regular6d

Hey Ya'll I've read all the posts about lowering, cutting, heating springs, and I'm still lost. I put a set of stock replacement springs all the way around my 84Z, non progressive rate, the problem I have now is with my 18" Iroc's the car sits pretty high IMO, there's about 2" to 2.5" between the tire and the lip of the wheel wells all the way around, I'm only running 235/40 18's so I'm in no way going to have clearance issues. Is it ok to cut the coils? I have KYB GR2's all the way aroung as well, I like the way the car handles altough I know it could be better. I drive the car pretty regularly and would like it to look a little meaner, any info would be greatly appreciated. I'll go take a pic and post to show what I mean.



So there's actuall 3" between the Rear tires and the wheel well lip, and 2.5 in the front. My front bumper is about 10" off the ground, and the side skirts are like 10.5" all my exhaust and underbody stuff clears by like 8" so I could go quite a bit lower.

Twin_Turbo

iTrader: (25)

Don't heat a spring on an active coil, it's a disaster waiting to happen. You can cut part of the coil, heat it and bend it flat for a nice seating end that doesn't dig into the chassis or the arm/rear end. Heating and then immobilizing the spring doesn't harm a thing as it's not active. Spring rate will go up too because the same compression has to be handled by less active coils and as such the deflection per active coil goes up.

Stephen

iTrader: (12)

If you replaced 1984 springs with brand new ones, I have very little doubt that the original springs had sagged to some extent & that the new ones would "lift" the car.

You can cut them perfectly safely, with a sawzall blade or thin 3.5" grinder wheel, and the coil will be perfectly OK. Using a torch/heat to lower the spring is what kills coils. But (obviously) cut them off the car, never while installed.

What I've always done might have been a bit overkill, but I also KNEW heat was kept t an absolute minimum.

I put the coils in a 5 gallons bucket of water, with only the top couple of coils sticking out of the water to be cut & proceeded to cut. The water dispersed the heat to keep them cool (temp-wise, no pun intended).

I've never heated the ends to get them flat again, like Twin_Turbo suggested, and they were perfectly fine on daily drivers & autocross cars. Which also tells you they are perfectly safe & strong afterwards. Heating them incorrectly could introduce problems & "destroy" the springs (make them sag/weaken them) so just play it safe & don't try to flatten the cut end back out.

regular6d

Thanks, to both of you, I'm guessing cutting the coils like a quarter coil at a time would be a good idea though right? That way I can put them back in the car and check the height at least in the rear, maybe I'll do the rear and get it where I want it then do the front to match.

Stephen

iTrader: (12)

Mine were 1/2 coil cut off up front, 3/4 coil cut off out back.

Not low enough for ME/my taste, but also low enough that I didn't want to redo all that, to just cut maybe another 1/4 coil off.

When you have the money, Weight Jacks are the way to go. All it takes is a couple of wrenches to raise & lower the car, after they are installed, which was super easy to do.