Has anyone dropped their 92-02 Eldorado? Can you give me pointers..

yea i dropped mine about 15 mins ago
i just did an oil change and wow does she looks better with her tires on the ground than in the air

Ok I meant lowered, I want to lower my front a lil

Before you lower your car you might want to do a little research on problems people have had in here. Remember that the lower part of the engine/transmission cradle doesn't have much ground clearance now: drop it an inch and a half and a speed bump will remove the oil pan and you'll also have trouble getting in and out of other than level driveways.

im not that naive
i knew very well what you ment

I have a 98 ETC w/Arrnott shocks/struts & Eibach lowering springs, dropped easily 1-1.5" in front and about 1.5-2" in the rear. I don't have the plastic splash guard or any of the other crap under there attached to the front subframe. I haven't had any problems, and ripping your oil pan out should be the least of your worries, chances are you're going to scrub the lower front bumper first, I have the scrapes to proove it, speedbumps must be taken at one speed and one speed only, crawl. In fact the alignment shop had no problem aligning to factory spec even lowered, STSs seem to have problems here and require different camber bolts. Had to bend the ride height sensor control arms which is trivial. Bushings, ball joints, drive axles, etc are all just fine after about 13k miles. The benefit besides the lower look is really the handling, the Eibach springs are night and day, the car corners flat, i mean there's minimal body roll whereas before she wanted to roll over, but the danger is you can easily understeer the car around a hard corner (albeit at a much faster speed) because you don't get the rolling feedback that said "hey your car is going to start sliding in a second." Also torque steer is much less noticable which is nice on those hard WOTs.

As for the struts/shocks, the Arrnott's aren't as nice as the OEMs. They are slightly underdamped relative to the Eibachs which means you pick up some additional small perturbation vibrations in the steering, the best combo would be the active OEM struts w/Eibachs. The downside here is due to the higher damping rate required for the Eibachs you would most likely burn out the OEMs sooner as they'd be pegged hard but man it would be nice. I just couldn't spend $300+ for one front strut when I could get both front struts and rear shocks for $600 shipped from Arrnott.

I did a huge writeup a while back and if you searh the archives you may be able to find my thread about Eibach + Arnott or something to that effect.

I'll try and post a pic this weekend as my cars in my friend's driveway the next town over...

I have a 98 ETC w/Arrnott shocks/struts & Eibach lowering springs, dropped easily 1-1.5" in front and about 1.5-2" in the rear. I don't have the plastic splash guard or any of the other crap under there attached to the front subframe. I haven't had any problems, and ripping your oil pan out should be the least of your worries, chances are you're going to scrub the lower front bumper first, I have the scrapes to proove it, speedbumps must be taken at one speed and one speed only, crawl. In fact the alignment shop had no problem aligning to factory spec even lowered, STSs seem to have problems here and require different camber bolts. Had to bend the ride height sensor control arms which is trivial. Bushings, ball joints, drive axles, etc are all just fine after about 13k miles. The benefit besides the lower look is really the handling, the Eibach springs are night and day, the car corners flat, i mean there's minimal body roll whereas before she wanted to roll over, but the danger is you can easily understeer the car around a hard corner (albeit at a much faster speed) because you don't get the rolling feedback that said "hey your car is going to start sliding in a second." Also torque steer is much less noticable which is nice on those hard WOTs.

As for the struts/shocks, the Arrnott's aren't as nice as the OEMs. They are slightly underdamped relative to the Eibachs which means you pick up some additional small perturbation vibrations in the steering, the best combo would be the active OEM struts w/Eibachs. The downside here is due to the higher damping rate required for the Eibachs you would most likely burn out the OEMs sooner as they'd be pegged hard but man it would be nice. I just couldn't spend $300+ for one front strut when I could get both front struts and rear shocks for $600 shipped from Arrnott.

I did a huge writeup a while back and if you searh the archives you may be able to find my thread about Eibach + Arnott or something to that effect.

I'll try and post a pic this weekend as my cars in my friend's driveway the next town over...



Really I just wanted to lower the front because right now the front sits higher then the rear.. so if anything I would just install the front springs. I'm afraid of alignment issues though.. :bigroll:

how much higer is your front from your rear? How many miles on the car? Chances are your rear suspension needs to be refreshed, a sagging rear end is a telltale sign of springs gone bad, the air ride shocks not pumping up, or a malfunction in the ride height system..

Yep, if your car doesn't have a slight forward "rake", something's wrong with the rear suspension. That statement by you changes the whole picture. Not sure about a '94 Eldo, but you may well have a crapped out rear level compressor. One of our Eldo owners will chime in, but Raze is on the right track.

Yep, if your car doesn't have a slight forward "rake", something's wrong with the rear suspension. That statement by you changes the whole picture. Not sure about a '94 Eldo, but you may well have a crapped out rear level compressor. One of our Eldo owners will chime in, but Raze is on the right track.

Well I didnt mention, When the car had the stock rims everything looked fine, then I added some 20inch rims with 255/35/20 tires and it raised the whole car an inch and 1/2 all the way around. I plan on getting the Vogue 245/40/20 gold/whitewalls and when I do that the car will be raised another 1/2 to 3/4 inch more and thats why I wanted to drop the front because it seems with the big rims it doesnt look right with the front slightly higher then the rear.

With 20" rims all around, the car should maintain the same stance as w/ the stock rims. If the rear is sitting lower, then there probably is something wrong w/ the leveling system.

To test, turn key on, but engine off. You should hear a gurgle (i.e. the air pump) for 2-3 seconds....longer if the rear is quite low. The gurgle should emit from the rear passenger wheel area. To force the air pump to stay on longer, either fill the trunk w/ weight/sandbags or have some buddies sit on the rear bumper. If the air pump does not do its gurgle, then the air pump is bad or the height sensor is bad or misadjusted.

The air compressor is stuffed up in the rear passenger side suspension. The height sensor is connected to 1 of the lower rear control arms (on my '93, it is on the driver's side rear....on a '94, I believe it may be on the passenger side rear).

It is possible that the 20" rims have affected the height sensor's adjustment....but its relative position to the rear suspension should be the same w/ the 20" or the stocks, so my gut tells me that the gurgle should still happen.

...because it seems with the big rims it doesnt look right

Sorry to voice my bias, but it just won't look right w/ the 20's...they just weren't meant to be on an Eldorado.

Well I have gotten nothing but props on my whip with the 20's and when I add the Vogue Tyres it will look even better.

I think I might just do an air bag set-up.

You said originally that the stance looked normal with stock tires/wheels, then you went to something else. If the overall height of the car or the outside diameter of the wheel/tire combination is any different from stock, you have changed the wheel rotation specs which throws the speedo and PCM inputs off by some percentage because now the wheel/tire travels further in one revolution than stock (lower revolutions/mile = slower speedo.) If the overall stance of the car (rear slightly high = normal) has changed, something is wrong with ride height and level adjustments. You may now have poorer handling and load carrying ability. There are a lot of sizing factors to consider when changing wheel/tire sizes. Air bags will not cure the original problem, only mask it. 20's on an Eldorado ............never mind.

20's on an Eldorado ............never mind.

Yea your right...

I'M JUST GONNA PUT 22's AND CALL IT A DAY! :highfive:

The current Vogue offering is actually a little too tall for our cars. Their 20" are 27.71" tall. I have 245/35/ZR20 and they are 26.75". I* think the Cadillac spec calls for 26.5".

I'M JUST GONNA PUT 22's AND CALL IT A DAY!
there you go, im lookin to do the same as soon as tax returns come back
it's go big or go home, it doens't apply to girls tho lol