Ram Lift - Front end Clearance

Clearance is something that I have been puzzling over for almost a year. One of the first things I learned after I got my C5 for my 52nd birthday (I have a fabulous wife) is that the front frame scraped on the driveway. This was solved when I installed Elite Engineering's Frame Guards. These are basically a couple of training wheels drilled into the lowest point of the frame. They really work!

I want to make the GTM as stable as possible, but I don't want the stability to come at the price of ripping up the front end of the body. I am already adding the standard sway bars from my c5 to stiffen the suspension (I replaced the C5 sway bar set with a C6 Z51 set.), and I am thinking more and more seriously about the racing wing. However, I still need to address clearance issues for the GTM.

Next, I discovered that after I replaced the Boxster's front end with Fiberwerk's Dayton II kit, I faced similar problems. I am really careful about going up and down my driveway.

Now we come to the GTM and front end clearance. Both the Northern and Southern Man caves have these nasty driveway lips that are just waiting to nail my GTM (kind of like the tree that keeps gobbling Charlie Brown's kite). I approached Elite Engineering, but I'm not sure they want to leap into the GTM aftermarket. Then I found a series of posts on the Factory Five forums. There are two of them: ffcars.com and TheFactoryFiveForum.com. For any potential builders, use the forums. They are a gold mine of knowledge and experience.

The solution is to install a ram lift under the Koni shocks. A company called RamLiftPro manufactures these units. As you can see from the above videos, they really work. Since I am going with the carbon fiber splitter, I am going to install ram lift the system that raises the front end up to 5 inches. The kit includes the following:

• 12v. Pump
• 2 - Rams
• 10' Aeroquip TFE hydraulic hose
• 4 - 4AN Aeroquip hose ends
• Hydraulic fluid reservoir & hose
• 10' - 12 gage wire (red)
• 10' - 12 gage wire (black)
• 1 - Momentary (on) off (on) switch
• Wire connectors

More changes required to the ISIS wiring diagrams, but I gain peace of mind that I have a solution for all those nasty curbs and lousy parking lots. The budget also takes another hit. Oh well, I did save money on the donor parts!