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I never thought I'd lower my car...or put wheel spacers on it!
but, the *** sticking up in the air finally got to me, and I ventured into unknown territory uncertain of what the results would look like.. Would it be too low...would the camber get all screwy?!? We all know the front camber can be at the edge of normal range even with new mounts, solid control arm bushings, that magical eccentric bolt, and the finest alignment. I didn't want to waste hundreds of dollars if all of my work resulted in a profile that I wouldn't enjoy looking at anymore. So, I dove in headfirst and ordered Adamesh's real lowering springs. Everyone knows that lowering this car won't compliment the existing wheels with them originally tucked so far into the wheel wells. I decided to include aluminum spacers from Australia (apparently, small spacers aren't readily manufactured here in the US for the X100's bolt pattern and center bore). Adamesh's spacers drop the rear only 0.95 inches, which was the smallest advertised change that I could find online. The front spacers are only 10mm, the rear - 15mm.
Car has 1 yr old front upper shock mounts and powerflex bushings in the suspension. Front springs are original and the bilstein shocks are probably 10 yrs old.
The springs went on without too much trouble. The most 'fun' was removing the old shock assembly with spring from the car using motorcarman's bend the plate method. Now that it's complete, I really like it ...95% of the time...but there are a few moments that the rear looks like it might be too low. I'm not sure...I'm just being paranoid and expected it to look off, so I'm believing it is.
Thanks for the feedback, fellas! I really appreciate it. I'll let that 5% of doubt go then and just accept that I made the right choice. LoL, regarding the comments on the Apollo wheels , I really love them too. Besides one or two of the BBS versions, I think these 19's are the best looking of the entire series.
I really like what you did.
One of the reasons I went for the 'skirted' version 2005 was that it appears lower (at least to me) and I never liked the exposed muffler.
Your body style is more svelte and the lowering really works. I fear if I went that route my car might look like a low rider, maybe not.
Steve, I didn't add shims during this project. It looked pretty good afterwards, and I wanted to see what the actual camber was before making the ultimate call. The dealer even mentioned that I would probably need them when I told them what I had done before asking for the alignment. However, after it was put on the rack, I felt it wasn't far enough out to warrant the additional shims. The tech didn't recommend the shims either. Looking through my old alignment sheets, in 2019 the dealer performed an alignment and the rear camber was -0.98 deg on both sides. Below is what the final numbers looked like after this project. Lowering it with Adamesh's springs increased negative camber by just over 1.1 degrees.
Oh, here is where I purchased the front 10mm slip-on spacers w/ lip. Just enough room on the OEM stud to make these work. The 15mm rears can be found anywhere, but should include lugs. No slip-on versions over 10mm on either end.
I think it looks perfect and your photos have persuaded me to make the change to my car. I have previously removed the rear shock/spring assemblies using that method and it's pretty straightforward once you do actually do it.
I never thought I'd lower my car...or put wheel spacers on it!
