Ride height

[cobraman]

Why the heck can't kit manufactures get the ride height correct so often ? Seems like 90 % of the kits you build are always too high either in front or front and rear. Not too hard to fix most of the time but still why not get it right ?

[1930fordpickup]

I do agree most do not look right. I think it is just an eye of the beholder thing.

[TooOld]

I do agree most do not look right. I think it is just an eye of the beholder thing.

You're right , it is each persons opinion as to the correct ride height . But the kit manufacturers( Revell ) usually get it wrong ! I think they know about it but can't justify the cost of a tooling change for something that is so easily changed by the builder . It's just like tossing the same old tires into every kit they make , although this is beginning to change recently .

[DrKerry]

Anything any manufacturer does is to tall for me. If it ain't close to scrapin' thing fo-gedda-bou-it!!!

No in all seriousness, you are right. A lot of times you see the real car even as box art and you build it you see it take on the look of a 4 wheel drive. To a lot of people especially new builders into the hobby this could be a turn off and push them away from the hobby. I know on the newer Foose kits, all they are are repacked current kits and don't have the aggressive lowered "Look" to them. I've heard friends and other people at swap meets and shows talk of that and how they didn't like them to much.

Revell does do some awesome work, right now they rank a second best as for manufacturer for me, of cours Tamiya is the best, I think in quality. Revell has gotten tons better in the past yeasr so lets see if they can get the ride height a bit better!!!

[slusher]

Keeping a good verity of tires helps and takes care of most height adjustments. I most of the time the height is ok with me...

[Erik Smith]

Don't lump all manufacturers together. Aoshima - who has much higher quality standards than Revell (I would put them right up there with Tamiya)- actually supplies the correct parts to adjust ride height in their Rocket Bunny kits - a small, but noticeable change.

Revell operates on a different business model and sells to a different base.

[Lownslow]

Doesnt bother me i slam almost everything

[Shardik]

I suspect the original designs are probably correct, however no manufactured product is "perfect". Every piece that goes into an assembly has dimensional tolerances. Couple this with the trend toward higher and higher parts counts in the suspension area (I have seen suspension assemblies comprising as many as 24 pieces!) and you're up against "cumulative tolerance".

This leaves you with two options: tighten up the tolerances such as Tamiya seems to have done, which increases manufacturing costs and, by extension, the kit price, Or; revert back to the simpler 2-4 piece suspension assemblies we saw in the early sixties, when the limits of manufacturing technology precluded the first option.

It comes down to A) Pay more for tighter tolerances ,B ) Give up detail to avoid cumulative error or C) Apply skill and craftsmanship to the problem.

Edited February 15, 2014 by Shardik

[CJ1971]

The bigger disappointment is tyre size. Out of the 3 Japanese makers Aoshima has been spot on with theirs ( including ride height ) Tamiya's are ok but some kits have had too tall tyre height & Fujimi's are down right disgraceful.

Revell ( both AG & USA ) are rubbish. Too tall, too wide or not wide enough & NO sidewall detail.

Luckily for us the after-market companies are correcting these problems & we're able to amend these woeful inconsistencies, to achieve correct scale tyres/wheels... Whether it's for a stock version or custom.

[Harry P.]

NO sidewall detail...

That's a licensing issue, not an incompetence issue.

[Ace-Garageguy]

Perhaps some of you guys who are into 1:1 cars will have noticed that RESTORERS of the real ones often get the ride height wrong too. I've seen many many "restored" cars looking like they're wearing flood pants, from springs that have too much arch, etc. I guess it's just too hard to actually look up the spec. Numbers make people's heads hurt, so I understand.

[martinfan5]

Don't lump all manufacturers together. Aoshima actually supplies the correct parts to adjust ride height in their Rocket Bunny kits - a small, but noticeable change.

Erik, its all of the 86/BRZ twin kits, not just limited to the RB kits

Edited February 15, 2014 by martinfan5

[The70judgeman]

@Bill- I wouldn't say restorers get it wrong on the springs of 1:1 restored cars. Often, the springs settle in after driving the car awhile and that corrects the ride height issue.

[jaymcminn]

Pretty much all of the Revell of Germany exotics have ride height issues. I'm in the process of building the Revell Ferrari 575 Superamerica now. The kit is pretty nice overall, but the ride height is atrocious- there's probably 8 scale inches between the top of the tire and the wheelwell on the box art model. In addition the front track is waaay too wide, which makes the kit wheels look more undersized than they actually are. It took some fairly major surgery, but I was able to get the ride height down to stock spec and tuck the tires up where they belong. The wheels even look pretty much in-scale now that the car sits right!

[CJ1971]

That's a licensing issue, not an incompetence issue.

I never said it was either Harry... Just said they're rubbish.

[Art Anderson]

If Round2 and all the others can put a name on the sidewall of their tires, I see no reason for Revell not to do the same. The whole "licensing" story just doesn't wash. If the other kit companies stopped putting sidewall detail on their tires, it would be more believable.

Sorry, but licensing, no matter for what, adds cost to a model car kit. A dime here, a dime there, pretty soon you're talking significant money with a model kit.

Art

[Art Anderson]

@Bill- I wouldn't say restorers get it wrong on the springs of 1:1 restored cars. Often, the springs settle in after driving the car awhile and that corrects the ride height issue.

And yet, if one looks at contemporary pics of any real car of the 1950's, the rocker panels are a good bit higher than what one might see today. Those old soft springs of the 1950's did settle quite a bit in a year or so of daily drivihng!

