there may be existing info on this but i'll ask anyway.does anyone have a lowered spring set up that does not bottom out?

my Formula is pretty low,at the lowest area,a tennis ball gets caught under it.i like it this way and do not want it raised at all,however the cut springs (eibach)are bottoming out.Is there anything(proven) i can do to stop it, without raising the car? by the way,i had the eibachs cut because they were supposed to lower it but they did not,they looked exactly like stock WS6.
here it is,thanks for any info.

 

did you trim the bump-stops? that thing looks like it's riding on them!
looks great though.

 

thanks.yeah,we trimmed them,about a centimeter if i remember right. I could try taking more off them but sometimes it hits real hard on bad surfaces,i'm afraid it would still do it even if they were removed.i've been driving it like this for a few years but it's getting worse.

i just don't want to buy more springs only to find out they aren't low enough,it's amazing(and annoying) how many shops seem to know nothing about these cars.

 

could be your shocks struts wearing out. also consider iebach sportlines. lower than pro line.

 

You don't cut springs, this changes the rate as well as lowering. I have not heard of this ending well. Just go to someone like Stranoparts.com and get the proper rate and height springs.

 

well,the springs were installed and they were exactly like the stock ones,i couldn't return them so i cut them and got the ride height i wanted,it also handled very well.i realize it wasn't ideal but no shops i went to had any better suggestions.thanks for the info though,i'll look into it.

as for the shocks,mine are koni adjustable and not very old.i may have to look into sportlines again but they aren't as low as i want either.thanks for the replies.

 

inatrax sells 2" drop springs, they are supposed to be a bit lower than sportlines.

 

i have intrax on my car, the fornt dropped 1&3/4" and the back only came down maybe a 1/2". i had to take out the rear isolators to make it sit right. the ride's pretty rough with these springs too. i wouldn't change them but i can't say i'd recommend them either.

 

Ok, lets bring some tech to this discussion. In short you need much stiffer springs. To under stand why you need stiffer springs keep reading.


Ride quality is directly effected by how much suspension travel and how fast the suspension moves to to abosorb road imperfections. The reason you feel that the car rides bad right now is that you have little to no suspension travel before you hit the bump stop. When you hit the bump stop your spring rate goes from around ~600 lb/in to some thing in the stratosphere.....which is that sickning feeling you get in your kidneys when you hit a big pot hole.

You can fix this several ways, the first is to maximize suspension travel by either raising the car (you say you don't want to do this) or trimming the bump stop. The problem with trimming the bump stop is that you can only go so far before you get wheel to fender contact.

The next thing you can do is increase your spring rate so that you have a fighting chance of staying off of the bump stop. This is why everyone has problems with off the shelf lowering springs. A little searching would have showed you that the eibach springs maintain the stocks spring rate while lowering the car. They do this to keep the stock ride over small bumps and rely on the bump stops for big ones. By going to a higher spring rate you'll reduce ride quality slightly on smaller bumps but greatly reduce the amount of bottoming.

From a handling perspective stiffer springs are always better because they reduce body roll and allow the car to transition better. I've always been an advocate of cutting stock springs for a 1-2" drop. This will net you a higher spring rate than the eibach's for a given ride height. Wheather or not this is enough to prevent bottoming is in question. I use stock springs cut to whatever spring rate I desire (900 lb/in at the moment) then use weight jacks to set my ride height.

Carroll Smith wrote in tune to win that he likes to have 2"-3" of bump travel on an open wheel race car, and 3"-4" on a full body race car. Now go take a look and see how much travel you have on your street car......this is why you are having problems. On a race car if you bottom out in a turn it means an instant exit from the racing surface. This is the snap oversteer or understeer you hear people talk about.

I personally auto-x a G-body with 3.5" of front travel and 2.5" of rear travel. With the crappy 4-link rear suspension I have to run a very soft rear spring to make the car hand neutrally in a turn, the problem is that it is very easy to bottom out the rear suspension in a turn. When this happens you can out run the power steering pump trying to countersteer enough to catch the spin. I'm designing a 3-link rear suspension with a lower instant center so I can use a stiffer spring and moving my tires inboard a bit to get some more travel.

In conclusion, if you want to run in the weeds you have to run much stiffer springs than stock. If you want to run in the weeds and have a car that still rides like a caddy......you own the wrong car.