Ride height

Feb 08, 2007 2 Replies

Here's a bit of weirdness.



My 1997 car sat a bit higher at the front than at the rear, so I assumed the springs had sagged. I was given some springs from an earlier (1990) car which measured exactly the specified free lengths and therefore couldn't have sagged. On fitting these the F/R relationship is still the same, and the car isn't even any lower. In fact, the ride heights are pretty much the same all round at 380mm F and around 360mm R (it's a bit lower on the right hand side, presumably because of the battery/steering column/dash weight). Did Mazda use a different subframe and/or top mounts on later NA cars? I would have expected it to sit at about the same height as one of the earlier cars.


I don't think so. But every couple of years the springs got longer, as more and more owners complained about scraping due to lack of ground clearance. A '97 should sit a couple of cm higher than a '90, assuming identical spring perches on the shocks.

In that case the only cause I can think of is lower nose weight due to lack of PAS. The front springs are the stiffer ones though, and I'd be surprised if a few pounds of pump and a slightly heavier rack could push the front down by an inch.

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