STOCK SPRINGS CUT-OFF 1 COIL

302 coupe said:

lots of bad information on here....
its fine to cut springs so long as you do it with a saw or cutting wheel-do not torch them! Secondly, cutting coils increases spring rate-it does not decrease spring rate. If you want to know why, get a machine or mechanism design book from your local library, take some measurements and work out the formula.
Third, cutting springs will not make the car bottom out easier than any other method of lowering the car. Obviously, any car with less suspension travel is more prone to bottom out, common sense people.
Fourth, the spring(when properly cut) does not lose any durability or strength.

DBMstang, normally a car with increased spring rate and a lower center of gravity will not experience any decreased cornering ability or increased weight jacking. Can you explain the phenomenon you decscribe, with facts?

With that being said, cutting coils on a variable rate spring would make it tricky to achieve the desired results. The only downside to cutting springs is that you could cut so much to make it sit right that the springs would be way too stiff. If you cut little by little, and get the desired drop with an acceptable ride quality, you're good to go.

BTW, looks like you got it sitting good.

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Good job setting the record straight - too many people just repeat what their hillbilly redneck friend told them and act as though its fact.

302 coupe you obviously have some good info, the point I was trying to make is that most guy's cutting springs don't have these facts or the experience cutting springs correctly. Like I said, the cars I've driven in that had cut springs, the suspension felt like crap...as far as hillbilly rednecks, you out to know who your talking about before you make such derogatory comments.
I thought the forum is about sharing info not trashing people for their input. Not everything on these forums may be factual so you need to take things with a grain of salt & do your research to get the correct info your looking for.

another advantage of cutting the springs (besides lowering) is it makes the suspension tighter... of course the ride isnt gonna be as soft (but its a sports car, not a minivan) its gonna be tight which will greatly improve the handling and traction....

another advantage of buying lowered springs is if and when you sell your car you have your stock ones to put back on or hell put the factory ones on EBAY!!!!!

The hillbilly redneck comment wasn't directed towards anyone who whould "recommend" aftermarket springs or even say that its better to buy then to cut.

I know who Im "talking about" - too bad you don't. Everyone has opinions - but when people claim something to be fact when they have no idea what their talking about it pisses me off. You didnt do that so get off your horse.

I am not an "expert" nor am I a "Hillbilly", but I was told that if you don't know what you are doing when you cut springs, you will suffer from a variable drop at each wheel plus pre-mature and uneven tire wear plus your ride will be stiffer and less forgiving. If you are willing to sacrifice those things, cut to your heart's delight.......

I agree with the guys saying if a mod is worth doing, it's worth doing right. I understand guys are trying to save bucks, but in the long run, are you really saving if you have to replace tires more often or your car doesn't sit right after a few months or you have complaints about how your car rides? Please no flames. Just tossing in my $0.02. You guys can do whatever you want.

You should get an alignment after doing any spring modification - that will preven tire wear but that won't do anything for the rougher ride. I didn't cut my original springs - I bought Steeda Sport springs. Then I took em out and replaced them with stock foxbody springs and had to do some cutting to get the right height. My ride is now a tad lower, weight transfer is as good as it was stock and rides a helluva lot better than with the Steeda Sports.

Many Many Many people go with fox 4cyl front and V8 rear and virtually all of them do some cutting to the front and rear (always the rear).

Premature and uneven tire wear is a result of bad alignment, regardless of cut stock springs or aftermarket lowering springs. That is why everybody and their grandma is making and installing caster/camber plates. Everyone wants a lower stang, everyone will need an alignment(though some worse than others). I'm not an advocate of chopped stockers or aftermarket springs. Stock springs when properly cut will safely lower the car, produce a stiffer spring rate, and depending on the degree of drop will require an alignment. Aftermarket springs also effectively lower the car, there are a wide variety of drops and spring rates, and will also require an alignment based upon the degree of the drop.

Basically, the only advantage to aftermarket springs is the ability to custom choose the spring rate.

Got any pics yet of the 1 coil cut?

302 coupe said:

DBMstang, normally a car with increased spring rate and a lower center of gravity will not experience any decreased cornering ability or increased weight jacking. Can you explain the phenomenon you decscribe, with facts?

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go ride in a Honda with cut springs, they are plentiful. my Mustang rides lower than my SVT Focus, but it does not handle better. why? the SVT has matched shocks and springs. as well as a better suspension geometery. cutting springs reduces suspension travel without compensating for it like aftermarket springs do. a lower center of gravity will help in cornering, but only if it has the proper suspension behind it. weight shifting will be increased due to less coils supporting the same weight. the same weight on less coils means the weight (energy) is distributed (absorbed) by less coils even though the spring rate does not change. also, cutting the same size of the front and back springs does not mean it will affect the capabilities the same.


i ripped this from someone else. maybe it will better explain.

