"
FR: 13.25"

RL: 13.5"
RR: 13.5"

Note: My driver's side was substantially lower in my baseline measurement vs the right side, especially in the rear, before I installed the coilovers. I have several extra turns on the adjuster on that side to level it out.

Make sure that both left and right side are jacked up and both wheels are taken off. With one wheel on the ground there can be some preload on the opposite side and measurement will not be consistent.
I use measuring tape - make sure that spring lenght is the same and total length of the shock is the same.

It will always look and measure bit different on the ground. Unless you can find perfectly level slab of concrete car will appear as bit uneven.

I just installed M7 kit, no instructions provided. I got it even right away, issue was to get to desired right height as turning collars 5 mm could give very unexpected results-from nothing to ugly :)

For the rear-I set up ride height without shocks installed-actually put wheels on and put the car on the ground to see if OK. After that I adjusted shock body length to be about 5mm longer than shock mount bushing . No idea if this is the correct way, but rides great.

When setting ride height or corner balancing you have to disconnect the sway bars front and rear to get an accurate measurement.

When both sides of the car are in the air or on reasonably level ground, sway bar has absolutely no effect on..hmmm..anything. Thats how it can be removed and installed effortlessly.
I replaced my swaybar on drive on ramps- with full weight of the car on the suspension. I seriously doubt that i would be able to take end links out with 2 fingers even with 50 kg of weight on them, save for 750+ kg of Z's front end weight.

Couple of things that I use when setting my ride height;

verify tire pressure
level ground or leveled ground (i use cheap floor tiles to accomplish this)
full tank
place your weight in the drivers seat
disconnect one side of sways, front and rear to avoid pre-load issue
after each adjustment bounce and roll the car to settle the suspension
takes some time but I have everything with 1mm
reattach sways with no pre-load, car should still have your weight in it

A Nismo factory setup has the rears at 10mm higher then the front to put more weight in the rear.

If you are going to do this for track work, add remove all the crap out of your car (spare, sub, jack and carpet in the rear) and get a ride height + corner weight + alignment done.

Put it on a set of scales and see for yourself. The sway-bar will make it look like it is balance when it is not. As far as the adjustable end links, they will change the scales also if the lengths are not set perfectly.

:iagree:

A sway bar WILL put a preload into the chassis if they are not disconnected when doing a corner balance. When getting a corner balance done. You MUST have adjustable sway bar end links or you are WASTING your money. When the corner balance is finished. Then you install the end links with NO preload to them. The ends should slip in and out of the mounting hole in the sway bar. If you ave to move the sway bar to install the end link. you are putting preload into the chassis and just ruined you corner balance.

The adjustable end links can be use to put preload into the chassis for fine tuning of the chassis for a road course. BUT 99% people here are not that experienced to take advantage of it.