chopped springs
 

now then the spax adjustable kit is on, but am just not happy bout the back it looks to high, im considering choppin a coil off the springs at the rear, any ideas how much drop this will give me and will it show up on an mot? honest 60mm isnt enough.

bad idea and verging on dangerous

If you chop a coil off, you lose the progressive spring rate as designed

I seriously would not chop owt of anything. As Mike says the progressive spring rate will be affected, hopefully not mid corner!

i chopped 2 coils off my 60mm springs on my old b3 80 sport with no problems what so ever, also a friend did similar with his a reg 80 and its the best handling car i've ever been in and ive been in a fair few performance cars too. FIRE UP THE GRINDER

Without making this a personal attack on yourself this is the reason i detest modified cars at times... people who cut corners without the knowledge of what they are doing....

Chopped springs is up there with the worlds most dangerous homemade budges to cars, you are essentially killing the mechanical principles of that spring.... Why not go get some shorter springs and lower it properly...

fair enough if there pig tailed front springs but when there straight up and down rears, it will actually make them stiffer.
http://www.eatonsprings.com/atqCutti...lculations.htm

if you go to low it will feel like you have welded the suspention with steel bars :shake:
the ride will become unberable and if you use lower profile tyres it gets even worse.
if i was you find someone who has a lower car than yours and go for a ride in it .
and then only use propper springs mate its the only safe way .

Not quite sure i understand what you mean... all springs are wound as a coil and some have flat ends for seating?....

I've read that link and I wont judge americans on the whole but thats not a "technical engineering answer" by any stretch of the imagination...

Lower doesnt mean better handling, there are far more variable and factors to take into consideration and work around. I've been in cars that have been lowered massively and people have claimed is the best handling car they've driven, sadly when they go out in a similar model car with well engineered suspension they eat their own words.

My advice is spend the money on the right springs and sell your current ones on ebay or somewhere....

i agree with what your saying, all i ment was with certain springs ive cut its lowered the car and also made it stiffer. i wouldnt advise on cutting springs that pig tail at the end as you would have to heat them up and bend them to get them to seat right which obviously will weaken them.

Lower doesnt mean better handling

i thouroughly agree, the amount of times i hear that from friends who have coilovers or springs that short there car rests on the bumpstops, fair enough it might go round a completely flat corner like a gokart but on any other normal road etc there sh*te.

all i was trying to say is that i personally think it safe to cut springs aslong as they will sit right and aslong as you still have plenty of travel left, if the spax springs didnt set you back much and your willing to experiment why not give it a go (on private land of course, just incase. lol)

The problem, even with removing one coil, is the 'on the limit' handling, as Jay says, if you pootle about a 15mph then angle cutting 60mm off a spring shouldn't be an issue...

But if you angle cut a single coil off and drive the car at the limit, the chassis control can (will) be destabilised and the handling become unpredictable... Taking very high speed corners with undulations is the hardest task for suspension and any unpredicted pitch or bounce is something to be seriously avoided.

first of all, I'd give it chance to settle.
As you've only just put them on.

Just a thought, an old trick I remember from some of the guys in the SCCA. Auto -Crossers in early VW Golfs and Hondas put the springs in the oven at 500 degrees F. for some hours, which as I understand it relaxed the spring by SMALL intervals. I believe this gave them very specific ride heights with a variety of wheel combinations.

I have not done this, and am no expert. Just putting it out there for discussion.

I seem to recall they did that with spring compressors on... Is that true...?

Yeh, sounds right. I'm checking with some old Auto-X buddies now.

Stay tuned.

Theres another aspect to this besides the spring rate change that cutting the spring will achieve, and thats the fact that springs and dampers are a matched pair.
Suspension engineers go to great lengths to ensure that a dmaper is matched to the spring it has to control.
Its a bit like pushing someone on a swing where if you time it right theyll go higher and higher as each push adds momentum, wheras if you time it wrong theyll stall and slow down -which is what a damper does to a spring.
Anytime the rate of the spring is altered, youll need to alter the damping rates to best match the new rate.
If you dont youll get a spring thats not being controlled correctly leading to pitching, poor control of the tyre over undulations and bumps, you can end up with a car thats got lengthened stopping distances also.

Best to go the whole hog and get a kit where the dampers and springs are matched.

its not big and its not clever. dont do it

Yeah, just like he said......nuff said!!

right ok, the reason i say chop a coil off is simply i can not find a set 80mm springs anywhere, they make them for the golf and jetta but thats all i can find, i aint doing it for better handling, remember its an old diesel not a quattro. il ride on the 60mm another month, i think maybe 15's might make it look lower by filling the arch better. will post pics soon.

put a couple of bags of sand in the boot!
and a full tank of juice will help as well!

coilovers???

air bags?

Get some piccies up of it now, and we'll have a vote to let you know if you need to go lower.

i wouldnt compromise safety and handling for looks....
Spring dimensions are more important than the name they list them for... get measurements of your 60mm springs off the car and then ask a few companies if they do any springs at those dimensions but with 15-20mm shorter free length.

