Height Adjustment & Travel, Why parallel? Options

[Joseph Mills]

My 914 goes to the shop next week for alignment: 1.5 to 2 degrees neg camber front, 2 to 2.5 neg rear with 1/16" toe-out front, 1/16" toe-in rear. Tires are Hoosier A3S03's.

I have found a few posts that seem to indicate that when the A-arms and trailing arms are parallel to the ground, you have maximized your cars height. Is this in fact, correct?

If so, why is this level preferred? If you go below this height is suspension geometry adversely effected? How much wheel travel is left at this point?

Joseph
'75 914 2.0L AX bound

[Joseph Mills]

Drew,
My settings are the initial settings I hope to be able to do to set my car up for autocrossing. 2.5 degrees negative camber should suit the tires I am using (they like a lot of camber). However these would not be great street settings if that is what you're looking for (would result in poor tire wear and car wandering over bumps in a straight line). As Brad has pointed out, each car will have possible restrictions for various chassis/component reasons.

It seems that usually you will want more neg. camber in the rear than the front. You have just the opposite. If you can only obtain 1.3 in the back, maybe you should consider setting the front at 1.3 also. You would certainly have better street tire wear. It could also lessen a tendancy for your car to oversteer. But others may have other opinions.

Joseph
'75 914 2.0L AX bound