How much ground clearance should there be?

[Makayla Reagan]

Down the road from where I am living is a really nice looking 1977 280Z for sale. I was looking it over closely this evening and discovered that there is only about three inches of ground clearance from the frame to the ground and about six inches from the lowest part of the body under the door to the ground. Is this normal or has this car been lowered? Thanks.

[DougN]

Welcome to the club!

It sounds like the car has been lowered, but hard to tell as we don't know specifically where you measured from. If you do a search on "factory ride height" you should be able to find some posts with measurements at specific locations which will tell you what factory ride height should be.

[bigoak]

And if it's lowered I wouldn't worry too much about it (unless it's ridiculous). At our most recent Z day, my 240Z was a novelty because it wasn't lowered...

[beandip]

If all you see is 3'' of clearance, It has been lowered a bunch.

Setting that low it must be vary close to riding on the bump stops. Do the wheels look like they are leaning in at the top when viewed from the front or back? Because if they just cut the springs to lower the car this much the alignment will be way off. So it depends on how it was done. With only 3'' you will drag on every speed bump and driveway. They do look cool slammed down like this though. The ride will be vary rough.

Gary