Has anyone cut their aftermarket springs a little bit (front) to make the car lower?
How was the ride afterwords? Will it be bad?

 

I doubt anyone has done it.
and you shouldn't do it either. LOL

when you take a coil out yes the spring rate will increase and some people do it without a problem but prolong use will damage the shock for several reasons, but one that is over looked is that when you cut a coil out instead of distributing weight accross the spring perches like a stock spring does, it centralizes the pressure on one side of the perch. Ultimately putting a lot of stress on the shock shaft.

It is your car though so its up to you.

 

It's a bad idea.

 

No dont and stop. Bad idea. It is hard to get them all to match and not worth it in any way shape or form. Lowering springs are cheap enough to purchase!

 

I could tell you a real good story of a guy I knew who did this on a Turbo Thunderbird some years back, Front straightaway Bridgehampton raceway, under the bridge into turn 1, he was behind me, I turned in, he turnedover rolled a few times and was lucky to walk away, exactly as other have said, broken shock, lost control. Get a good set of springs is all i can say

 

Besides being dangerous and damaging to your car, it's also kind of ghetto. Do yourself a favor and go for some lowering springs/shocks.

 

No.

Just no.

Save up your allowance and get some springs. It's a lot safer, and your family won't have to worry about your safety. Course, even lowering springs will wear your stock shocks over time, but that was bound to happen with you cutting your springs anyways.

 

I appreciate the responses. I am definately steered away from doing this now.
How can I lower my front end more though? I have lowering springs on stock shocks, I dont like that my rear end looks like it is sitting lower than the front. It should be almost equal. I dont want to break or weld off any stock components. Do you get some kind of shortened shocks perhaps?

 

How long have you had the H&R's? Usually springs need a week or so to settle down further.

Addressing handling, remember that by changing how the car sits, you are changing the gemoetry of the vehicle, and ultimately handling characteristics as well. Here's a good general explanation from M3post.com, just to use as a guideline.

But anyways, back to cosmetics, the best way to change that is to have an adjustable suspension setup (i.e. coilovers). If cosmetics is your one and only goal (which I'm just currently assuming), just look for the cheapest coilovers on the market that you can buy, and there you go. E-bay might have something.

Thinking broadly, usually Tein, H&R, and KW V1's are safer, cheaper alternatives that have adjustable lowering setups. But you pay to play.

Edit: My friend shot me these over via AIM. Take a look at the photos. See how the springs are adjustable by using the cogs on the shocks? Just check the range of adjustment versus your H&R's to see how much lower they'll go. From my experience, $600ish bucks for coilovers is very cheap. http://www.outmotoring.com/mini-coop...coilovers.html

 

Any pics ?

 

I had the springs cut on a previous car I owned. Only reason I did that was because there were no lowering springs available for that car. I never had any problems with the handling or ride of that car. It actually rode better and handled much much better than stock. On our cars though there are just too many options of springs to bother with cutting them.

 

Although it may have been an improvement in your case (which I doubt but we'll agree to disagree) the fact that alternative lowering springs exist is hardly the reason that you would stay away from cutting your springs.

 

Done properly, there is no risk in this. At least he is not asking about heating the spring up...

For the OP: you can not go any lower on the front b/c the struts are just to long. You are currently on the bump-stops already, so even cutting the spring wont yield much.

Time for coilovers. If your only real goal is low, v-maxx coilovers are the best option.

 

I'm not saying that cutting the springs is the right way to go or a safe thing to be done. Had springs been available for that car I would have bought them. I had the car lowered only about a 1/2" so nothing to extreme. I drove the car for more than 6yrs and more than 100K miles no problems and yes you would have had to ridden in the car to feel the difference.

 

coilover ftw

 

I had H&R springs on my previous 03 MCS and always wanted the front about 1/4" shorter because the rear looks lower due the the wheel arch size difference in the front and rear. Your car is probably sitting level but just looks higher in the front.

Someone posted recently that they modified the strut mount to lower the front a 1/4" which is probably all you need. Where the strut slides into the hub mount (bottom of strut), they trimmed the stop tab so the strut would drop into the mount (hole) about a 1/4" more. Seems like a great idea that should work with no ill affects.