Anyone have any suggestions for springs to use with 2" drop spindles (I'm debating buying the racecraft ones, don't particularly like the idea of replacing brakes with something different)?

I want to end up with a little more than 2" drop from "stock" ride height, if I remember right I think that I'd be pretty happy with a fender height around 26" with stock 245/50/16 tires on the car, and I think I want something in the 750-900# range (I know, a wide range but I can adjust from there with sway bars and matching rear springs).

 

BTW, I do have some eibach pro kit springs and at least 2 sets of WS6 springs (one cut, one stock ride height in the car, that sits at about 28")... I think that the pro kit springs might lower it too much with the 2" spindles, but maybe if they are installed with some rear spring isolators on top they might be OK, and the spring rate should be about right. Huh, I just don't want to do this more than once. I know that the WS6 springs with one coil cut will put it at about the height that I want it without the spindles, and not sure they'll be stiff enough with half a coil... huh...

 

I did a half coil on moog 5664s with the 1/2" taller ball joints. That gives me a rate of around 830 lb/inch or so. I really like the rate. It does sit maybe a tad higher than I would like though. 1.5" lower than that (where you would be if you did the same but with the drop spindles) might be too low or it might be just right. I don't remember measuring but my swag would be that it would put your tire right at the top of the fender opening.
I'll look through some picts and see if I can find one that shows the gap I have.

 

Your car with 5664s and a half coil cut will be 1.5" lower than this in the front


I think it would be just about right.
edit:
Just measured it. The distance from the top of the tire to the fender lip is 1 3/4".

That might work out perfectly for you. I'd love to see how it turns out if you try it.

And I know, my car looks like hammered ***. Because, Race car

 

I have racecraft drop spindles and am using 9.5'' front springs @ 750# . Mine is set at 25 1/8'' to the fender, and am pretty sure there is enough adjustment left to bring it up to 26''. I haven't messed with the adjusters since last summer and cant exactly remember where I was at on them, but i'm pretty certain you'd be able to raise it up to 26. Just fyi, my rears are 9'' @ 175#. My front sway is a 34 and am currently running no rear sway and the car is extremely neutral and balanced on the track. I may try the thinnest rear bar I can find just to see what it feels like but i'm definitely happy with the way it handles now, it has proven to be a very capable track car. ( i have a cage in the car and subframe connectors, which led to the removal of the rear bar, before the cage the rear bar was fine but with the further chassis strengthening, the rear bar became too much and created an oversteer)

 

Oh and the above is with ground control weight jacks (the adjuster I was talking about). I assumed you were going to use those, if not my apologies. The spring length wouldn't be right without that adjuster at the top of the spring.

 

rlewi771, any pics of yours at that height, and what size tires are on it?

Pablo, what height are those tires? And don't be ashamed about how it looks, it looks much better than the TA that I'm considering all sorts of parts for (BTW this is the current ride height):

 

here's the best pics I could find. Tires are the stock size 245/50/16

 

huh... that looks about like what i'm looking for, do you have any problems with bottoming on big bumps with that soft a spring? Now I'm wondering if I remember the ride height of my '83 incorrectly, it looked about like that or maybe _sligthly_ lower (the tops of the tires were tucked) but it has 26.1" tall tires on the front (235/60-15 on the street, hoosier 245/60-15 (about 26.5") bias plies autox).

Sounds like the 5664's will put it slightly higher with a stiffer spring rate. actually, if that's really 25-1/8" with a 245/50, then it might be just about what I want, and if I remember right the formula in the background of my picture is around 27-27-1/4" with pro kit springs, which might be just about right with a 2" drop.

