Vauxhall Carlton Lowering Help Needed (usedabused?

[stealthstylz]

I was settled with keeping the Carlton stock. However usedabused posted these on the lowering haterz thread and now I need to get in on the action. The grey estate seems to be on bags but how is the lowering achieved on the maroon estate and blue saloon?







I reckon the front about as low as on the maroon saloon but with no reverse rake would look awesome.

Matt

[BenzBoy]

Gotta say they look fantastic slammed! Something about that back arch... excellent!
No idea if there's anything technical involved other than the usual methods... I sorta suspect that all of those are on air / juice but I could be wrong... in fact I'd really like to be proven wrong!

[swinnyjr]

I do like the look of that as it goes! (Which is rare for me!) I think its cos the rear wheel arch is square. Bring them back!
And as we are on the subjects of Carlton's:

[gtigood]

Looks like its been done with just cut springs on the blue car, my mates was only a tiny bit higher with proper lowing springs.
Back is dead easy to change only takes about 10mins per side.

[fpk]

I was wandering around my local scrappy on friday looking for passat bits and came across a brace of carltons and omegas and I think they look pretty phat slammed , they tick my estate boxes .

[angle]

I think a lot of these are on air, but just to tip you further over the edge - the Brazilians know where its at...

[BenzBoy]

I've only just realised what a good looking car the Carlton is! Estate and saloon have great lines.

[jrevillug]

May 10, 2009 23:00:43 GMT BenzBoy said:

I've only just realised what a good looking car the Carlton is! Estate and saloon have great lines.

It's true - look past the "old Vauxhall" banner and they hide their bulk well, with simple clean lines.

I really like them - might have something to do with the 4 my parents had (3 estates and a saloon). There was one 6 cylinder CDX estate, the others were 2.0L four bangers.

The 2Ls were excellent - my Dad did 100,000 - ish miles in his saloon, with no major trouble. The only time it let him down was when the fuel pump relay packed up (which happened to all of those cars). It even had the same spark plugs for 60,000 miles - the garage owner looked at them, gapped them and put them back.

The six-pot we had was a bad one - always overheating, and it had been crashed too.

They do rust, though - and many will have spaceship mileage now.

Comfy, quiet, solid things. Really good on the motorway, and not too bad on fuel. The estates have a huge load bay, second only, AFAIK, to the CX estate. They do look good lowered (not seen the lowered before) too.

[Colonelk]

righty, if you want pretty damn low at the back, without airbags, my recommendation.....

Calibra -60mm lowering springs + shocks. No dislocating and bleedin low. Only fits the rears though.

To get the front the same lowness..... don't know how far you can get before hitting bottom on the standard length front shocks, hoping usedabused has some answers. Apparently S13 stuff bolts to the front hubs, but will need adjustments to the top mounts. Ive got a pair of S13 coilovers I'm hoping to bolt to the front of my (mechanically identical) senator.

And they hide their rust very very well!

EDIT: I also know that the maroon estate in the OP is on bags blue saloon not a clue

[djmatt]

They will all be on air or juice. My old Senator was frickin low on bags and looked great dropped, but it wouldn't drive very well dropped, so it needed to be a good height most of the time...



However, the biggest problem you will get when you lower a Carlton, is the fact that back end will develop a massive amount of negative camber, and you will kill your tyres ALL of the time. At the standard ride height they will run about 2 degrees neg, and if you drop it on it's guts, then you will be running between 3 and 4 degrees. That's wayyyyy too much!

[stealthstylz]

This is mine. The back isn't too bad however the front is arch gap hell. Wouldn't mind just dropping the front enough to get a bit of rake going on. I was thinking about it and the car still needs to be able to lug engines around so don't want no suspension travel at the rear.

Oh and about the load area - a '27 T bucket body without the turtledeck went in the back with the seats down, with room to spare.

Matt

[BenzBoy]

I've come to the conclusion that Vauxhall/Opel made excellent barges! My old man's Omega is really nice. Feels like a BMW or something - very well put together.

I see your point about wanting to keep the car practical - with a load area like that it's such a good load-lugger! I suppose you could put airbags on the back? If you need to pile it full of stuff, just flick a switch and raise its ass up...

[stealthstylz]

Its got airshocks on already. Airbags are too much money lol.

Has anybody got a spare sidetrim for the rear door btw?

Matt

[conrad]

They look real cool lowered, specially they way the back wheels end up unside the arches half hidden!

[fredje8v]

Mine was only lowered at the front about 4 cm, with 16"alloys.
looked great.
Actually tearing it apart at the moment, but unfortunately i'm in Holland, so shipping springs would be quite expensive i think

Don't know for sure its already lowered at the picture.