Do N400 sills reduce ground clearance/

[Wozza]

Hi

Planning to buy an 2008 / 2009 Vantage Roadster in the new year.

I have a very steep driveway which can ground out some cars mid way along the sills as the front wheels head down the driveway. I have trialled a standard roadster and it clears no problem - over 1cm clearance the whole way.

But will N400 sills add problems? Do they actually just fill out the width of the sills or do they reduce ground clearance as well?

Any help greatly appreciated.

Cheers



Marc

[mikey k]

No same profile at the mounting points. You are more likely to scraper the air flow disrupters in front of the front wheels.

[Wozza]

Thanks Mikey.

The front is no problem at all. It mid point along the sills that gives me concern still.

See picture below - its horribly blurred but gives an idea of where the car is most likely to ground. There is no issue at all with the standard car - almost an inch clearance at its worst point, so from what you're saying regarding mounting points of the sills, it sounds like I shouldn't have any problems with N400 sills either?

[MichaelV8V]

Mine had exactly that problem with my drive, and I have the N400 sills, it hit something metal under the car, not the sills.

I removed a couple of rows of blocks, got an angle grinder and took off the top inch of the concrete edging at the end of the drive, removed some of the sand under the top two rows, and refitted everything. All is good now Only took a couple of hours to do, should have done it years ago and saved my TVR some scrapes

[brumma]

You will get hung up on the chassis before you damage the sills. Take my word for it--I learned the hard way.

[Wozza]

brumma said:

You will get hung up on the chassis before you damage the sills. Take my word for it--I learned the hard way.

What happened Brumma?

The chassis and mechanicals are clearing ansolutely fine after numerous practise runs and I went to the Walton-on-Thames dealership today to compare clearance with the N400 style sills and there is definately no difference - result!

[brumma]

Wozza said:

What happened Brumma?

I got caught in a torrential rain storm on the way home here is SW Florida and ended up running up onto a concrete median in a parking lot because I couldn't see through the rain. Luckily I was moving quite slowly, but as a result the front tires went across the median while the back didn't and I got hung up on the chassis. The scraping noise was the worst part though--I still have nightmares. A couple of valets helped push me back off the median. The only damage was some minor scraping on underside of the front bumper/valance, and of course the frame got scraped a bit. You couldn't even see it unless you looked under the car, but I replaced the black plastic splitter and had the bottom side of the bumper sprayed. I was sure that the sills were going to be trashed, but they didn't even get dirty! It didn't even mess up the wheel alignment. If it had been my Maserati GranSport I would have at the very least had two flat tires and two bent rims. These Astons are tough!