Art (speaking as one who grew up in the 1950's!)

[Art Anderson]

Perhaps some of you guys who are into 1:1 cars will have noticed that RESTORERS of the real ones often get the ride height wrong too. I've seen many many "restored" cars looking like they're wearing flood pants, from springs that have too much arch, etc. I guess it's just too hard to actually look up the spec. Numbers make people's heads hurt, so I understand.

Not really! Having grown up in the 50's,. cars rode a lot higher than in years later, due to the more severe departure angles needed to clear driveways etc.

Art

[Ace-Garageguy]

Not really! Having grown up in the 50's,. cars rode a lot higher than in years later, due to the more severe departure angles needed to clear driveways etc.

Art

Ummm...not really?

Not to be argumentative, but since some of you want to tell me I'm wrong...I've been in the 1:1 restoration business, either directly or peripherally, for most of my professional life, and I also came up in the '50s. I'm quite aware of how high cars rode back then as opposed to now.

Nor did I say that ALL restored cars were riding too high...just that SOME that I've seen have been just flat wrong. There's no need to argue the point further. I'm aware that springs settle, and that ride height specs were usually higher than today.

We recently had a just-restored '48 Ford convertible in the shop to correct handling issues. The VERY FIRST THING I noticed was the car had close to 12" between the ground and the frame rails. I don't have my spec book available at the moment, but 12" is certainly excessive. Period.

Had THAT particular example been used as the reference for a kit, with nobody bothering to check the CORRECT spec, a ride-height issue would certainly have been included in the kit tooling.

[Craig Irwin]

Actual car or model, most builders build them too low.

[W-409]

Yep there are many kits with this problem, and I think it's quite annoying. It's an easy fix, but anyway it should be right. I rarely use all chassis parts from the kit without any modifications or scratchbuilding, though, so luckily that's not a very big deal for me.

The tires are a bigger problem. I have no problem with tires having no sidewall detail. I can always add tire text decals if I want to. That already makes a difference. A bigger problem is tire size. Many kits have way too small tires that look like Lowrider tires to me. For example AMT '67 Impala has this problem that needs to be fixed.

[Art Anderson]

Ummm...not really?

Not to be argumentative, but since some of you want to tell me I'm wrong...I've been in the 1:1 restoration business, either directly or peripherally, for most of my professional life, and I also came up in the '50s. I'm quite aware of how high cars rode back then as opposed to now.

Nor did I say that ALL restored cars were riding too high...just that SOME that I've seen have been just flat wrong. There's no need to argue the point further. I'm aware that springs settle, and that ride height specs were usually higher than today.

We recently had a just-restored '48 Ford convertible in the shop to correct handling issues. The VERY FIRST THING I noticed was the car had close to 12" between the ground and the frame rails. I don't have my spec book available at the moment, but 12" is certainly excessive. Period.

Had THAT particular example been used as the reference for a kit, with nobody bothering to check the CORRECT spec, a ride-height issue would certainly have been included in the kit tooling.

Bill,

Not meaning to belabor the point here, but I've just been looking at my Standard Catalog Of American Cars 1946-1975, which has any number of contemporary photo's of '46-48 Fords, taken from angles low enough to clearly see the relationship of the bottom of the running boards (which were enclosed behind doors extended down and outward to cover them by 1941) to the wheel centerlines. The line of the bottoms of the fenders and the running board/bottom edge of the doors was actually at or slightly ABOVE the centerline of the wheels. Given the wheel diameter of 16", plus the fairly tall 6:00-16 tires, that puts the bottom edge of the bodywork a good 12-13 inches off the pavement. Bearing in mind that the '48 Ford was the final extension of that traditional Ford transverse spring/solid beam front axle suspension system, and still stuck with the then deceased Henry Ford's belief that a Ford car should be able to transverse just about any kind of road presented to it, that does not seem to be at all an excessive ride height.

That said, with model car kits, "ride height" can be all over the place, if for no other reason than most American model companies tend to work with kit tires from a rather set library of model car tires, rather than tool up new tires every time they create a new model kit. Now that worked as long as real American cars rolled down the road on 14" or 15" tires, with aspect ratios that did not vary more than perhaps an inch up or down, but that practice also lead to some model cars actually riding too low for scale--for example, EVERY AMT '32-'40 Ford kit comes equipped with 15" late 1950's tires for their stock option, while the Deuce used 18" rims, '34 Fords rolled on 17" wheels, and all 1935-40 Fords wore 16" rubber from the factory. So, that made those model kits actually sit a fair bit lower to the road in their stock form than scale would indicate.

Another factor has always been the lack of model car tires ability to "squish" down under the weight of the car, as do real tires--that alone can reduce the curbside ride height of the actual car by upwards of 2" in a lot of cases--but how to correct that?

Art

[mrindy77]

I guess part of the fun/challenge for me in building a model as opposed to just assembling a model is figuring out ways to overcome issues such as this. Getting any model to have the "right" look takes some thought just like building a real car. I have found that building some of the more poorly engineered kits are the most gratifying. Especially when your colleagues say 'Wow...you did that with that kit..how?'

[JunkPile]

Well said Cal

[jbwelda]

the funny thing is, this height problem seems to be universal, not just 50s USA model kits, but pretty much any Japanese kit of contemporary or classic subject matter, all ride too high for my eye, though I do prefer to have lower-than-stock ride height myself. and this takes into account aspect ratios etc or sidewall height differences. its really kind of a pain especially if you care to retain some realism underneath...sometimes its easy and sometimes not so easy to achieve.

jb