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Re: Ride height
Simon, I think you're right about the raised gearing - it should directly match the increase in rolling circumference.
As Steve says further up, this will - in theory - also result in an overall reduction in acceleration. However, in practice, I don't think this will be a problem.
How often do you perform standing starts, thrashing your car through all the gears to the redline?! Even if you do, all the slightly raised gearing will mean in practice is that you'd stay in a lower gear for slightly longer. Ok, the 'edge' may be removed if you try a high speed overtake in TOP gear, but - even if this is noticeable - all you'd need to do is drop a gear. And I doubt you'd even need to do that.
What's you car like at the moment? Does it cruise comfortably at 70mph? Or is it more like my 4-speed Pinto engined Berli used to be - cruising much above 60mph was very tiring, with the engine revving a lot higher than it needed to?
Simon, assuming your existing tyres are 165 width (I don't think you've mentioned this dim?), a rough calc suggests to me you currently have a total wheel/tyre edge-to-edge diameter of about 21.5". Say you swapped these for 15" wheels with 185/65s. This set-up would have a dia of just under 24.5" - a 3" difference, so the car should be sitting a whole 1/5" higher!
Gearing would change by, I think, about 14%, so whatever top gear speed you currently get at 3,000 rpm (what does that give you at the moment - over 70mph?) should be delivered at around 2,600rpm. That is like a whole added gear, so you couldn't expect acceleration in the higher gears to be as before, but cruising should be a lot more relaxed - and most likely more economical too.
Accelerating in lower gears, you'll simply find you'd be staying in each gear for a little longer. I doubt you'd notice any reduction in acceleration up to, say, 50mph - you'd just be changing up a little later (no bad thing).
As Steve also mentioned above, with these cars being significantly lighter than the donor, the tyres end up doing a lot more of the 'springing'. Fit low profile tyres if you want ultimate road holding, I guess, but at the expense of comfort. Low profile tyres will also be more 'twitchy' on uneven road surfaces, of which we have a few.
So, I think an upgrade to larger wheels and tyres would provide many more benefits than simply increased ground clearance!
Simon, I think you're right about the raised gearing - it should directly match the increase in rolling circumference.
As Steve says further up, this will - in theory - also result in an overall reduction in acceleration. However, in practice, I don't think this will be a problem.
How often do you perform standing starts, thrashing your car through all the gears to the redline?! Even if you do, all the slightly raised gearing will mean in practice is that you'd stay in a lower gear for slightly longer. Ok, the 'edge' may be removed if you try a high speed overtake in TOP gear, but - even if this is noticeable - all you'd need to do is drop a gear. And I doubt you'd even need to do that.
What's you car like at the moment? Does it cruise comfortably at 70mph? Or is it more like my 4-speed Pinto engined Berli used to be - cruising much above 60mph was very tiring, with the engine revving a lot higher than it needed to?
Simon, assuming your existing tyres are 165 width (I don't think you've mentioned this dim?), a rough calc suggests to me you currently have a total wheel/tyre edge-to-edge diameter of about 21.5". Say you swapped these for 15" wheels with 185/65s. This set-up would have a dia of just under 24.5" - a 3" difference, so the car should be sitting a whole 1/5" higher!
Gearing would change by, I think, about 14%, so whatever top gear speed you currently get at 3,000 rpm (what does that give you at the moment - over 70mph?) should be delivered at around 2,600rpm. That is like a whole added gear, so you couldn't expect acceleration in the higher gears to be as before, but cruising should be a lot more relaxed - and most likely more economical too.
Accelerating in lower gears, you'll simply find you'd be staying in each gear for a little longer. I doubt you'd notice any reduction in acceleration up to, say, 50mph - you'd just be changing up a little later (no bad thing).
As Steve also mentioned above, with these cars being significantly lighter than the donor, the tyres end up doing a lot more of the 'springing'. Fit low profile tyres if you want ultimate road holding, I guess, but at the expense of comfort. Low profile tyres will also be more 'twitchy' on uneven road surfaces, of which we have a few.
So, I think an upgrade to larger wheels and tyres would provide many more benefits than simply increased ground clearance!
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