How do I lower my J-body?
The most common reason among most non-racers to lower their car is for the look. True performance enthusiasts want to improve on the handling of their cars, which will be greatly enhanced by lowering it.
By lowering the car, you eliminate the dreaded fender gap along with giving the car a much more aggressive look. The whole car sits lower to the ground giving it an air about it similar to a race car. But isn't it ridiculous to give up a comfortable ride just for a car that looks nicer? That's a judgement call. There are ways around losing the ride comfort. Stock vehicles have softer springs and therefore require a large gap for the car to move up and down. When you lower the car, you will (or should) have stiffer springs since they will be shorter.
If you simply cut the springs you have, the problem of bottoming out and rubbing the tires on the wheel well will arise. Similarly, if you buy cheap springs, they are usually too soft and you will have the same problem. The stiffer springs will make the ride a little less comfortable, but you won't ruin your tires or the bottom of your car. You can make up for loss of comfort due to stiff springs by installing better shocks/struts. Keep in mind that you won't completely make up the comfort, and you will still have to be careful of bumps and dips since the car will be lower to the ground.
A stock automobile has a suspension designed to provide comfort and to deal with any road hazards that one may come across. However, stock automobiles are farther from the ground to allow room for the suspension and therefore loose some points in the handling department with a high centre of gravity. By lowering a car, you place the centre of gravity much closer to ground and decrease air and wind resistance. The more important of those two is keeping the centre of gravity low to the ground. This is important because it helps keep the car grounded through a turn. If the centre of gravity is too high and centripetal force is too great, the car will flip or at least get tire skip. There are other things that could be done to further improve the suspension of a lowered vehicle. In a lowered car especially, it is a good idea to add strut tower and anti-roll/sway bars to stiffen the chassis (frame and body). This will help to eliminate body roll which, in a lowered car, may send the body of the car diving into the ground through a turn or at least rub the tires on the top of the wheel well.
First of all, no matter what you do to improve the suspension, if you lower your car, you will have to avoid going fast over large bumps such as speed bumps and railroad tracks. If you want to show off your masculinity by driving fast over bumps or up onto curbs or through rough terrain, get a truck! Second, lowering your car will change the angle that the wheels are positioned at. If this problem is not rectified, you will wear through tires twice as fast because the force of the car will not be evenly distributed across the tire. This problem can be solved with a proper wheel alignment, or for extreme drops with a camber kit, which are add-on components that allow the wheel to be positioned vertically. Third, you may run into problems with scraping if you are carrying a lot of weight (i.e. many passengers, etc.). This will just lower your car more because it puts more force on the springs causing them to compress. Whether or not your car scrapes depends entirely on how much extra weight you are carrying and how low the car was to begin with. Last but not least, the ride will probably not be as comfortable as it was when the car had stock suspension. This all depends on how much money and work you put into it.
