How low can you go......

[MickyT]

Looking under the car it looks like there is only about 3" of ground clearance under the exhaust pipes. Are we asking for trouble or is this a reasonable amount of clearance. I would be interested in opinions and experiences of daily driving a low clearance car.

[boodlefoof]

My Nissan 300ZX has about 4''. I used to live in a neighborhood with speed bumps and that was no fun. If I went over them at anything more than a crawl, I was bumping them. If I only had 3'' of ground clearance... I would have been scraping them the entire way across.

[viper11]

hi micky
3" is about the limit
most speed bumps are 2-2 1/2" as are potholes
if your suspension is tight and fairly firm it shouldntbe much of a problem
i drive all my cars at 3" and very rarley scrape , just watch for the compression after a speedbump and remember its cool to scrape a speedbump heheh
you could always fab a scrape shield for your pipes??
jason

[Steve Chryssos]

I guess it kinda depends on where you live. Around here, they salt the roads in the winter and then trash them by dragging snowplows across the surface. Crawling over speedbumps is one thing, but I hate having to slow down for turns due to fear of scraping when I should be hauling ass thru that corner. So for me the minimum number is 4".

[ProTeal55]

I will get you a better pic, but I don't even have 1'' under the headers of my 55. The previous owner decided to put on some stupid long-tubes that hang real real low.I scrape once in awhile, but not much as you would think. Once I open up a tube, I will get some new ones to gain some clearance..

[JV69z/28]

How carefull do you want to be? I agree with Steve 4" is about the pratical (can that word be used with this type of question?) limit. Pro Teal 55 you must have Hooker Headers on your car also. I have less than 3" under the collectors on my Nomad and it's a job to keep from smashing them around here but it's not bad at all on smooth roads.

[73novaguy]

I have 4" at the headers (lowest point of car) although the oil pan I just replaced was at 2", now I went with the Canton 7 quart road race pan with kick outs, so the oil pan, and tranny pan (extra deep) are at 4 1/2" clearence.

[shmoov69]

Looking under the car it looks like there is only about 3" of ground clearance under the exhaust pipes. Are we asking for trouble or is this a reasonable amount of clearance. I would be interested in opinions and experiences of daily driving a low clearance car.

You need to lower that thing!!
I got 1 3/4" under my 69 and it is ok. Yes it drags some on speed bumps and on some driveways, but you are supposed to slow down for those anyway! If you drive carefully, you will have no problem, just a few scrapes and remember, BE CAREFUL!

[MickyT]

Thanks for the responses. Looks like as long as we are reasonably careful there is a good chance we wont see the exhaust laying on the road behind the car......