Ride Height Solved? Maybe!!

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I have been thinking of building a set of coil over for essentially is 1/2". I wanted the front of the car 1/2" lower. The problem is when I had the front lower something sounded horrible under the front end and it felt like something was grinding. When I lowered the car I used Ireland Engineering Stage 2 springs which lower the car a good amount. I wanted a little bit more so I cut 1/2 coil off the front springs and got a pretty good look but functionally it wasn't good because of the grinding and rubbing. So I put the spacers back on top of the struts and raised it about 1/2" and the ride was great. I asked a number of 02 gurus why there was the grinding noise and they were baffled. Since the spacer is essentially raising the body, it's not really changing the suspension geometry that much and there shouldn't be such a drastic difference. Well that was 6 Year’s ago and now before I do the coil overs, I thought I would try to remove the space and see what was grinding. Well I removed the spacer and guess what...NO GRINDING!!!!!! So I now think I have gotten the car to a ride height I am happy with visually as well as functionally. Whats the difference? Well the wheel and tire combo. When I lowered the car initially I was using 14" BBS wheels from an E30 BMW. They were VERY close to rubbing on the inside and some people need spacers on the front to run them so maybe they were the culprit as now I am running 15" BBS wheels and I am using spacers to push them out exactly where I want them which is as far out as possible, but within the fender. This has probably given me some extra clearance between the tire and the strut.

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