You have now decided that you want to lower your car body. It could be because you like that low racing look or perhaps you want a lower center of gravity. This would give you better handling.
For whatever reason you decided to lower your car there are a few things that you should understand before you begin. I will be discussing the common methods of lowering a car, and not the hydraulic mechanisms you find in "low riders".
There are at least three different approaches you can use to achieve your goal.
First is the simplest and the least expensive called cutting. You know that springs control how high the body of the car is from the ground. So if you remove the springs and cut a piece off of each spring you will have reduced the height of the body. One thing than many people who do this do not appreciate is that the factory spring is a progressive spring. That is each part of the spring deforms at a different rate. This allows the initial small movements of the spring to be soft in nature, and the greater the spring compresses the harder it becomes. As you compress the spring the top coils touch and no longer offer any tension. When you cut the top off of your springs you have now removed some of the progressive capability. You will now experience a harder ride and become more aware of small bumps and dips in the road. You will also compress your shock absorbers, which we will discuss in the next section.
If you still want the progressive spring rate that came with your car, you might choose aftermarket lowering springs. These will still give you good daily performance and also give you much higher performance when you are driving very hard. This is of course a more expensive solution than the first one, but it is a safer and better solution. One thing to keep in mind is your shock absorbers. These were designed to be at a neutral position with the standard body height. This allowed them to expand when a wheel drops into a hole or compress when the wheel hits a bump and jumps up. When you use shorter springs, the shock is now in a constant compressed state. Since it was not designed with this in mind, you may find the life of your shocks shorter than normal. So you might have to purchase new shocks after your new springs.
The last typical approach is to purchase a kit which contains both shorter springs and special shocks designed to work with them. This is the most expensive initial approach, but the one I would recommend if you want to do the job right.
The last thing to consider is how much to lower your car. Too much and you might have the tires rub on the body. Too much and you could find that the font end now hits the street on sharp dips in the road. So don't go overboard. One to two inches are more common lowering amounts.
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