 

honestly in those pictures i might be a little bit higher than 25 1/8'' .... I know that 25 1/8 is where I have last set it and tracked it at that height and all was good. I have never felt the front end bottom out harshly, i've tried looking at the bump stops to see if they have come in contact and cant say 100% for sure that they have. That's one of the big benefits of those drop spindles, having more travel before you hit the stops. I have torn the inner fender liners, as well as had to roll the front fenders and trim the sheet metal pinch weld that you will find up above the fender liners. (some of that is due to my wilwood brakes pushing the wheel tire out the thickness of the rotor, I cant remember if it's .25 or .50'') To be safe, 25 1/4 to 25 1/2 may acutally be a better setting. I have considered trying a stiffer spring, just to see what it feels like. The car is very neutral right now with no push, but it could tighten up the feel a little bit which could help, but i dont really know until I try.

For what its worth, when I initially installed the drop spindles, the car was too low to even be driven. I dont know the condition of the springs that were in there at the time, they may have been sagging, but they were a stock spring and with just the drop spindles the tires sat on the fender liners at ride height. I bought the GC weight jacks to lift the car to a driveable height. Honestly I'd say install the drop spindles with stock springs first, I really dont think you could use a lowering spring with them. I recall seeing other people with the same problem of being too low with just the drop spindle. (and by too low i mean, impossible to drive... I'm fine with tearing up fender liners and having to roll fenders etc)

This was with just the drop spindles installed at its un-driveable height

 

They're about 25" in diameter

BTW that TA has race car written all over it. Only downside is the T tops

 

huh... this is pretty frustrating actually, I know I posted measurements of my ride height on the 83 before and I can't find them. I also know that it sat about like Deans camaro but I can't find his numbers either (too many usernames to search, I don't think I can come up with them anyway), anyone know what his were?

I just went out and measured the cars in the driveway, with all the tires inflated evenly I get 26-5/8" on both sides of teh formula (it has eibach prokit springs on it), so I'm guessing they'll be too low with a 2" drop (though measuring the gap it looks to be right about that so it doesn't really look _that_ bad, maybe with a 1" rear spring isolator they might be good, definitely sits too high now), and the red TA which I think has stock springs on it measures 28-1/4 on both sides (I'm surprised that both are actually that even).

Huh, looks like I'm actually looking to end up in the low to mid 25" range, and that the stock springs will put me about 3/4" too high and the eibchs will put it about 3/4" too low.

Looking around on the board I'm seeing a lot of people post heights around 27.5" tall with moog 5662 and 5664's with 1/2 a coil cut, but noone is saying if they put the stock isolator back in. That would end up pretty close to what I want, putting me at about 25.5" with the spindles, I wish there was some consistent info on spring rates
for the moog springs.

 

You know I looked for a hard top car for a long time and couldn't find a nice one that didn't have something wrong with it that I didn't want to deal with, so I finally gave in and bought this one (I'm getting the impression that mid year hard top TA's are just fairly rare).

The formula in the background is pretty much a parts car at this point (it actually doesn't have a rear suspension on it at all now, just some blocks on the bump stops, no springs, shocks, panhard, driveshaft, exhaust... as of a few weeks ago), and when I cut it up I may save the roof and put it on the TA if I decide to get really serious with it

 

Is this with the racecraft spindles? The math just doesn't seem to work out if they are really an accurate 2" drop. 2" from where that TA sits really is just about 1" higher than you say your car sits now.

I also wonder if there is something different about the fender geometry with the early cars. I'm basing a lot of what I'm thinking from what I had done with my '83, and that one when I cut a full coil off the front was in the weeds, like your second set of pictures. It was literally sitting on the bump stops and had less than 2" of ground clearance, but even with the tall tires they were still barely touching the fender liners and I drove it for a week like that. I cut the bump stops hoping to make it work and found that the control arm contacted the k-member before I had enough travel to damage anything else.

