Swapping out front spring to lower you car. Very interested in know if anybody has done this. cut coils make a car tighten up so my idea is to swap out spring from a lighter duty car to lower it.. Im looking at a 54 pontiac with a straight eight in it and wonder if I put spring from a 52 six cyl car in it,if they fit!! will it lower the car?? and if so how much? maybe someone has swapped out springs from other years or makes and it worked out.. I seen it done with 70s cars but dont hear any talk of it from the 50s cars.
Lots of guys drop 49-51 fords about two inches by using aerostar springs. Check out shoeboxford.com and use the search function.
now thats cool to know but will this coils fit in a chevy or for that matter Pontiac. still not sure if two of them are the same
I do not think you would be happy with chevy 6 cyl springs....it will lower it in my opinion but when you hit a small bump...the car will bottom out and feel like it is beating your brains out.... My advice is to cut 1/2 to one coil off of the orig spring depending how much you want it lowered and then you will basically keep your same ride but have it lower.
After almost 60 years of service your springs have surely sagged and car is lower than stock height. Not even considering ride comfort using new 6 cylinder springs could easily result in increased ride height. A set of custom springs or searching thru a spring catalog may point to a compatible set-up. Hopefully someone will chime in with a solution.
understandable but cutting them make for a ruff ride too.. Im just looking for ideas on ways to do this
Not looking to use new springs I thinking of using a set of old springs. it is true what your saying about searching a catalog but problem becomes when you dont have no idea on how high it will sit. Now if we know weights and how they change ride height we would be on to something.
Lowering a car shortens the travel therefore you have to have stiffer springs so it dont bottom out. The smal amount a stock spring get stiffer when cutting it is not compensating the shortened travel. You have to have even stiffer springs if you lower it much.You have to live with the ruff ride or drive very slow
I've always found the people at Springs n Things extremely helpful in getting different springs for different stuff. Take a look at http://www.springsnthings.com/ The prices are good and generally a better deal than removing one set of springs to put them in another car.
As they said, you need to have them stiffer, or the car will bottom out. Cutting springs works pretty well to lower a car a little bit and still have it reasonably drivable and smooth riding. Lots of guys do it, because it works. Spring catalogs have info that will help you figure out the weight thing, if you take the time to understand the info that is listed.
so true.. but I find that a shorter spring you lose downward movement.. so the whole car tends to fall into a bump and not just the wheel..seen this problem before. hope that makes sence!!
Yeah, so what that means is that when you drive a lowered car, you have to slow down for potholes and such.
I have areostar coils on my '50 (avatar). Inexpensive, I got them at NAPA and you get full spring action.
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