Cutting an active spring raises the spring rate. For a simplistic example: you have a 10 coil spring with a rate of 100 lb/inch. So if you place 100 lbs on the spring it will compress 1 inch, or in other words each coil will compress .1 inches. If you cut one coil off and place the same hundred pounds back on the spring then each coil will still compress .1 inch, but since you only have 9 coils the entire spring will only compress .9 inches. So the over all spring increased to 111 lb/inch.

The reason is each coil sees the full weight of the load plus the weight of the coils on top of it (but that can be pretty much ignored), and will deflect some certain amount. In the above sample each coil will see 100 lbs of weight regardless of where on the spring they are. If you cut a coil the remaining coils still see that exact same weight and will still deflect the same amount, but since there is one fewer coil the overall spring deflects less, thus its rate goes up.
Adding more coils of the same materail, thickness, radius, and pitch will decrease the spring rate a proportional amount. If we add another coil to out 10 coil spring, then the under 100 lbs of load the spring will deflect 11 * .1 = 1.1 inches, so our new spring rate is now 100/1.1 = 90.9 lbs/inch.

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Here is a pic of my car with cut FRPP C springs and i have'nt bottomed out yet and i drove 1500 miles from NEB to WA state like it is all i did was add fox body strange adjustables all four corners and set them to 5 i drive this everyday 40miles to work and back no problems.
Now as for cutting stock springs dont fox body guys cut theirs and i know some people use them in 99 ups and have no problems with them.
Dean

Since "some" people think that all of the spring cutting info is "hillbilly", let's try it this way.

Roland Grath of H&R explained this: "Cutting your factory springs will result in spring rates that are impossible to determine. In addition, without precision forming or cutting equipment, each spring will be cut slightly different. This will give you, at best, unbalanced handling. It could be a very dangerous situation. It could also be a very dangerous situation."

Gotta love those "hillbillys" that design them there sprangs huh??

**Off Topic**

Bullitt03, love that car!! That is the first good pic I have seen with those wheels and definitly made my choice concrete now. Been debating on them for a while. Do you have a spoiler on the car or is that just a weird shadow?

Tunez4523 said:

**Off Topic**

Bullitt03, love that car!! That is the first good pic I have seen with those wheels and definitly made my choice concrete now. Been debating on them for a while. Do you have a spoiler on the car or is that just a weird shadow?

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Glad to help a fellow stanger out!!
Nope spoilerless just a shadow from my house see

I've been following this thread with much interest and most have very reliable statements about cutting springs. I have purchased many aftermarket springs, cut my own springs and even added spacers to change rates for the optimum handling for different situations.

I have had access to a spring rate measuring tool to check rates on different springs before installing them in road race cars. Even the purchased aftermarket springs did not match rates perfectly from side to side. Some racers have boxes of springs they take to the track, some are as manufactured and some are cut to a rate they felt was needed for a certain track to correct an under/oversteer problem.

Basically, if a spring is cut without generating a lot of heat the spring rate will increase and no harm will be done to the spring itself. Cut too much out and coil bind may be a problem, cutting a spring will not make a car bounce by itself, not having a proper shock to control the spring bounce will.

Shock rate and its travel have a great effect of how well a car works with a certain spring, cut or as manufactured. If you cut a coil out of your front spring, it usually drops the car about the same amount of vertical height removed from it. It also increases the spring rate by a certain percentage, based on # on coils cut per # of coils to start with. I have had fox body springs with a measured rate of around 425lb, cut 1 coil out of it and that rate goes up to near 500lb. The coil height for that spring was reduced by 1 3/4" and installed in the car it was close to 1 5/8" less of ride height. Installing this stiffer rate spring also increased the cars understeer (push).

I have cut a pair of front coils on the new generation Mustangs by 1 1/4 coils (2 1/16" of vertical height) lowering the car 1 7/8". In both of these cases the cars had aftermarket shocks with higher compression and rebound rates. Both shocks were at the extreme end of their compression travel after cutting the springs and the rubber bumpers on the strut rod had to be shortened as well as their upper mounting position moved up in the shock towers. Both cars had CC plates and the spacers were able to be adjusted to move that mounting position up and to prevent the shock from bottoming out at the end of their compression stroke.

The people who have problems with cut springs are the ones who use a method to cut them that generates too much heat and that will ruin the amount of rate designed into the spring wire. They may cut too many coils out of them and cause coil bind or they may not take precautions to prevent the shocks from bottoming out in the compression stroke or having enough compression and rebound rates in the shocks to compensate for the increase in spring rate.

Another problem that would seem obvious but some will do it, is cutting a spring that has a flat seating end and after cutting it will install the angled surface into the flat seating spring perch.

Spring/shock matching is not as much a black art as the manufactures want you to believe but more of matching the spring rate, shock compression/rebound rates and shock/spring travel to get a desired handling. Few have the ability or equipment to do that and must rely on what the manufacturers say their products do or use the trial and error method to come up with what makes their car handle and feel the way they want it to, whether for road racing, drag racing, circle track racing or street driving.