I'm a bit worried that my 'big' tires might be a problem just because their wider width, they're 265/40-17 (and 295/30-18 rears)

 

rlewi771 must have had sagging stock springs. My MOOG replacements 5662 and 5665 front and rear sat at this height @ 30psi with a full tank of gas, new spring isolators in the front and 4th gen rear spring isolators in the rear (I have alot of weight reduction done such as fiberglass hood, battery relocated to rear, ac full delete, headers, lots of aluminum parts, spare & jack removed, etc. Car weighs approx. 3350lbs now):

Front Driver: 28
Front Passenger: 27.25
Rear Driver: 28.5
Rear Passenger: 28.5

Now I installed HOWE 0.75" extended ball joints and cut 3/4 of a coil off the rear springs and the car sits at:

Front Driver: 27.5
Front Passenger: 27
Rear Driver: 28
Rear Passenger: 27.5

I'm assuming with me in the car (190lbs) the car will sit evenly and drop 1/2" on the driver's side. Here are pics of the car's passenger side as it sits as of now:

 

huh... so it looks like you lost about 1/2 of the 3/4" longer studs length from your ride height

 

Well, I thought I had a plan: Use the eibachs with some thicker isolators and my ride height should end up right where I want it and with that in mind yesterday I tore down the parts car to get the Koni's, eibachs, GW steering box brace, sway bar... out of it. You guys know what happens when you decide on something and have a plan.

Passenger side first (we had a storm coming in, I figured that if it rains I don't want to be working on a car that I can't move on the side in the grass). I figured that I bought the car from a serious, competitive autoxer and things will be perfect... no way. Huh, something is wrong here, can you tell:

(arg, you can see how long that car has sat there, the tire tread is pressed almost an 1" into the asphalt)

Ok, how about a closer shot, can you tell now:


Well, if you still can't tell, the spring is installed incorrectly, the ends (both sides) were not between the alignment holes in the control arm (bigger problem on the driver's side but I'll get to that).

So what does that do to my measured ride height? I've always assumed that would make it sit higher but never tried, anyone know how much?

 

OK, so I got the other side out and a stack of other parts, then I made some wooden blocks to replace the springs so the car looks OK sitting in the driveway reassembled, and messed with some junk struts/spindles in the garage to put it back together (wow, what a pain in the butt. Everything was rusted and seized, ended up having to take a torch and worked things with an impact gun for well over an hour rushing to get done before the rain), and got everything reassembled.

So I said I had a bigger problem on the driver's side, well here are the stack of parts:


I should be happy right? Well the other look at a close up of the other spring:


I've seen that happen before with crappy quality or heavily rusted springs, but these are eibachs and only have a light layer of rust at one end, that shouldn't happen. The only thing I can think of is with the springs installed "backwards" that it put some extra pressure on that last coil and it broke from fatigue.

Interestingly, both sides sat at the same height. I'm actually half tempted to cut that one off even, and then cut the other one in the same place and try my original plan. if I knew how much properly indexed vs 180* out springs made a difference in ride height I'd feel a lot better about it. Anyone know?

 

So while I was in there I made some wooden blocks to hold the control arms in position just to figure out ride height. Right now the driver's side just touches the top of the bump stop on the control arm, making the measured height 25-7/8" which looks like this (sorry, it finally did start raining and was dark and it's a cel phone pic):


I could live with that. It's a little taller than my '83 was, but that's OK. Based on that I think I'm shooting for about 1/4-3/8" lower, right around 25.5", but I'm afraid that more than that will be a hassle.

As a side note, I usually feel that dropping the control arm bolts is _way_ less hassle when getting the springs out, but since I had to get the struts out too I decided to do it this way. Even with this I was surprised how fast I got this done, start to finish, including pulling other parts (I pulled a bunch of body parts, braces, fender liners... stuff that I needed on the other car), moving all the heavy stuff stored under the car, and fighting with the old parts to extract the struts that I put on it for well over an hour, maybe as much as 2, I got this all done in 3-1/2 hours.

I'm betting that on a car that I've touched before (I'll lube/antisieze, clean... everything when I'm in there, I even did that with the parts that I put back on the parts car in case it ends up sitting for a while more and I have to take it apart again) I could literally change both sides, springs and struts, in the driveway in an hour if I didn't run into any surprises. I remember when I used to consider this a whole day job...