The great Corvette C7 Z06 and C7 Stingray lowering spindle swindle

If  a fool and money tend to part their ways rather quickly, it is only logical to expect that there is someone on the collecting end, intercepting that money.  In case of the latest generation of Corvette, proudly designed by +Tadge Juechter and his team of brilliant engineers, the supply of fools never seems to dry up, allowing aftermarket "performance" suppliers to generate very handsome profits.

The examples of this mentality are numerous, raging from the radiator and expansion tanks all the way to engine and suspension "improvements".

One of the very funny examples is without any doubts a method to lower the newest generation of Corvette.  Since the newest generation of Corvette is such a revolutionary design, it still uses the same retarded leaf springs to enhance its claim as the best high performance bargain on the market, including the latest flagship and "certified supercar" Z06.

Without going into details of the retarded leaf spring presence justification, in a nutshell, with a pick up truck like almost independent suspension come lowering methods lifted off (pun fully intended) from the pick up truck owning enthusiasts. 

Due to the age of the owners of these cars and to ease up delivery process, the newest Corvettes sit very high off the ground in their factory configuration, in fact, they sit considerably higher than the previous generation and this part does not sit well with the buyers who prefer that one finger gap between the fender and the tires.  The usual way to get this done is raise the factory bolts and if this is not enough, either get longer bolts or cut the stock bushings.   The visual results vary due to the differences in assembly between the cars and differences between cars with and without suspension handling packages.  However, what does not vary is the fact that ride quality worsens and handling characteristics tend to take a big dive on the account of (effectively) shorter end links and increase in bump steer.  Even though clever aftermarket suppliers provide so called bump steer kits, their remedy does not help the decreased shock travel.

So what to do?  Apparently pick up trucks to the rescue and specifically, one of the methods used to really slam them called LOWERING SPINDLES (there are also lift spindles as well).

What do these spindles do?  In a nutshell, they raise the axle height, bringing wheel hubs closer to the body and thus, lowering the car, as much as the control arm clearance would allow.  Typically, for the trucks, this ranges between 4 to 2 inches (2 WD trucks only, of course).

The nice about lowering spindles is that unlike with the lowering coils, the travel of the shocks remains unaffected.

Moving fast (without overheating anything since this is regarding C7) forward, here is a company called LG Motorsports and this company, among its offerings, has none other than lowering spindles for the seventh generation of Corvette (they have been offering the lowering spindles for C5 and C6 as well).

Under normal conditions, the lowering effect of the bolts ranges between 0.25 to about 0.75".   According to LG, they "innovative" solution can lower Corvette by a truly amazing (sarcasm) FULL ONE INCH!!!  Thus, assuming that combination of the bolts and these spindles is used, the car can be "slammed" by up to 1.75 inch!!!  Of course when bolts are used to accomplish their part, the claim of no factory ride quality no longer applies but this is just a small detail...

So how much do these lowering spindles cost?  While the typical lowering/lifting truck spindles cost about 300 dollars for the set of four, the bargain price is about 725 dollars per corner or about 2900 dollars for the full set. For this bargain price, the happy suckers gain the privilege of retaining  factory shocks and leaf springs.

And here is the kicker:  for about 2400 dollars a full coil over conversion, utilizing Bilstein shocks can be purchased, with the drop ranging from 0.75 to 2 inches and while allowing for full height, shock damping and spring rates adjustability, not to mention a real FULLY INDEPENDENT SUSPENSION.

Does it really make a bit of a difference that these wonder spindles are CNC machined from aluminum?  Absolutely not, they cost a shitload of money but in the end, the leaf spring suspension is still there...

Can  anyone be that stupid to cough up 3 grand for this UPGRAYEDD?  Without any doubt, there are plenty of idiots owning Corvettes and LG is cashing in on their stupidity.  The extra irony lies in the fact that even LG sells coil over conversion kits and they charge less for them than for these spindle upgrayedds...

This kind of mentality can be easily compared to someone developing a faster piston engine powered prop plane while jets are flying around...  As usual, the entertainment is beyond priceless...