I agree with you on this. You can't just lower a car and have 'better handling'. There are many different variables to take into account. Boy racers normally lower their cars just using springs and usually end up crashing within a day due to their dodgy setup!

Why isn't 60mm enough? I'm still sat on the standard ride height, I'd be overjoyed if I had a 60mm drop on mine, plenty surely? :confused:

Have a word with these guys! :tup:

http://www.coilsprings.co.uk/powerrace.htm

the wheel option will give it a far better look, again don't go too big.

this is my coupe on a 40mm drop and 15" wheels. Alloy style aside I think the dimension suit the car very well without looking too in your face lowered, blinged or chavved.

http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/f...ndAbout003.jpg

Dandan

I spoke with my brother. He says the Alfa Romeo Milano guys in the SCCA did "bake" their springs with a spring compressor on them to "age" the spring, lowering them. They did this with absolutely stock springs so they could run the car in the stock class while Auto-crossing.

This being said, I was lead to believe, different spring manufacturers offer a small variety of the rubber pads that sit at the top of the mount. Maybe a thinner/stiffer one is available which will gain you a few mm. :idea:

All I can add to this thread is the first quattro I bought in 2008 had chopped springs and the handling was shocking. Even going round a corner in our local business park car park I actually managed to get the back end out with just the slightest of throttle (tyres were fine)! So whatever you do don't chop the springs unless you want to practice your drifts!

Heres what ive just found on my quattro- short springs anyone? :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifvxcRIdhEw

:eek::eek::yikes: def a mot fail :nonod: what was the bloke you got it from thinking :crazy:

Who can tell? All ill say is theres some "mallarkey" been going on regarding passing that for mot..:D

Never mind, itll all get sorted. :)

There is a good chance the spring will be loose when its jacked up during the MOT and will fail. Mine failed on this, way back in 1984 when I made the mistake of fitting lowered springs without shorter uprated dampers.....Cutting springs a seriously bad idea. Might as well get a dozen jubilee clips and pull the spring shorter if you are going to start doing that exercise. :wall:

if you want a set of stock springs and shocks, you can have mine for nowt.

Only thing is they are on the car and you have to take them off mine and put my others ones on!

"Aging" springs by baking them at home in an oven? That must be a joke right? Why were metallurgists invented, they are clearly not required because anyone can do it at home in their oven.

As for cutting springs, if you have an accident - whether suspension-related or not - the insurance company will not pay out. Even if you weren't putting your life at risk (and other lives too), that would be a good reason not to do it.

As Coxy says, give it a couple of thousand miles, the suspension will settle. If you then still don't like it, just pay the money and get some coilovers. However, the number of times I out-drove boy racer overly-lowered cars in a stock quattro shows that even if excessive mods feel good to drive because it corners nice and flat, they don't necessarily translate into the real world where they run out of suspension travel halfway around a corner.

I agree with the others here, dont do it!
Let the suspension settle over a few months driving, also load up your boot with the maximum amount of crap you're ever likely to carry and maybe get a mate or two to jump in the back seat and then check how it looks and feels - only Citroen DS's look good with less than half their rear wheels peeking from under the guards...

Thanks for the offer Al, but i think ill put a set of replacements on with a small drop in height- do it right first time and then itll be fine. :tup:

Another aspect to this lowering lark, if you cut the springs and then it bottoms out say mid corner, youll have the situation of effectively no suspension on that corner which means the rate goes to infinite levels of stiffness which can cause a skid as theres no compliance left in the system to account for bumps and undulations.

Id not like to be on the receiving end of the court case that could ensue should someone get hurt because of it- yellow landrover man on the news recently with three drowned kids?
Not worth it, do em right.

I agree with 4v6. Whether its actually dangerous or not won't matter if the car is checked over after an accident. Any kind of modification of this type would be like a red rag to a bull.

Every MOT will note choped springs as an advisory or comment.

If you REALLY want to bodge cut springs though an MOT, weld them in so they cant fall out. It will pass the MOT then..

Got to be a wind up post.

No comment from here as cut springs are also like chopping shocks to fit :fire: Down right dangerous

I watched an episode of Overhaulin' the other day, where Chip Foose himself lopped a coil of the front springs of a car they were building. I'm not saying "if he does it, it must be ok", but there was no mention of any safety issues, and there's no way they would have shown it if they considered it dodgy as surely the legal recriminations or affect to his reputation just wouldn't be worth it?

Just have a look at the link i posted to the video of the "short" springs on my quattro.

If thats not got ramifications for safety, then i dunno what has.
The facts remain, chopping springs alters their rate and their seated pressure which alters the dampers ability to control them properly due to mismatch.
In effect, cutting springs is tantamount to suggesting that the engineers who designed them, tested them, improved them and produced them are fools who dont know their job.

Others can do what they like with consequences on their own heads, im going to do it right with a kit designed to do the job. :tup: