one of the guys in my club and i lowered the front end of his shoebox ford by swapping the front coils for 91 aerostar springs. seems he got the info from here on a tech post. i was impressed with the drop and the way the car rode. i decided to do something similar with a 64 comet i picked up. ive cut coils before to lower a car, but i do know that that makes for a rough ride because you weaken the spring, and therefore the car bottoms out easier. i know this but im an impatient sum***** and that gets a car low quick. i went to oriely and they gave me a moog spring catalog. i looked up the springs the comet took for the front. it gave me the dimensions and capacity for that spring. i looked around some more and found a spring that was the same diameter, but with a much higher weight capacity (wire diameter). what i was thinking was that if i took a much more heavy duty spring and cut it down, it should lower the car AND be somewhat close to the originals capacity. this is just my poor boy theory in operation here so i could be way off. anyhow i picked a pair of coils and bought them. i got them cut down to where i wanted the ride height (as much as i could go without any major cutting and fabbing). i havent got to drive the car much yet enough to have a verdict yet. i drove it to a friends house today to have the front end aligned tomorrow, but so far it seems to ride ok. i'll get to my known "test bumps" when i get it back tomorrow. overall i lowered the car 4" all around. my question is, has anyone else here lowered cars this way? what were y'alls results like? surely this is not a new idea. i planned on driving it more first, so i would have a better idea of what the results would be like before asking for outside input, but i'd like to hear from anybody else thats done it this way. i'll post pics soon. thanks in advance for your criticism.
Yep, your on the right low budget track. I plan on sourcing some springs for my new project and have used a ton of different springs in an OT hobby, Rock Crawling, with 3 and 4 link set up's. Cherokee springs were a good fit on 4 linked toyotas and samurais.
before and after. drove the car around a bit. i'm not especially impressed with it so far. however, that may not be the springs doing, i've got it sitting pretty close to the bumpstops. a little t******* and adjusting may straighten that out.
I plan on Lowering my 1949 DeSoto Custom. Like how you planned this out! Now to out figure out what springa will lower mine?
Your theory is actually backwards. When you cut a coil spring it gets STIFFER not weaker. Think about it this way. If you have a spring that has 8 coils and it compresses 1" under a given load, each coil moves 1/8 of an inch. Now if you cut 2 coils off, the movement of each coil is still 1/8 of an inch, so now under the same load it will only move 3/4's of an inch - it is stiffer. The reason everyone thinks it is weaker is the car bottoms out easier, but that is due to less compression travel, not a weaker spring. Now, due to that shorter amount of compression travel you DO want a stiffer spring so that it won't bottom out as easily. In many cases of a "reasonable" amount of lowering, say 2", the cut spring gets stiffer and works out fine. But with something as extreme as your 4" lowering just from the spring, you need stiffer yet as you have very little travel left. Also on early Comet's Falcon's and Mustang's you have to watch out for Bump Steer when you go too low in just the spring
Good ****ogy, HOTRODDON. Actually, a coil spring is merely a circular version of a torsion bar. The wire is simply coiled to fit a specific application. Think of the wire in greater diameter, and its resistance to twist; Now, in a shorter length: Harder to twist, (more resistance due to concentrated m***) Torque a bolt to 80 foot pounds with a 2" extension...Now torque the same bolt to that value with a 48" extension. Look at the long one twist!
Don nailed the description on this. Good on ya friend. Staygreasy, We used to get our springs rewound. About any spring house should be able to do that for you. I am no expert on the process but I do know that you could lower one and drive it pretty cheap that way. it was a common thing for guys that wanted to lower one and have it cornrer like it was on rails.
Another thought is to swap out the V8 springs for 6 cylinder ones,,you will usually lower the car by about 2 inches. HRP
thanks for the input fellas. we do have a local spring shop. i may check with them about re-coiling springs. i had no idea you could do that. i've been driving the car almost daily for almost a year now. it seems to do ok. no major bumpsteer. it will bottom out hard on a big bump but overall it rides decent so far.
Another thing, i think, is using the stock shocks with the lowered spring rides rough. Makes sense to me the shock is at it's end in travel and the valving is not there. I have yet to find a short shock for my aerostar springed shoebox to try.My nos heavy duty hyd shocks i'm using don't seem to be doing the job.
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