Apparently, my late night shopping bug is going to make me buy a bunch of stuff that I really don't need as much as a Star DAS. (If you have a link to a great one of those, I'd appreciate if you'd send that to me.)
In this episode, I bought the $75 lowering links from ebay. Essentially, I bought $3 worth of screws & connectors for $75...but they work.
I have 20" wheels going on in a the next couple of weeks. They'll be delivered Friday & I don't know exactly when I'll have time to have them mounted.
I don't like the ride height on my current 18" wheel set up so I want to have it dialed in before I have the height set by Star DAS. With that, I came up with the ridiculous plan to try lowering links to find the right height & then go back to the stock links with a Star lowering adjustment.
I bought the $75 cheapos from ebay. They were delivered within 4 days from across the country with free shipping.
I got 4, very basic, ball joint connectors held together with simple screws & lock nuts. There are 4 rubber gaskets that are supposed to keep out dirt & they probably will. The whole thing looks like it was a pack of Juicy Fruit that MacGyver turned into lowering links.
The connectors lock in the ball with a ring inserted in the cup. They are a ton easier to put on than the stock links. The instructions say to listen for a click & give them a good pull to make sure they're well seated. It takes less than a really good tug to pop the connection. I did make sure to get a good click on the install but 2 connections came off easier than I prefer when I was making adjustments.
The links brought my car far below where it sat with 3 washers inserted. I've attached a bad picture of where it sits after running out of light. The car is at what I will call neutral since the lift & lower buttons are both completely unlit. There's about a half finger of clearance above the top of my tires.
Adjusting these links isn't difficult but, if you're going to use links, spend the money for those that are reverse threaded, between top & bottom, so that you don't have to remove a ball joint connection to make a change.
In the morning, I'll get in there & shorten up the links in all of 15 minutes but it would maybe take 5 minutes if I didn't have to disconnect the top connector in order to give then a couple of twists.
I have previously pinched down the rear, height bracket but I need to get under there to close it down some more. I'll post another pic when I get the rear end dialed in & then again with the new wheels. My apologies for the photo quality. I wasn't wearing my glasses when I snapped it.
In conclusion, if you're going to use lowering links to adjust your ride height, cheap links work but the reliability is questionable.
UNLESS you would like to buy a used pair of these links in about 2 weeks. In that case, these things are AWESOME!

 

I have been satisfied with the C3 system that I bought in January 2013. Eva Lee, my contact with the vendor, sent me a Christmas Greeting asking if she could do anything for me. I responded that I had been referring customers to her, but that the web site was down. She apologized, and said that they were changing the site and provider.

She also said that they have reduced the system that I bought by $100. If I were starting over, I think that I would buy their C3 system with the software on a Dell D630 hard drive, and buy a D630 on eBay...

Her email address is ellen_808@qq.com - It won't get you a bigger discount, but feel free to tell her that Wally Plumley sent you. (I won't get anything from it - I have no affiliation with them, other than as a satisfied customer.)

 

This is where I'll leave it until I get some rubber on my new, 19" wheels & have the set mounted. I'm probably going to wait until all this rain has passed Nor Cal.
This is neutral, meaning no lift light & no sport drop light on the dashboard.
Sport 1 is just a tick below the top of the wheel well being level with the top of the front tires. Sport 2 is ridiculous but looks kind of awesome where the tops of the tires are buried at least a finger thickness. I think this is a pretty good look with the 18" wheels but I think it will be much better with 19s & a STAR lowering.
On the cheapo links this is 6 rotations from fully screwed into each ball joint connector. Guess I could have measure the link length while I was down there but I didn't.
Here's he link to these links on ebay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/2000-06-MERC...v82L5A&vxp=mtr





This height should be just right once I mount 19s but I won't mind a little more of a pinch on the rear height bracket if I have to.





Ok, yeah, I guess I want to bring down the rear a touch more.